MONDAY DIARY: IT'S MORE THAN JUST "IF THE SHOE FITS"

Regularly stories are told about how families struggle to have together time.  Sports, school, work, extracurricular and parish activities pull the family in so many directions that they do not have time to eat together and the home seems more like a boarding house.

Rectories can be like that too.  The priests here at Saint Sebastian work hard at having dinner together four times a week and try to pray at least Night Prayer together.  You think that would be easy in a rectory but “it ain’t necessarily so.”  It is a fierce battle not to allow things that require our attention to creep into the dinner hour (and some is invariably chipped away.) 

This weekend was an example of how we can go most of a day and barely even see each other save for passing in the garage or hallway.  High schools, parishes, and retreats requesting confession and Mass help kept our cars and Mass kit in constant use; an old World War II U.S. Army Mass Kit that is built like a tank and weighs about the same.

Anyway, at the end of my first Mass, someone pointed out to me that I had two different shoes on; one very shiny and dressy, the other dull and casual.  My intent was to go over to the rectory and change one of them but became distracted by the grand opening of one of our new buildings called Forest Lodge and so went over there in mismatched shoes.

By the time that was done it was time for me to give a talk before the next Mass concerning the changes to the Missal that were coming up.  No time to change!  But I would right after.  Coming off of the altar Fr. Pfeiffer reminded me that I had only twenty minutes to make it out to camp to say Mass for a youth retreat and so grabbed the Mass kit and ran out the door only realizing that I had two different shoes on when I was half way there. 

I was not going to bring attention to myself until it became apparent that many of the kids would be sitting on the floor right in front of me at about knee level and surely they would notice.  So I thought to bring it up before they started whispering about it.  Apparently it was even funnier than I thought I would be.

Back at the ranch Sebastian was desperate for an airing out and I was to set up for the next Donut Sunday round and so we headed out without checking my feet again.  By this point I had given up hope correcting the problem.  A little break was had then before heading for the funeral parlor.   Time to change shoes, one now warm and the other cold.  But if this was the worst thing to happen today, it was a pretty great weekend.