MONDAY DIARY: ALMOST EXCRUCIATINGLY TRUE STORIES: IT'S ALL A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE

This weekend we took a group of our high school students to the Franciscan University of Steubenville for the summer youth retreat.  It was in the 90s and packed and I am a bit of a fuddy-duddy anyway on top of being merely uncomfortable and stinky.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with the youth conference.  It is just that it was designed more for youth, not a 50 year old guy.  My idea of a retreat is a meeting with a director for an hour or so and then going away to think and pray - silently - in air conditioning - alone - in a comfortable chair.

In case of emergency back at the ranch, I left my cell phone number at the parish.  But everything seemed well in hand when I left and I really did not expect to hear anything.

So I expected to enjoy and nice little escape from the parish, free from any responsibility except for prayer and enjoying the company of my high schoolers.

I stayed up hearing confessions until midnight in the university chapel with assurances that the parish was in capable hands and all was right in the world.

It is nice to know that the world can get along perfectly well without me and that the parish is such a well oiled machine that they would not even know if I was gone for a month.

And even if that is not true, I have an active enough imagination and a fierce ability to live in denial to convince myself for a while that it is.

MONDAY DIARY: ALMOST EXCRUSIATINGLY TRUE STORIES: WHY PENMENSHIP SHOULD STILL BE TAUGHT IN SCHOOLS

When I was ordained my cousin handed me a cookbook and said, "You are now a public figure.  The only place where you will not have people telling what to do is in the bathroom and in the kitchen.  Learn to cook."  She was wrong.  There are people in the kitchen with ready ideas on how to cook whatever it is you are cooking.

 

So it is true, being a priest makes you a public figure and as such you must make certain accommodations to the people with whom you come in contact.  Sacrifices must be made.  It's the nature of the style of life.  For example, there are two types of people in the world: huggers and non-huggers.  I'm a non-hugger.  Huggers LOVE non-huggers.  It is like my dog.  He will find the one person in the group that does not care for dogs and try to prove to him that he is lovable.  Such is a hugger.

So there you go.  Over the years you grow accustomed but if I can avoid anything past the manly (with either sex) quick hug and two slaps on the back, I do. 

 

This past weekend I went with our youth to the Franciscan University of Steubenville's Youth Conference; 2000 very excited Catholic youth with all of the enthusiasm and desire to express their faith that comes with that. 

 

Mostly for the adults I think, they have emergency coffee stations in the morning.  Bleary eyed adults lumber out of the dorms like bears awaking from 6 months of hibernation (except in this case it is due to a distinct LACK of sleep) to make their way to the emergency coffee station to fill up on caffeine in order to make it through the rest of the day. 

 

But the coffee comes in Styrofoam cups, a thing I distinctly dislike.  Coffee is too important.  It is meant to be enjoyed and that includes the container from which it is drunk.  (Is "drunk" correct?)  Would you keep your diamond necklace in a shoe box?  No.  If the pope came to visit would you drive him around in a beat up late model pick up truck?  (Well, now that I think of it, this pope might like that.)  Just so, coffee should be drunk from a mug.

 

So I saw this sign written in typical teenage bubble letters.

Here's the problem with bubble letters.  They are open to interpretation.  For example, the "H" in this case could be easily mistaken for an "M" which, of course, I did.  Having a Styrofoam cup of coffee in my hands, this took place before I realized the mistake I was making:

MONDAY DIARY: ALMOST EXCRUCIATINGLY TRUE STORIES: THE YOUTH OF MY OLD AGE

This past weekend I went with our high school youth group to the Franciscan University of Steubenville's youth conference.  I woke up Friday morning and gave myself PLENTY of time to get ready.  To have some leisurely time to put things together and puts around the rectory getting things in order when I realized . . .

I could not find it anywhere.  I went through the whole house, offices, and garage.  Nothing, nothing, nothing.  I borrowed our youth minister's phone started walking about calling myself hoping that I could hear a ring.  Still no sign.  So I start thinking back, "When was the last time I remember having my phone?"  We had a very small bon-fire/meeting at the rectory late on Thursday night and those to be at the meeting texted and said they were on their way.

The phone was nowhere around where we had the fire.  But I remember having the phone in my shirt pocket (or so I thought I remembered) and perhaps when we walked Sebastian it fell out of my pocket when I stopped to pick up his . . . you know.

So the kids, by this time waiting for ME to get going to Steubenville, spread out in in the field looking for my phone.

I took one last trip to the rectory and heard my phone coming out of the garage behind a trash can.  Fortunately my youth director kept calling and calling.  I must have placed the phone in the cup holder of a collapsible chair, folded it up, put it in the carrying bag, and threw it behind the trash cans in the garage.  THANK YOU ST. ANTHONY.

After that fiasco we were on our way.  We get there and drop off our kids at the university.  Then I went to a hotel.  I love kids, I love the retreat, but I am a recluse by nature and need desperately some alone time and so indulge in this little extravagance.  Unfortunately the university is high on a hill and the hotel is at the bottom.  It didn't seem too bad the first day.

By the third day the lack of sleep and blistering heat made the climb seem a hundred times worse. 

There was time for fun and games.  Nice, calm, relaxing games like frisbee.  "Wanna play frisbee?" the kids ask.  "Sure.  Sounds like fun."  Until you realize they mean tackle frisbee.

Most if time priests are hearing confessions in the university chapel - about 8 hours on Saturday alone.  At the end of the weekend they estimated that we had heard about 900 confessions!

We got home about 3:00 on Sunday (aka Father's Day.)  Having had very little sleep I struggled staying awake until an appropriately late hour so that I wouldn't wake up at 1:00AM unable to fall asleep again. 

One of the things I thought to do was grill up a steak that had been sitting in the freezer for 6 months for myself to celebrate Father's Day and keep myself awake.  So I started setting things up on the loggia when I realized I had locked myself out of the rectory.

I eventually got in and was able to start grilling.  Unfortunately I fell asleep.

Fortunately we had left over hamburgers also in the freezer.  They were good and Sebastian enjoyed his burnt steak bone.

The weekend was finally over.  It was exhausting but so very worth it.  I just wish there had been a break between that and the Pandomania Bible Camp that started this morning. . .

MONDAY DIARY - AWESOME!

I want to apologize to everyone right now. I just spent the weekend with our youth at a youth conference down at the Franciscan University of Steubenville and I find myself suddenly using the word “awesome” a bit too much. It was another one of those guilty pleasures of being a priest. The keys to the parish (and all the parish work) were handed over to the new parochial vicar and the ever vigilant deacon I was afforded the time to spend three days with younger members of our parish on retreat.

Because we are in Cleveland the youth retreats there are fairly well known. But in case you are not so familiar, the university puts on, among other retreats, four high school retreats that are deeply Catholic, orthodox, and charismatic. If you are a youth leader, besides those points, another great one is that it is EXTREMELY well organized. We were never without a clue as to where we were to be or having someone nearby to answer questions. It was – well - awesome, but not nearly as awesome as being with about 1,500 youth (one of the smaller conferences) that are absolutely on fire for the faith. Even those who came along with a cautious heart were, by the end, proud of their love for Christ, the Eucharist, the faith – boldly professing it and praying and cheering for this great gift of Jesus to us. Over the few days we heard hundreds of confessions (my brain was mush by the end of the day), were moved by great speakers, and had lots of LOUD and ruckus – but VERY Catholic – music. I will admit to you that after two days of the loudness and hearing numerous confessions I had reached my limit and needed some quiet time away. The conference on Saturday night was about half way through and they were preparing for adoration in the evening and I quietly slipped out – feeling a bit poorly for doing so – but needing to none-the-less. I bought a snack out of a machine and lay down on a bench outside looking up at the sky and processing everything that had been happening as it was quite intense when I noticed the clouds were tinged in bright orange. I climbed up a hill not far from where the conference was taking place and saw a beautiful sunset. I could hear the music revving up and looked at my watch and figured that adoration was beginning when I saw the cloud below right over the building. Fortunately I was carrying my camera with me the whole weekend and was able to capture it. Now, I don’t place a value on it. I know it seemed pretty cool to me (for reasons I won’t mention - you may draw your own conclusion or just think that it’s a bunch of pretty clouds at sunset) but it was as if this is why I was drawn outdoors and then back in to join the group.

Inside there was a Eucharistic procession going on. Can you imagine what it is like seeing all those young people who we are told do not believe in the Eucharist anymore – who don’t get it – who we are told think the adoration too old school – who we are told would never go to adoration because it is not relevant (how can the Eucharist not be relevant? . . .another post) kneeling! Singing! Reaching out to Jesus! Worshipping! Crying! Giving thanks and praise to Him! I tell you – Catholicism is awesome and still attractive when presented boldly, fully, and well. But wait – there’s more! At the end of conference they had an altar call for those considering religious or priestly vocations. Scores of high school students came forward. They were willing to say, “I am willing to consider it.” The funny part was that the priest was beginning a talk about how hard it may to come forward but if there were some brave souls that would consider being the first. But even before he began the sentence both men and women jumped out of their seats and marched forward. The priest sitting next to me in the sanctuary leaned over and said, “They’re already coming forward! He doesn’t even need to prod them!”

Oh yes – there is more. But this is already dangerously close to becoming a two or three parter and Wednesday and Thursday is already a long running series so I will end here with this one last parting statement.

THERE IS HOPE!