HOW THE NUMBERS ADD UP

Remarkable things are discoverable at your parish if you do a little research.  On this 85^th anniversary of the founding of St. Sebastian Parish we had three priests return to the parish to celebrate their 50^th anniversaries.  They were all ordained on the same day along with another classmate who has since passed away.  There is a relatively well known picture of them just before their ordination day standing around a clock with the founding pastor of the parish, each pointing to a time on the clock indicating what time their First Mass of Thanksgiving would on that Sunday.  50 years later to the day they returned to have Mass.  But this time all at the same hour.

 

Here are some interesting things we dug up to help celebrate the day:

 

150:  The number of years these three priests have ministered as ordained clergy to the people of this diocese.  That is a century and a half!

 

51:  Another priest ordained from this parish a year before joined them.

 

201: The total number of years of them together.  This is almost as many years as there has been a United States of America.

 

As a side note, there was a visiting missionary that weekend also who was celebrating 52 years and I could through in my very modest 16 as of tomorrow bringing the total number of years in the sanctuary to 269!

 

27:  The total number of men ordained to the priesthood from this parish since its inception in 1928.

 

1,214:  This number represents the total number of years priests ordained from this parish have served SO FAR.  That’s a millennium and a lot of spare change! 

 

2:  The number of seminarians currently in the seminary from this parish.

 

5:  The number of pastors that this parish has had over the past 85 years.

 

38:  This is the number of parochial vicars that have served this parish over the years.  38 men were supported by their parents, relatives, and friends, were prayed for and encouraged by their parishes, to go to seminary and become priests with the understanding that they most likely would minister to someone else.  The idea is that those other communities, where they sent their sons, would also encourage vocations so that sons of other parishes might come to their parish and minister to them, making sure that Christ was present and given to them as Eucharist, to bring pardon to sinners, to preach the Gospel, to counsel those who need it, to teach, and to administer.  Remember that and pray for vocations, encourage young men in your parish, and foster a culture of vocations.

MONDAY DIARY: ALMOST EXCRUCIATINGLY TRUE STORIES: THE JOY OF RETIREMENT

TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE: HAPPY RETIREMENT GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT & RANT/COUNTER RANT - GOOD THING YOU ARE NO LONGER IN SCHOOL

Today at 2:00PM we will no longer say, “Benedict our pope . . .” at the Mass.  I tried practicing that part of the Mass today skipping that part and blew it right away.  (One would think it would be so, so easy.)  I said, “together with Richard our pope . . .” who is our bishop.  Glad I made the goof now instead of at the weekend Masses.

 

I told the 400-some-odd children at the Mass today that this is a historic moment.  They were attending the last Mass at this parish in which Benedict’s name would be mentioned as pope (unless the next pope takes the same name of course) and that after such time, the Church will be without a pope until the next one is elected.  It has been so long since a pope retired (around 6 centuries) that nobody even remembers what to do.  This will be a remarkable thing for the history books for some time if not forever and we were alive to see it.

 

Of course the pope cannot just retire – at least not in the United States.  I spent much of yesterday driving around in the car and listening to various NPR stations.  Half of the reports I heard of Benedict’s retirement were absolutely salacious.  At some points stunning in their viciousness and outright misleading statements (from stations that claim to present the unvarnished truth for educated people by educated people) to other stories that were quite good in which the person interviewed would equally tell of Benedict’s great achievements, acknowledge that at which he was not particularly talented, and refusing to give in to the interviewer’s obvious desire for unsubstantiated dirt.

 

In any event, one interviewer stated that the media had an obligation to speculate on motivations of the pope when information is not available.  Funny how it invariably has to be negative.  The most obvious motivation – he wants to retire – is never one of them. 

 

In a way it is kind of a back handed compliment.  They are paying attention even if it is, in many cases, in a negative fashion.  Is there leader besides the president of the United States that gets this much attention in the U.S.?  (Possibly English royalty on a really good day.)

 

Today was meant to be a fond fair well post for the pope.  I am afraid I got sidetracked by paying too much attention to the news.  Actually, today there was a lot of decent and balanced coverage.  Thank you Pope (for a few more hours.)  I hope your first day after your prayers you have a good glass of wine, play the piano, and take a nice long nap.

 

IN OTHER NEWS:

 

I couldn’t let this one go though.  Yesterday in the Beacon Journal, they found it timely and necessary to run an op ed piece about priestly celibacy from the New York Times by Frank Bruni.  The crux of the article is that the next pope should rethink the whole priestly celibacy thing.  Fine.  After all it is only a discipline, not a dogmatic teaching essential to the priesthood.   I think it would be a mistake to get rid of it (I know, shock) but the Church would not end if that teaching changed.

 

However, the reasoning that he used is not tenable and uses poor science and reasoning to draw his conclusions.  Take the following points:

 

“The church’s (sic) leaders preach a purity that its own clerics can’t maintain.”

 

This is partly true.  It is a bit sensational to make it sound as though every single priest in the world fails at this, but it is very true that there are dramatic failures – and even many of them.  So by his reasoning, we should stop teaching about charity (love the Lord your God with all your heart, your neighbor as yourself, and your enemies) because if we can’t live it, it must be done away with.

 

He also maintains that it keeps too many men out of the priesthood who would fill dwindling ranks.  “It renders the priesthood less attractive, contributing to the shortage of priests.”  It is similar to the possibility of getting shot by going to war.  First, we want men who are willing to sacrifice to serve.  Second, if this would really be a solution, then mainstream non-Catholic Churches that have married, male ministers/priests should have PLENTY of men willing to serve.  Such is not the case.

 

Bruni also alleges that all sexual misdeeds in the Church can be attributed to the unnatural state of a sexless existence.  I am glad he cleared this up for us!  Now all we have to do is let all priests get married and have sex and there will be no more cheating on spouses, no child abuse, no divorce, no remarriage . . . wait . . . then . . .  why doesn’t that sound true?  Maybe we should stop preaching about marriage and fidelity too.  (Touch of sarcasm there.)

 

Now what might be true is that some men go into the priesthood to get away from sexual desires that they (and society) consider impure.  Bruni may be right about this.  On the other hand, even if priests are allowed to be married it would revert to the ancient customs where by celibacy is optional, not done away with.  There would still be a celibate tradition in the Church and these men of whom Bruni is afraid would still be there.  Further, a marriage would have to take place before ordination, the man would be barred from the episcopate, and he would not be able to remarry.

 

The rest of the article is full of antidotal evidence, conjectures, and “people have told me,” type writing that if it were turned in as a paper for a high school class, it would receive an “F” for failure to make an informed opinion that could be backed up with actual evidence.  The lesson to take away here is to remember to think critically when an “expert” is being presented to you.

MONDAY DIARY: ALMOST EXCRUSIATINGLY TRUE STORIES - WHERE NO MAN HAS BOTHERED TO GO BEFORE

When I first came to St. Sebastian I was the only priest here.  So one of the first things I went about doing was fixing the rectory up in order to lure a retired priest to come here and help take some of the load.  Then I got Sebastian (the dog.)  Then help came by way of a parochial vicar, Fr. Pfieffer, and then Fr. Swirski, a retired priest came to live here.  It was a nice, full house.  It was especially nice to have so many priests to hear confessions.  When I first got here confession times were pretty lonely.  But as word got around that there were three priests here, things picked up dramatically.

 

Now four years have passed since Fr. Pfieffer came to St. Sebastian.  Fr. Swirski has moved to a retirement community and Fr. Pfieffer is up to move to a second assignment.  (Time has flown!)  It seems that the diocese is leaning toward sending us another parochial vicar unless something happens, but there is also a chance that it will be back to me and Sebastian and perhaps an effort to lure a retired priest back here.

 

It is becoming apparent that we are getting closer to the date that Fr. Pfieffer will be leaving as we talk about projects and then realize he will not be here to do them.  (Simba so sad.)  It made me think this past week of the moves that I made over the years from parish to parish, which leads me to some advice for those who are moving.

 

When I was clearing out my dresser drawers at the end of my first assignment I accidentally pulled out a drawer too far and it fell out:

 

Things had fallen out of the drawer and became hidden in the inner bowels of the furniture.  So this put me in mind of searching the inners of my desk before departing for good.

So naturally when I got to my next assignment the first thing I did was search behind the drawers there.  The results were not as wonderful.

It was much better when I came to St. Sebastian.

Now that I think about it, I probably should have returned them to the owner.  They were a swell pair of socks.

You might remember a few months ago we had donated to us a very nice desk once owned by a well to do fillanth . . . philanph . . .phiplan . . . good deed doer in Akron.  Of course one of the first things I did was go through the insides. 

It was mostly paperwork stuffed back there from the 1970s done on a typewriter.  There was letter saying his vacation house in Florida was ready for him to occupy and a few membership cards from local organizations such the Blue Coats.  Fun none the less.

Okay, now its time for you to take apart your furniture.  What did you find?

COULD YOU BE THE ONE TO START THE BALL ROLLING?

We (and most dioceses) are darn lucky that we have retired priests.  If it were not for the “retired” priests we would be quite diminished.  That is not even counting the priests who go at it and quit only when the tread has completely worn off the tire or they die with their boots on.  At 70 or 75, these so called retired men fill in gaps so that Masses may still be said when there is nobody available, help out in confessions to cut down on the lines, they may take over parishes temporarily when a pastor is gone or sick, they teach, give spiritual direction, and assist in a hundred different ways.  This is critical in a diocese when unexpectedly we had to open a number of parishes and staff them when one of the reasons it was said that they had initially closed was that we were having difficulties staffing all of our parishes.  God bless you retired priests!

 

That being said, how bad is it?  Is this dark period in Catholicism in America?  At least it is a challenging period.  But it is not unusual.  Remember the Scripture, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” Luke 10; 2.  Perhaps it is endemic to the vocation that it will always need more men.  It keeps a sort of balance going – causes us to pray for and appreciate vocations – does not let us slack on our prayer.

 

What can you do for vocations (besides prayer that is?)  Be creative.  The first thing that made me think about it (however mildly) was when I was in grade school coming down off of the altar after serving and (what seemed to a little boy) an ancient lady placed a dollar in my hand and said, “You would make a great priest.”  She started it.  I wonder if she knows.

 

In a couple of weeks we will be having a dinner at the rectory for men high school age on up who are thinking about the seminary.  No pressure.  Just prayer, dinner, camaraderie, and possibly a climb up the bell tower.  The point is for them to understand that they are not alone even in the parish.  It is being put forth as being for those who fairly serious about the idea to those who might do it if the planets align correctly and God sends them the sign of a red headed unicorn.  There are already a few young men signed up.

 

Begging the Harvest Master is imperative but it is not enough.  We must also rouse up the potential harvesters!  What are you going to do today?