MONDAY DIARY: FIRST FICTION AND THEN ALMOST EXCRUCIATINGLY TRUE STORIES

FIRST: THE OFFICIAL STORY:

So as many of you know, today begins the much anticipated restoration of St. Sebastian church.  Our beloved church building is closed to worship during the week for the next 3 months and so we have Mass at the Julie Billiart Chapel.

Already busy workers at their jobs removing pews!

Our awesome Knights of Columbus are hard at work both on the pews and in removing everything from the choir loft.  The organ company is here preparing to protect the organ against all of the dust that is expected to be generated.

And I woke up pleasantly early this morning to get ready to go down the street for Mass.  This robin greeting me on this Easter Monday as if to say, "It's a great day!"

It snowed during the night and I got a beautiful view of our neighborhood on the way to the chapel that I might not have seen if I didn't have to "drive to work!"

How beautiful Schneider Park is at 7:00 in the morning!

And finally, we had Mass in our little chapel which was followed by our very first baptism in this newly christened Catholic space.  A beautiful start to Easter!

NOW THE REAL STORY:

So the robin?  It's NUTS!  It must see its own reflection in the window and is ATTACKING it!  It obviously can't see in because I can walk right up to it and take a picture!  I was in my room screaming, "BLAH BLAH BLAH!  GET THE SAM HILL AWAY FROM MY WINDOW BEFORE YOU HURT YOURSELF!"

I hung a towel out of window to try to save it from itself.  Then I sat down to write this to you and HE CAME TO OTHER WINDOW CLOSE TO MY CHAIR AND IS ATTACKING IT!  What am I supposed to do?   Shroud the whole house in towels . . . OH MOTHER OF PEARL!  IT IS ATTACKING THE WINDOW IN THE GUEST ROOM!

And this was supposed to be a quiet day here.  There is not only the construction crew in the church, there are workers in the school repairing the damage from the fire on Maundy Thursday!  And there is another crew in the hall refinishing the wood floor in there.  It is crazy busy around here.

BUT - BUT - BUT - it was all topped off as I was getting ready to leave the house today for the JBA chapel.  I got downstairs and things didn't smell right.  SOMEBODY must have got sick last night and pooped on the dining room rug.  ARG!

My plan was to get a plastic bag and pick it up to stave off the worst of the stench and clean it up when I got back.  I scooped it up, took a step back . . . 

Stepped right into pile #2.  Fortunately I had slips-ons on and was able to carefully step out of them so I wouldn't track Chester dropping across the floor.  But AS I STEPPED BACK OUT OF MY SHOES . . . 

Yes, in my socks.

It was not a nice pleasant drive over in the beautiful snow BECAUSE NOW I WAS LATE and had to gun it over there. 

When our seminarian, Michael Crookston, made it to the chapel he asked, "Why are there socks sitting on the floor of the dining room?"

Happy Easter Monday.

UPDATE:  Plumbing problem in the school.  Inch of water in the boiler room.

MONDAY DIARY: ALMOST EXCRUCIATINGLY TRUE STORIES: . . . AND THE WISDOM TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE.

This is not an exaggeration.

At 2:55PM on Tuesday I made the casual remark that, although we have a lot to do, and Bishop Gries  OSB is coming on Friday to have Mass at the Julie Billiart School at St. Sebastian, there are no major events at the parish this weekend so it should be a relatively relaxing weekend for a change.

At 3:00PM I received a phone call.  "Bishop Perez wants to have Mass at St. Sebastian this weekend. Can that be arranged?"

Can it?  Ha!  I was terribly excited to welcome our brand new bishop down to the southern part of his diocese!  How ultimately awesome!  And an honor!

Then the doubts set in.  "Is he coming down because we did something right or because we did something wrong?"  (As it turns out he is going to be visiting every parish as he can and we just happened to have an early pull from the parish jar - but I didn't know that then.)

The rest of the week was a blur of getting ready.  A friend said, "Do you realize that you turn in to your Mother whenever a bishop is coming to St. Sebastian?"  With dread comprehension I knew it to be true.  Cecil B. Demille would have been proud of my pre-production preparations.  One of the best lasting effects have been that now it is Monday morning and things that I have been wanting to have fixed/cleaned in the rectory and church were taken care of for the Bishop's visit and today we enjoy it.

But there are so many things over which one just doesn't have control.  When does the battery in the air conditioner unit in the rectory decide to die?  While the Bishop is here.  When does every "empty" or "full" alarm go off in the rectory?  When the Bishop is here.  Of course.

It was a beautiful things seeing the church packed however.  The only thing that made me nervous was that my cousin Steven, a bit of a prankster, was sitting in the front pew.  And guess what, Bishop Perez likes to walk around when he gives a homily.  Guess where he stood the majority of the time.  In front of Steven who looked at me with his mischievous grin and wiggled his eyebrows.

By and large it was a great pastoral visit by our new shepherd.  The next visit, now that we know how to care and feed the shepherd will be much less stressful.  

Speaking of shepherds, Bishop Roger Gries OSB had the very first Mass at the Julie Billiard School at St. Sebastian, Akron on Friday.  That was much less stressful for the three priests here at St. Sebastian, Fr. Simone, Fr. Trenta and me.  It was more of a challenge for him.  From my years in children's theater I have learned that children are brutally honest.  And the can be like water, flowing in unpredictable places.

Bishop Gries had a wonderful Mass and during part of his homily he went down to speak to the K-2nd grade students.

You know, the best laughs in the world are ones where you are trying your darnedest not to laugh.

JULIE BILLIART SCHOOL AT ST. SEBASTIAN, AKRON

I have family who are public school teachers and they are not always kind about Catholic schools accusing them of accepting “typical students” while turning more challenging students away - particularly students who learn differently.  Now, I know there are some Catholic schools that do more.  For example, St. Adelbert has the Steps Program and other schools enroll students on a limited basis such as St. Francis de Sales.  But these wonderful programs were not meeting the great need.

Returning to school after Thanksgiving, I was telling the principal of the day school about this dilemma and how I wished we had the capability, space and resources to help these children and their families.  She said, “The principal from the Julie Billiart School in Lyndhurst is downstairs helping us with our accreditation.  You should talk to her.”  The Julie Billiart School (JB) is a Catholic school in Lyndhurst, Ohio founded by the Noter Dame Sisters that serves the population of students we had failed to serve.

I told Jodi Johnson, the principal, about my thoughts and her eyes widened.  “The school just decided that we should expand our mission and open new schools and we were looking for a way to do that!”

From there on it has been a rollercoaster of activity.  As soon as it got out that we were opening the school we were receiving phone calls asking when we would start enrolling.  (We didn’t even have a building yet.)  Numerous stories came out about how people moved from our area because they we didn’t have the resources that they wanted for their children.  It seemed we were on the right path.

There was lots of prayer and soul searching.  Many people stepped forward to help out.  Building were looked at.  Recognition from the state as well as the Catholic Church (no easy thing!) were sought.  Through it all we trusted both St. Julie and St; Sebastian (with a little extra help from St. Joseph when we were looking for a building.)  Every couple of weeks or so we would come up against a seemingly monumental and impenetrable stone wall and say, “That’s it!  We really tried.  But I guess it’s just no meant to be!  St. Julie and St. Sebastian, if you want this to go forward, you are going to have to do something!”  And I kid you not, the next day it was if the wall turned to wet tissue in a rainstorm and we marched ahead.

It may be years later with many interesting stories, blood, sweat, and tears - valiant work on the part of many hands, but this Tuesday we will open our doors to the first classes of K - 3 with the goal of being a K - 12 school in a few years.  If it is successful, it is hoped that it will be a string of schools helping children all over our diocese and beyond!  I am so thankful.  Please keep this project and all of its people in your prayers.

IF IT ISN'T TRUE IT SHOULD BE

Once I was at some museum show (was it a Vatican tour?) and they displayed a pair of sandals that were "found" in a cabinet wrapped in very expensive clothe somewhere in the Vatican and for some reason they were lead to believe that they were the sandals of Jesus, though they said so very cautiously.  They use the same caution with proclaiming Peter's bones to actually be Peter's bones.  They are difficult concepts around which to wrap your mind.  They seem almost too good to be true.  So we say, "These are Jesus' sandals" through a strained smile and then raise our eyebrows and occasionally one shoulder.

Either way, they are interesting items to contemplate which leads to one of my favorites sayings from my favorite historian, Fr. Thomas Tift, "If it isn't true, it should be."

The following is more believable than the authenticity of Jesus's sandals but I hold the same caution.  As some of you may know, there is a new Catholic school opening up, the Julie Billiart School of St. Sebastian, Akron.  It is for children who learn differently than a typical student.  It is opening in a former Methodist Church about two blocks from the main parish campus.  There is a chapel attached to the school and I am tasked with making it "Catholic."  We need stuff and I am trying to do it without spending much funding as there are so many needs in opening a new school.  So I put out a call for Stations of the Cross, candle sticks, altar linens, statues, the whole shebang, anything someone might have stored in a box or attic.  

We have received some things: a Missal, chalice, sanctuary lamp, tabernacle, and now a processional cross from Fr. Pfeiffer's Father.  This is a picture of it.

Here is the story:  Dad Pfeiffer received it in 2008 from a friend who was a Civil War reenactor.  He in turn received it from his first sergeant who was not Catholic and who obtained it from a man who said it was used in the Civil War for Catholic ceremonies.  That man too was non-Catholic.

Apparently it was in that man's father's attic for years as it belonged to his great grandfather who was Catholic and a Civil War soldier.  If true, not only is it cool, how fascinating that it was held since the 1860s by non-Catholics and now is returned to use in the Catholic Church to be used in a former non-Catholic chapel for Catholic services.  If it isn't true, it should be.

Just for full disclosure, Dad Pfeiffer replaced the pole and the corpus that was badly damaged.

MAKING TRACKS

1st:  Today is Sts. Cosmos and Damian Day!  The day on which I was baptized!  Woohoo!

2nd:  Consider taking a peek at the GoFundMe page for the new Catholic school in Akron for children with learning challenges: https://www.gofundme.com/jbakron or CLICK HERE.

3rd:  Sebastian and I are leaving on vacation starting TODAY!  There probably will not be any posts owing to an expected wifi shortage but we shall see.

God bless!