Friday, November 30, 2018

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: HISTORY OF THE RECTORY: CHAPTER SIX

Shortly after all of the “congratulations on your new assignment can we come see the rectory” visits were over, the phone rang in my office.  It was the Secretary for Clergy Personnel of the diocese asking if I would be open to having a parochial vicar.  It's a great gig if you can get it.  There is always a lot of work to do at any given parish and having an extra hand on deck (if you can afford it) is an enormous blessing.  The plan was to hand on some of my responsibilities to him, but in reality what ended up happening was that we just took more on.

To be perfectly honest, there is not a lot of accountability in the priesthood.  To a certain extent, one can work as little or as much as one wants.  Suppose a priest only wants to pray the sacraments and the rest of the time puts the parish on auto pilot while he eat chips in front of the television.  Barring his name appearing on the front page of the local scandal sheet, what is the bishop going to do?  Fire him?  That would only make matters worse.  That just means spreading your already thin ranks even thinner.  There is only so much that an be done.

But the converse is also true.  A priest can work eight days a week, twenty five hours a day and there will still be a ton of things that could be done and that he might try to tackle.  Having another priest around would not only help take some of that pressure off, but it would also be nice to have someone around to warn you when you are going off the deep end, unpack the day with and (since we are not married) point out any peculiarities you might be developing in your solitude.

The priest that would be coming, Fr. Pfeiffer, would be straight out of the oven.  The oils would not have even dried on the palms of his hands yet before he said his first Mass at St. Sebastian.  In most cases, when such an assignment is made, it is simply announced and the priests are thrown together in not much different a fashion as arranged marriages: the two of you finding yourselves suddenly living together are forced to work it out.  Not so with a newly ordained.  Introductions are made and the proper care and feeding of these young pups are given at a meeting at the seminary.  A long list of questions to discuss are given in the form of color coded papers and we are given time to find a private spot and discuss such things as Mass and confession schedules, duty days, talents and job distributions, house rules, and so forth and so on.  But, when the time came, I put all that aside to discuss things that were truly important and pressing on my mind.  Before even saying hello I shook the young man’s hand and asked, “So tell me Father, do you like dogs?”

Thursday, November 29, 2018

MAKING SURE OUR ACTIONS MATCH OUR DESIRED OUTCOME

The current Church scandal is something that should inspire those who are appalled (and I hope you are) to become more devoted to the faith than ever.  Rather than taking the supposedly logical and seemingly legitimate route of declaring “the Church” hypocritical and walking away, it makes much more sense to see these horrific events as a sign that each individual person should be more devoted than ever to the Church and the most steadfast adherence to matters of faith than ever and this is why:

What we have seen and witnessed and many suffered through is NOT what happens when the faith is well practiced and Church law is attended to, it is what happens when the faith is NOT practiced and Church law is subverted at a time when far too many people have been content to have the both run on autopilot.  

In a similar vein, I am always amazed at how people think that just because their car is parked in a church parking lot that they can leave their car unlocked and their purse full of money on the front seat and that it should be Okay because it is on Church property.  I have not heard of a parish yet that has not experienced theft.  Church attracts sinners - some working at overcoming sin (that is hopefully most of us) and those who are looking for cover.  So if we want our parishes to be safe, we have to be vigilant and not leave the collection sitting in a pew, the candle boxes left unlocked, the payroll just sitting out on a desk.

The practice of the faith is just the same and from time to time, like an audit pointing out financial practices that have slipped, the practice of the faith needs constant renewal.  And when renewal has happened historically, it has always occurred when individual men and women have decided to take their faith seriously and live it actively and publicly.  

IF YOU DO NOT LIKE THE EVIL THAT SOME HAVE DONE IN THE CHURCH then do not give up on the right practice of faith for it is vehemently opposed to such things.  If you want such evil actions to spread and become more common, then abandon the faith which is one of the few organized and powerful voices in the world still standing against such things.  


But it needs you to live it.  The Kingdom of God exists in this world as “already/not-yet.”  It is already breaking into the world since Jesus Christ, but it will not be fully established until He comes again.  Until then, it exists where men and women of good faith live it.

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

TUESDAY QUOTE OF THE WEEK CDLVI

FINDING TRUTH WHEREVER IT MAY BE FOUND:  "Not long ago, the household was a context of daily life.  The arts that provided for the material needs of human life were largely home arts, practiced, developed, and passed on within the four walls, or at least in the immediate ambit of the home."  from John Chudback's article, "Reclaiming the Household" in First Things Nov. 2018

QUOTE II:  "Even those who intentionally seek to have  'traditional' family life, in fact, often lack the ability to comprehend the reality of a household that is not merely 'traditional,' but ancient and profoundly human.  They set out to start a family in a virtual vacuum.  The husband and father usually sallies forth to a remote job, and the wife and mother attempts to manage the day-to-day work of child-rearing - a project the real nature of which is elusive - while wondering what place she too might have 'out there'."  same source

IN OTHER NEWS:

Last night we had a special Theology on the Rocks.  It was an encore presentation of Fr. Klonowski's talk on some best practices of bringing adult children (and others) back to the faith.  The topic is so important that we the event was held free (thank you for the free will offering) and at Zwilser Hall.  Despite the poor weather conditions and the lack of certain beverages we still had about 70 people!
Fr. K gave "5 Don'ts and 5 Dos" for helping bring people back to the faith.  They were posted here many months ago.  Go HERE if you would like to see them again.
If you would like to hear the talk.  Go HERE.

This is what it looks like when the organ is being tuned.  Tuesday, Advent Noon Adoration and Organ Recitals are coming up soon!
 Theology on Tap is coming up - I'll be giving the talk that I gave to ToR on architecture:
We gave a "Welcome to Akron" dinner to Fr. Zerucha, new pastor of St. Bernard and St Mary parishes.  Congratulations!
Six minutes with Matthew Kelly

Monday, November 26, 2018

MONDAY DIARY: ALMOST EXCRUCIATINGLY TRUE STORIES: WHICH BULLET IS MADE FOR ME?

Every time there is a holiday and the staff has off I try to promise - especially the maintenance people - that I will NOT call them.  But EVERY TIME there is an insurmountable problem - one ridiculous event that finds me on the phone asking, "Can you talk me through this," to which they respond, "Never mind Father, that would be too difficult.  I'll get over there in just a little bit."

Thanksgiving morning I was walking the dogs and I saw that there were a bunch of city trucks in front of the Julie Billiart School.  I thought maybe that was our emergency for the day and that we got off pretty easy because I wouldn't have to call anyone but the principal.
Then this happened: 
That is typically owing to a problem in the school.  But - hey - we could do without TV for a few days.  That tied in to my homily this week anyway.

Then a call came in on the emergency line:  The women's toilet in the basement of the church was running and wouldn't shut off. 

So maybe that was it!  Fine!  Fr. Anthony and I could now safely go spend Thanksgiving with our families!
 And that's when the crash bar on the new door fell off.

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

TUESDAY QUOTE OF THE WEEK CDLV

FINDING TRUTH WHEREVER IT MAY BE FOUND:  "Yes, I am well aware that the goal of modern humanities education is to unmask the old authors and expose their writings as the poisoned fruit of a corrupt socioeconomic system, or of racism, sexism, and other approved targets of moral opprobrium.  Yes, I know many of you think that, when we read "texts" for truth or wisdom, we are being at best naive, at worst making ourselves complicit in spreading a hegemonic ideology, perpetuation the interests of the dominant class.  Yes, I know professors should know how to write long, jargon-laden sentences.  Yes, I know that professors are not supposed to use worlds like decency, nobility, and virtue without irony or scare quotes.  I recognize, in others words, that the reform of the humanities in universities will proceed one funeral at a time."

IN OTHER NEWS:

I went to visit Mother Mary Thomas last week with some friends.
 She is the nun that painted this monumental work:
 And in her 80s she is still at it!
 Find out more about her and her art HERE.

EVENTS FOR YOU TO CONSIDER:


E.F. sent in THIS article from Dale Ahlqueist's visit to The Franciscan University of Steubenville.  

P.V. sent in THIS article of male students asking a Catholic University to put a filter on the Wi-Fi

Two videos this week:

Here is a 5.4 minute video of the restoration of St. Sebastian Parish for its 90th anniversary:




Here is Jordan Peterson in Slovenia (where my family is from.)  Over an hour.

Monday, November 19, 2018

MONDAY DIARY: DOGGONE NEWS

So about a year ago, I take Sebastian the dog, then almost 12, to the vet and received some news:
It seemed logical, then, to get another dog.  Sebastian could help train the new rectory employee and perhaps the new dog could give Sebastian some re-invigorated life and companionship in his twilight years.

A kind parishioner helped me to find Chester, named after G. K. Chesterton.  The two dogs got along gangbusters.  Chester adores Sebastian and Sebastian has really taken Chester under his wing so to speak.  It was a good move.  Having two dogs is much trickier than I imagined it would be but things have been working out well under the circumstances.

THEN:

Skip ahead a year.  Sebastian is almost 13.  We go to the vet:

And that's how I ended up with two dogs.

Friday, November 16, 2018

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: HISTORY OF THE RECTORY; THE END OF THE CHAPTER

It was while drying dishes that I noticed that the dog was acting oddly and was off his food.  On the one hand he seemed to need lots of attention – cried for it - but when given, he did not seem very interested, whining and turning in circles.  But I was exhausted and it was more than I was interested in handling at that late hour.

Then that somebody remembered there were more dishes in the living room.  Going in to clear the dishes, though stuffed to the brim, the glutenous side of me had the intention of tasting just a little bit more of the spicy, meaty treats.  Looking at the platter I was shocked to see that we had finished off more of it than I had realized and that the choicest, spiciest selections  disappeared completely.  But the more I thought about it, the more sure I was that we had not, in fact, consumed that much food.  It would have been almost physically impossible.  Then the truth of it hit.  Sebastian!  The dog had helped himself to hot and spicy sausages and cheeses.  And that was also his emergency.  He was desperate to get outside and pass the burning mess inside him onto the grass.  I understood then he had been doing the dog version of a human with bulging eyes and crossing his legs doing his darndest not to let an accident happen.

“Come on boy, let’s go outside.”  The relief on his doggy face was palpable.  The door was opened and he shot out like a bullet, came to a screeching halt a few feet from the door and relieved the terrible, burning pressure.


I’ve never trusted him around such accessible and delicious food again. 

Thursday, November 15, 2018

IF GOD WOULD ONLY PLAINLY TELL ME WHAT HE WANTS ME TO DO WITH MY LIFE.

What does God want me to do with my life?”

Often I come across people, usually young adults, who feel stuck in concerning their life’s path.  “If only God would tell me His plan for me,” is what they want to know.

You may not want that.

Suppose you did know.  Then you could never do anything else or you would be acting against God’s plan.  What a terrible pressure to carry on with what you are doing even if you are bad at it or extremely unhappy.

Still, for some people there is a definite life path.  Through discernment and openness to all of the clues around them, and with the assistance of some sort of spiritual advisor, it is pretty clear.  “Ah!  This is to what I am called!”  That sort of happened to me.  That’s a longer story maybe I’ll share some other time. 

But for some people, it isn’t clear in that way.  This is because what God might need from you is not for you to take “this job” or “this vocation,” it may be that His life plan for you is to live whatever you choose to do in a special way.  It isn’t WHAT you do (within reason) but HOW you do it.  For some people then, they may be asking the wrong question.

There was once a young lady who came to see me with what I thought was good news.  She was accepted into a religious order about which she was very excited.  But when she came to my office, she was in inconsolable tears.  After a little while she was able to explain that a young man with whom she was hanging out, upon discovering that she may actually be going into the convent, proposed to her.  This was good news.  It wasn’t as though she needed to choose between life in prison and the death penalty.  These were to good vocations.  They are both pathways to holiness.  They are both ministries to the world lived correctly.  God was not sitting on a cloud saying, “Pick the right one that I want for you or I get to punish you!”  More likely He was looking lovingly upon His daughter and saying, “I have given you two wonderful presents from which to choose, but you may only have one.  Pick one and live it with relish, power and grace and help Me transform the world.”


If you are stuck in a “what is God’s plan for me” mode, be open to signs, be open to what people of faith people may be saying to you, be open to spiritual direction and be patient - but not TOO patient.  Don’t let the process be that time takes away all choices and you get what is left.  In the mean time, also be open to the idea of not WHAT but HOW and start living it with gusto!  Live life as though you ARE the son or daughter of the Heavenly Father that you are, that you are among the kings and queens in the heavenly court, that you are a disciple, that you are the person of prayer, sacrament and grace, that you are fully what God is calling you to be.

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

TUESDAY QUOTE OF THE WEEK CDLIV

FINDING TRUTH WHEREVER IT MAY BE FOUND:  "In the midst of our applauding the feats of civilization, the Bible flings itself like a knife slashing our complacency, reminding us that God, too, has a voice in history."  from Abraham Joshua Heschel's, "God in Search of Man."

IN OTHER NEWS:

E.P. sent in THIS article about the resurgence of the St. Micheal Prayer.

I displayed a silver icon of the Last Supper in the back of the church with the explanation in the picture below.  I think someone may have accidentally taken it home thinking we were looking for a good home for it.  If anybody has any information about this or can kindly and confidentially tell the person who may have mistakenly taken it to return it?  THANK YOU.
Bonafacy Obts was an expert vestment maker that our very own Karen Spangler met with to get some tips died recently.  Karen recently put his tips to use in the making of our 90th Anniversary vestments.  Carly Smith made the appliqués.  They did a wonderful job!  Notice the front appliqué matches the angels over all of the church doors:

The back appliqué exquisitely matches the pelican motif on our altar rail:

Well done!

Saw this sign and had to take a picture.  I LOVE AKRON!
Fr. Pfeiffer stopped over on Sunday night to visit.  I snapped this picture of him at the piano and thought it was so cool that I needed to share it with you.
Here are some quickly approaching events:



E.F., a fellow Chestetonian, sent out this video of Dale Ahlqueist's talk, "G. K. Chesterton: The Critic's Critic."  I recommend skipping the first 13 minutes or so.

Monday, November 12, 2018

WAS BLIND BUT NOW I SEE

As I have shared with you recently, it is time for glasses.  Not all of the time.  Mostly just for reading.  And sometimes they are really, really needed and other days not so much.  All this makes it difficult to keep track of glasses.  If I need them they move around with me.  If not, I leave them somewhere or in a shirt pocket making them difficult to find the next time they are needed.  This, I am sure, has been been a problem for those who wear glasses since they were invented.  BUT there is an advantage that a priest has to help him in this regard:
As difficult as it can be to live without your glasses, people do - and their keys - and their wallets - and all manner of winter clothing.  So occasionally I will look through the Lost and Found box:
And then it is time to wait.  Months.  We put notices in the bulletin, display all of the items (usually at the end of winter) in the back of the church (it's fun when someone is reunited with a glove or something that was a Christmas gift) and then it is all returned to the Lost and Found box where it is taken - if it is in serviceable condition - to charity.  

BUT - if the glasses are still there . . .

And this works out great.  The rectory is a large building.  The living space is quite spread out and then there are our offices.  I have been able to accumulate an assortment of serviceable glasses and place them in various places: on my desk - at my chair - by my bed - so that wherever I am there will be a pair of glasses.

Except that I have the terrible habit of flipping them up on the top of my head - wearing them to my chair where I want to relax a little and taking them off and putting them on the side table so that I don't break them (in case anybody recognizes them and wants them back.)  But this habit kind of ruins the careful planning.

Friday, November 9, 2018

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: HISTORY OF THE RECTORY: THE LOGGIA CONTINUED

One day, knowing that I did not have a cook, a pastor (who had once employed me as a painter when I was a seminarian) and his cook who always wowed me with her culinary expertise offered to come to St. Sebastian and throw a dinner for the three of us.  Late in the afternoon a car pulled up and bags of groceries, enough to feed small village, were loaded into the house.  Organized pandemonium ensued.  Pots clanged, flour filled the air, and arguments worthy of a Nero Wolf novel concerning the correct amount of some herb or spice filled the house along with the smells of cooking.  The dog and I were sequestered to a corner of the kitchen where we were allowed to watch and ask questions.  My main job was to keep uncorking wine bottles to keep the cooks fueled and watch the unraveling drama. 

A couple of hours into the process there was a sudden silence.  Dinner needed some time by itself to finish up.  But in the meantime, there were hors d’ oeuvres in the living room that required our immediate attention.  

The low table in my office/living room was loaded down with spicy meats, cheeses and wonderfully breaded and deep fried things.  Dinner could become superfluous if we were not very careful.  This alone was a feast set for a king – a most gracious house warming gift.

The cook for the evening having slipped away to finish up things in the dinning room returned to announce that it was now time to eat.  We prayed and headed to the table.  Our hostess for the evening inquired about the prudence of leaving the unguarded food on the low table with Sebastian around.  “He has never so much as made a request of people food,” I proudly informed her, “I think we need not worry,” so, in great confidence, we descended upon the dining room table.

After dinner we took coffee out on the newly dubbed loggia.  It was looking quite sporting by now.  The security light had been removed and replaced with a simple candle chandelier that had been purchased at the end of the camping season for a song along with a “last one” floor model garden fountain.  Both of my friends who were serious hobbyists, antiquarians, and infinitely curious after expressing their delight in the room asked the question, “But what is under the Astroturf?” 

The truth was that I wondered myself.  Why would anybody put down that green plastic atrocity if it were not for a very good reason?  I surmised that it was probably just a cement floor and this may have been an improvement.

“Are you sure?” asked the cook setting down her coffee cup.

“Well . . . no.”

The priest set down his coffee cup and leaned forward.  “Haven’t you checked my boy?”

“I’m sure it’s nothing special.  If it was it wouldn’t be covered then would it?”

They looked conspiratorially at each other.  This night was not going to end well.

“If I were you and this was my house,” said the cook in a tone unmistakably underscored with a challenge of an adult speaking to a child, “nothing would keep me, at this very moment, from taking up at least a corner to see what was under there.”

“Yeah, but who knows what mess we might get ourselves into?”

“But my dear boy,” said the priest, “think of what great discovery there might be!”

I opened my mouth to say something but realized it would only postpone the inevitable and it was already getting a bit late.  We got up and went to a corner and I prayed that we would find nothing but cement under the floor covering.  I bent down and started prying up a corner.  The two conspirators loomed over me.  An initial lifting revealed two, grey, unimpressive sandstone blocks.  “Doesn’t look like much,” I said.

“Keep going.  Just a bit further,” they encouraged.

Another couple of inches revealed square tiles in burnt hues of yellow, red, and orange.  It was the worst possible news.  I heard a gasp over my shoulder.  “Look,” I said trying for one last dodge, “Surely there is a huge crack or a space they had to patch with cement in order for them to have covered nice tile in Astroturf.  I think we should stop until we are better prepared to deal with the mess we are making.”

But they were undaunted.  “I’ll clear the plates and keep the coffee heated in the kitchen,” cried the first, “And I will help the boy clear the porch of all this furniture!” cried the other.

An hour later (and into the dark part of the evening) there was a lawn full of furniture, yards and yards of plastic grass to haul to the dumpster, the coffee had grown tepid, but we stood on a wonderful discovery: a floor of five squares of tiles the color of late fall surrounded by blocks of sandstone.  The floor was in almost perfect condition under squiggly lines of black glue.


That the daring project turned out so well made the odious task of reassembling the loggia less of a burden.  Unfortunately almost everything used for the dinner was not dishwasher safe and we had a long time to recount the adventure over washing a drying more plates than any three people should use in one sitting.  

Thursday, November 8, 2018

STAY WARM AND WELL FED

It is one of the most short sighted agendas in our culture that our poor need food, shelter, clothing and medical attention and that then we have done our job.  What a horrendous mode of existence.  It is one of the terrible blunders of housing for the poor.  We build large, ugly buildings in which to warehouse people and wonder why they are not more inspired.

In the Holy Land, the places where we visited were not beautiful places to live.  (I have been assured that in other locations there than the ones we visited the case is much different.)  There was very little in the way of public art, in many areas the litter was as abundant as leaves on the ground in Ohio in the fall, there were few parks and, for the most part, I was not inspired by the architecture.  (There are many reasons that this should be the case, but just the same, this is the way I saw it.)  What was beautiful were the places of worship.  Entering in, one would see (often) good and inspiring architecture, art (some great, some adequate) music, order and (to varying degrees) cleanliness.  They are places (at least in theory) that are open to the rich and the poor alike.  It is a God send (quite literally) that they exist.  One is transported from the traffic and crowds and heat of he day to a place of serenity and beauty of which the poor are particularly in need.

One might say that in the United States, we have plenty of publicly accessible art to inspire rich and poor alike and that we should spend all of the money on the poor.  (Let us set aside for a moment that the largest contributor to the poor in the world - governments included - is the Catholic Church and that most of the people making these accusations do so while not living in ugly houses in order for them to give more money to the poor yet not invited the poor in to enjoy their homes.)  But even so, where is the public art the inspires anyone in our Christian Judaeo heritage?  Such art is eschewed today.  It is not funded.  

Add to that the amount of public art in West Akron that no longer exists.  The Indian on West Exchanged was removed albeit for safety and preservation reasons.  A statue of the early pilgrims that once was on the property of ACME #1 was removed with promises that they would provide a new piece of art (which has yet to happen.)  Where is the ONE place you can go to be inspired by truly and unapologetically Christian art?  Your church (at least I hope.)

Not only that, if we do not inspire artists where will they hone their skills?  By people who will hire them.  If we do not - look around at who will willingly pay them and what messages are being delivered to our culture.  


Not only is it patently not hypocritical for the Church to engage in the mindset of being patroness of the arts, she is grossly failing her people, particularly the poor, if she does not.  A pastor who allows his parish to order “art” out of a catalogue should be horsewhipped.  (Well, maybe he should just go to confession.)  The parish is the original “free museum.”  The keeper of a culture in a greater culture that is increasingly divergent.  To do anything less is woefully negligent.  

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

TUESDAY QUOTE OF THE WEEK CDLIII

FINDING TRUTH WHEVER IT MAY BE FOUND:  "[To] borrow a warning from the great French writer Charles Peguy, we may never fully know the acts of deceit and cowardice that, 'have been motivated by the fear of looking insufficiently progressive.'"  from Archbishop Chaput's, "Strayers in a Strange Land."

QUOTE II:  "Spirituality is about man's search for God, while Catholicism is about God's search for man."  from the same source

IN OTHER NEWS:

This Saturday we are celebrating a special Mass at 4:30 to celebrate our 90th Anniversary and you are invited.  There will be great music and the unveiling of new vestments made by our own Karen Spangler with appliqués by Carlie Smith.  Hope to see you there!

 Some other events for you consideration:

 Thanks to Marcy Smith I had a pumpkin to carve this year:
Somebody found something to roll around in at the farm this past week:
And somebody else no longer smells like skunk or so attests my sister
This icon was gifted to the people of St. Sebastian from the Christian community in Bethlehem.  It will be on display this weekend by the St. Joseph altar.
 This is young Daniel after his organ concert.  I hope you were able to hear it!
He didn't do this piece but this is a taste of what he could do a year ago. (1:45)