FRIDAY POTPOURRI: LET ME MAKE THIS PERFECTLY CLEAR . . . AGAIN.

If you have been reading this blog for awhile, you know I have difficulties with the unity candle.  (We do not use it at St. Sebastian.)  Among other things, as we have been discovering over these few months, we have spent so much time and care making sure that everybody is aware, informed, and is consenting to what is taking place.  To whit:

1. Before the ceremony, the couple is catechized and asked both verbally and through written statement that they are knowledgable about what is going on and that they freely choose to do it.
2. Banns are published to the community for three weeks informing them of what is about to happen (and giving them a chance to weigh in if they feel so inclined.)
3. The wedding bells are rung.
4. It is announced that this couple is about to marry.
5. They publicly state their intentions to get married with knowledge and freedom.
6. They exchange their vows.
7. It is announced that they exchanged their vows.
8. If people still don’t get it they exchange rings.
9. Often they kiss now as a further sign.

Then, for some inexplicable reason, some people feel a need to put on a piece of theater whereby, just incase somebody didn’t quite get what was going on, they take two candles, light one candle together with them, and then obliterate the light from the original candles.  (I have lots of problems with the symbolism, particularly at the Mass, with this.)

NOW, isn’t interesting that the new rite for marriage has new options for those entering into matrimony, but the unity candle is conspicuously absent?  Actually, I am so happy that they Church did not make it an official rite.  There would just be a ton of verbiage added to it.  “Now, bride and groom take the candle of their single selves, a light that has burned since their baptism, symbolizing the life of BLAH BLAH BLAH. . .

Read more HERE.

But there are some newly codified options but I doubt, unless our neighborhood changes dramatically, they will be of much use at this parish.  The first option takes the place of the exchange of rings.  It is the rite of the blessing and exchange of arras or coins.  These are used primarily with those of a heritage and practice from Spain, Latin American countries, and the Philippines.

Another addition is the blessing of the wedding veil or the lazo.  The lazo is a decorative chain placed around the bride and groom’s shoulder.  The veil would be placed on the bride’s head with part of it placed on the groom’s shoulder.  This would take place just prior to the nuptial blessing in those places where this is custom.

"Of course," some of my liturgist friends would say, "what does this say about taking a rose to Mary?"  

*sigh*  More on that in two weeks.

FROM TRAGEDY TO JUBILEE

Wednesday was FIELD TRIP DAY!

Fr. Pfeiffer and I jumped into his Bernadette Subaru and headed south to Columbus to visit the Jubilee Museum.  The Jubilee Museum in the Diocese of Columbus collects discarded Catholic items from closed or closing Catholic churches and displays them in a former Catholic school in Columbus.  (Some items were reclaimed from bars, junk stores, and other businesses that obtained sacred items when a church closed.) The founding priest is Fr. Lutz pictured below.

The interesting cross next to which he is standing was made of parts of the wrecking ball crane that was used to tear down a Columbus church the model of which you can see in the background.  (I will let him tell you the rest of that story when you visit the museum.)

There are many wonderful and interesting things to be found there and our gracious host gave us a most excellent tour.  Below is from the vestment collection, probably my favorite room in the museum.

 As evidence that he is not too narrow in his saving of items, below is an example of a vestment (that was quite well constructed) that looks - well - while well done would have been an excellent addition to a Lost in Space episode had a Catholic priest been on board.  

 The items are varied and sometimes surprising.  Below would be a case in point.  This is a portion of a branch of a tree under which the very first Mass in Ohio was prayed.  They were apparently cut and handed out as commemorative pieces to mark the occasion.  (That isn't even the most remarkable part of the story but again I will let a docent give you the full story.)

 I have had some personal items that I have saved from parishes over the years - items that were destined for the dumpster of which I said, "I'l take them to the dumpster for you," and they ended up in my basement.  Finally a good home was found for them and we did a little bit of bartering.  I exchanged my items for the item pictured in the backseat of Bernadette Subaru.  It is sanctuary lamp that will be used in the new chapel at the Julie Billiart School in Akron.

Fr. was also gracious enough to provide some materials pertaining directly pertaining to St. Sebastian Parish in Akron!  Those will be revealed on our 90th anniversary.  Thank you and God bless Father!

So here are a couple of things with which I will leave you:  The first, I have a chapel that I need to make Catholic.  The school, named the Julie Billiart School at St. Sebastian, Akron, is a Catholic school for children with learning challenges.  The chapel (shown below) will be used by the school.  It needs everything and I cannot take it out of the parish budget: candle sticks, statues, stations of the cross, alter linens, a nice sized corpus for the cross, processional candles and cross, pipe organ . . . you get the picture.  If you have anything, please consider donating it to the new school.

OR - if you have items that do not have a good home and they would not work in the chapel above, consider donating them to the Jubilee Museum where the will be given a good home.

Thanks for reading!

TUESDAY QUOTE OF THE WEEK CCCLXXXIV

FINDING TRUTH WHEREVER IT MAY BE FOUND:  "Oh, if these new pagans would only be old pagans, they would be a little wiser!  The old pagans knew that mere naked Nature-worship must have a cruel side.  They knew that the eye of Apollo can blast and blind."  from G. K. Chesterton's, "The Eye of Apollo"

QUOTE II: "Cheerfulness without humor is a very trying thing."  from G. K. Chesterton's, "The Three Tools of Death"

IN OTHER NEWS:

Everyone was telling me that I needed to see the movie, "Logan."  I walked out on it (something I haven't done since "White Men Can't Jump.")  *BUT* seminarian David Stavarz wrote a good article concerning this movie on Word on Fire that you may find HERE.

From "America Magazine," HERE is an article about a priest struggling with porn addiction.

This Sunday is Passion Sunday, AKA Palm Sunday!  It is almost Holy Week already.  How did that happen?

A couple of last minute events at St. Sebastian for Lent:

TONIGHT is the final night of Deacon Terry's Parish Mission:

 Concert this Sunday at 7:30PM at St. Sebastian.  The Seven Last Words of Christ:

John Crist's Church Hunters episode one:

MONDAY DIARY: ALMOST EXCRUCIATINGLY TRUE STORIES: LEAVE BAD ENOUGH ALONE

There are two kinds of bad moods.  The bad-bad mood which you and everyone around you want you out of as quickly as possible.  Then there is the good-bad mood that everyone except you want you out of as quickly as possible.  The problem is, you don't WANT out of a good-bad mood but those around you don't know the difference between a good-bad mood and a bad-bad mood and so work very diligently to get you out of it.

I was bound and determined to prove her wrong.

Then this happened:  I needed a hanger while in the sacristy this morning and while digging around found an old valise that I used to use for packing my alb and stole when going someplace to celebrate the sacraments.  It was actually a horse competition judge's case that I picked up on the super sale rack at the tack store back when I used to ride horses.  But it served this purpose well.

It brought back some marvelous memories.  But I have a new case - well - relatively new one that I use now.  I'd even forgotten that this old one was still in the closet.  So it seems appropriate to give it to charity.  But first it was checked for anything that might have been hidden away in it for the past couple of years like a twenty dollar bill in an old coat pocket.

One of the things that fell out was a business card holder that I have been looking for FOR EVER.  Years ago my Mom suggested I buy it and not to get just any old cheap one but one that I would really like.  So I did.  And I have been sad that it went missing a couple of years ago.  And then, "Voila!" there it appeared this morning like a little blessing.

A couple of papers fell out too.  These were print outs of Emails that a dear, dear friend of mine, the fabulous Miss Cathy who has appeared in these Monday Diaries in the past - usually in connection with Valutime Cheese Curls, that were written when my Mom was very ill and my Dad was entering into Alzheimers.  She too has passed away and is dearly missed.  The notes she wrote expressed her friendship and prayers and willingness to assist the family in any way she could during those difficult years.  Gosh!  How lucky to have had a friend like that.  What a happy memory.

I believe that it was in G. K. Chesterton's story, "The Three Tools of Death" that this quote comes, "If ever I murdered somebody . . . I dare say it would be an Optimist."

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: AND NOW, IN THE CENTER RING

At one time it was against Canon Law for a lowly parish priest to wear any jewelry whatsoever.  That rule has been greatly relaxed.  I wear what looks like a wedding ring.  When I was ordained, one of my best friends, Cathy Paparella, gave me a ring and said, “Here.  Wear this.  I like my priests to wear rings.”  So I did and do.

They are pretty handy little trinkets.  One cannot always wear one’s clerics.  You don’t want to wear them while biking for example. They are impractical for such uses as well as being WAY too expensive.  So let’s say you are a Catholic priest and you are going swimming.  A ring on your finger helps unwanted attention if you understand what I am saying . . . 

Most of the time.

(Allow me to digress for a moment.)  Going to the beach with some priest friends, we were detained from going to water and so sat at the “soda bar” for a little while.  A lady started hitting on one of my friends.  She asked all kinds of probing questions, discovered that we were all together and finally that we were all priests.  Her disposition changed immediately.  “Oh.  You’re the boys who can’t have sex,” she slurred.

My friend, with all the dignity he could muster, replied, “Oh, but we can.  We choose not to.”

ANYWAY

Now that all the matrimonial clarifications have been made and the vows exchanged, and announcement that the vows have been exchanged, now bride and groom exchange rings to be placed on their fingers FURTHER signifying what amazing even has just taken place.  Is it not interesting that these rings are blessed?  They are a symbol of a covenant, a mark of a change of status, a public indication of behavior, a sign of something created in cooperation with God.  Rings are AMAZING and powerful.  The last thing you want around if you are going to cheat on your spouse is a ring (or its tan line.)  It kind of throws a damper on things.

Can you see all the fuss that is going on?  How much of a public witness this all is?  There is a rash of young people not wanting to get married.  Maybe it isn’t so much a sign that they don’t care, maybe they are a bit overwhelmed by what a gigantic, public, important institution that it is.  You can’t take this lightly.  And you will be marked by a band on your finger for the rest of your married life and that assumes certain public and private behavior - not unlike a habit or a priest’s collar.  

But it is not a sign so much of your vows, but of the vows of the person who married you, for that person says, “Receive this ring as a sign of MY love and fidelity.”  It is a sign that someone loves you.

HOPE TO CATCH UP WITH YOU LATER FRIEND

This week we were marking an anniversary of the passing of Fr. Swirski here at St. Sebastian.  On the same day we received notice that Fr. Al Kunkel passed away.  In 1991 he was named pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Barberton replacing Fr. Joseph Ozemik.  I was in the seminary at the time and found him to be a very supportive pastor.  (Interestingly that is not always the case.)  There is a part of the ordination ceremony when you honor a priest that was important to you by having him assist you when you vest for the first time in a priestly stole and chasuble and I asked Fr. Kunkel to perform that favor for me.

He also had restored a chalice and gave it to me to carry on the memories of the parish.  It is a way to remember him and the parish of my youth when I celebrate Mass.  Sacred Heart Parish is no longer in existence.  It is now Prince of Peace Parish (at Sacred Heart church) and is no longer a Slovenian personal parish but a territorial parish (and going strong under the pastorship of Fr. Robert Jackson.)  It is from there that he will be buried this Saturday.

Please consider saying a prayer for him and for all of our deceased priests.

WHEN GOOD ENOUGH ISN'T

It may be that many Parishes are struggling in the Catholic triangle, the three points roughly being Chicago, Boston, and New York where, at one time, 50% of American Catholics once lived.  As the Catholic population evens out across the map, the triangle looks as if the Catholic Church is failing while in other parts of the nation they cannot build churches and parking lots quickly enough.  Is there anything good to come from this for triangle Catholics?

There is at least this: survival of the fittest.  “If you don’t like it here, go to the next parish over,” is no longer a safe attitude to have because people can and will do just that - and possibly they will not stay within the Catholic family of churches!  It is not enough to open our doors anymore and say, “Okay Catholics, come on in!”  The ethnic fellowship, community pressure, our collective conscience will not get us into a pew.  You better have your Church act together.

That does not mean we should give in to the customer service mentality that plagues the American Church experience and mindset.  But it is similarly unconscionable to do things just adequately or minimally either.  If we want serious Catholics, we need to be a Church serious about being Catholic.

The same goes for our schools.  There is a misconception out there that when we were in the days of the nuns, everything was perfect.  They weren’t.  (Don’t get me wrong, I would jump on the bandwagon in a moment of orders reignited in our diocese and started staffing our schools.)  Ask a priest who had gone through the golden era of packed schools with our valiant nuns making up all or most of the faculty.  There were still terrible teachers and difficult principals.  The difference was that people were much more likely to be desperate to have their kid in a Catholic school.  If you kid didn’t make the cut, there were only so many seats and if you were lucky you MIGHT get in to the next parish over.  The balance of power was much more in the hands of the school.

Not so today.  Our schools now compete against each other for a smaller group of students.  It is interesting the people call our school now and ask, “If I send my kid to your school, what will you give us?”  We get LOTS of those.  (We do not do that type of funding for the general public.)

This means being a typical Catholic school in the Catholic Triangle is not enough.  Being a good Catholic school is not enough.  In some places, being a great Catholic school is not enough.  So in this and in all things that we do (evangelization for example) we must keep waking up and realizing, “Today, we must be better.”

TUESDAY QUOTE OF THE WEEK CCCLXXXIII

FINDING TRUTH WHEREVER IT MAY BE FOUND:  "You can't change another person, but you can be the reason someone changes."  unknown

QUOTE II:  "What we can change and should change is ourselves: our impatience, our egoism (including intellectual egoism), our sense of injury, our lack of love and forbearance."  Hermanne Hess in The Sun Magazine

IN OTHER NEWS:

Last night was Theology on the Rocks.  There were 100 people!  Thank you to our volunteers, everyone who showed up, Fr. Orndorff, and D'Agnese's.

Bear this in mind:

We see Ann in the park about once a week.  She wants to start a small business taking portraits of people with their dogs.  She happened to have her camera with her and asked if she could take a picture.  I thought these turned out pretty swell!

 This is from the dog that is good looking and knows it:

 Great concert at St. Sebastian coming up:

 Day two of our mission with Deacon Terry is tonight!

Tiffany sent THIS article in about 20 pictures of great pipe organs in Germany.

PCV sent THIS article in about priestly celibacy.  Very interesting.

How to be offended:

MONDAY DIARY: ALMOST EXCRUCIATINGLY TRUE STORES: WARNING - LOW BATTERIES

It was a long week.  And Friday was a long day in a long week.  There were all kinds of appointments that day, Stations of the Cross, two sessions of confessions, and then to top it off there was confirmation.  Everything about confirmation was great.  We have fantastic kids, Bishop Gries OSB was the celebrant (everybody loves Bishop Gries) we had a fabulous dinner beforehand thanks to Marcy and her crew (and I didn't even so much as smell the fish being served!) and the reception after was great.  And the kids made me SO PROUD when they responded "I DO!" so emphatically during the reaffirmation of their baptismal vows that the bishop jumped backward! 

But at the end of the day I was beat.  Beat, bat, beaten.

Then I received the most wonderful text from Marcy:

That was SO AWESOME!  That meant my day was truly over except for Night Prayer.  I got back to the rectory, kicked off my uncomfortable dress shoes and my "dress socks of strangulation," put on some "I'm not going anywhere or will be seen by anyone" pajama bottoms although I didn't take off my dress shirt - I was that exhausted to the point that the thought of unbuttoning it seemed too herculean of a project.

And then . . .

Marcy sent another text.  "Now that I think of it," she wrote, "Sebastian only went #1.  I bet he still needs to go #2."

*sigh*

I toyed with the idea for about two seconds of getting dressed again to walk the dog but that effort would have placed me in the nursing home.  So I slipped some dress shoes over my bare feet and headed out for the nightly airing out of the dog.

Now, I live IN THE CITY.  But I am always amazed that when we are on our night walk, we almost never run into anybody.  Many, many times, when a fellow priest or seminarian is over late and go on this final perambulation with me, I comment, "Can you believe that we are in the city, and all these houses are FULL of people, and these are main streets, and we run into NOBODY?  How is it possible that we are the ONLY ones out?"

Indeed, that is why I enjoy the night walk.  I think, finish prayers, or just unwind and it is quiet and peaceful save for the occasional skunk.  You can always count on it being quiet at night.

EXCEPT FOR LAST MOTHER-OF-PEARL FRIDAY NIGHT.  Everybody and their mother was out walking their dogs.  Cars drove around the parish as if they were moths and St. Sebastian was a giant light bulb.  It would have been ridiculous to the point of humor if it weren't so not-funny.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: MARRIAGE SAVES THE WORD ASUNDER. WHEN ELSE DO YOU HEAR IT?

Someone asked me the other day if one can accidentally marry someone: that is, say the wedding vows as part of a play, or the rehearsal, or joking around.  The question had to do with, if a sacrament has an outward sign that is efficacious, that is, it does what it says it does, then does the act of saying it make it come true?

Clever question - no.

Knowledge and consent are required.  

So is what you are seeing the real deal?  Just to clarify, the official witness of the Church will, following the vows, announce that you have declared your consent before the Church (using one of the formulas) and announcing the grand reminder, “What God has joined, let no one put asunder.”  One can almost hear the universe shifting.  A new, unbreakable reality has been created.  The course of history has changed. 

In Genesis, poor little Adam is all alone in the garden.  Adam, at this point, is not a guy by himself, he is what humanity was at that point: complete in this one person.  Then after being surrounded by all this life and beauty, he discovers that he lonesome.  St. John Paul II calls this the “original solitude.”  And it wasn’t good.  So God took from Adam, who was one, and created Eve.  Now man, who was one, is now two and incapable of doing everything that a human being is capable of doing until meeting up with a complimentary partner.  (It is only then that all of the equipment is united again if you will.)  That is why they become one in marriage.  They complete each other.  And once joined, they are never to be separated again.  

How amazing is this?  The entire face of the world is about to change.  If your parents had never met, you and your siblings would never have been born.  If your grandparents had not married, your parents, aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces would never have been born.  One generation before the number is already become so great as to be difficult to comprehend.  Go back far enough (and probably less far than you think) and entire nations begin to change.  Marriage is powerful.  This service to which you attend at which someone with you has asked, “Do we have to go?” and then huff through it is altering the course of the world.  

So after the declaration is something that I like but find difficult to do in practice.  This is new.  Immediately after this the celebrant sings (or says) “Let us bless the Lord!” to which ALL present are to respond, “Thanks be to God!”  This makes absolute sense.  We have just witnessed something awesome and we should sing an acclamation.  The problem is nobody is ready for it, has practiced it, or is looking at a program.  Even die hard Catholics who come to Mass every day are often have brains that shut down during a wedding and have to be reminded, “Let us stand now . . .”  And it kind of takes the punch out of it if you have to explain too much.  “I am about to say, ‘Let us bless the Lord’ and your are going to respond . . .”

Our Cathedral has a decent way of handling such things.  We will have to find our own way.  I sometimes poo poo such things with, “Well, THAT will never work.”  But I’ve also been wrong about that plenty of times.  Maybe this will become so common that it will even be used in movies as readily as “speak now or forever hold your peace.”

God is ironic.  It could happen.

YOU'RE IN THE BOOK

When I was first ordained, my first trip was to Slovenia in order to celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving with my family in my grandparent's home village.  One of the things that I really wanted to do was go to visit the place where the sacramental  records were kept for the parish in order to trace back the family history a bit.  That is when we encountered a strange discouragement for doing so from family members.  There seemed to be a general, "You can't get there from here," or "the road is closed for construction."  Of course, in my head I am thinking, "There's got to be more than one way to get there," but there was also some language barrier issues so we let it go.

Then at the dinner after the Mass, my cousin handed me a wrapped tube.  I opened it and there were photocopies of our family records going back to the 1800s.  That was wonderful.  I still have those records.

Today I spent some time signing our sacramental books at St. Sebastian, putting my name next to the records of those who were baptized or married by me.  These records are meant to kept forever.  What a terrible loss if there should be a fire and they are not well protected!  Even in a closed parish, the sacramental books are taken someplace in the diocese (the parish with which it was merged or perhaps the archives of the diocese) so that they may be preserved for posterity.  

What a thing it is to think that, perhaps in a couple hundred years, someone might open these books that I scribble in today to do research on their family line . . . 

That is why we talk about Catholics having a permanent record.  Every time you receive a sacrament, that information is sent to the parish at which you were baptized.  So always remember where you baptized!  Your whole sacramental life is recorded there!

PICTURE THIS

It's been a busy couple of days and I've not had a lot of extra time to post.  But today is my (supposed) day away and I thought would spend a little bit with you sharing some of my favorite recent photos.

This is my absolute favorite.  Fr. Bearing Gearing at St. Adelbert has had the good fortune to be a mentor to Deacon Eric Garris who is slated to be ordained a priest for the Diocese of Cleveland later this year.  They teach you an awful lot in 9 years of seminary, but feeding yourself, doing your laundry, and mending your clothes are not among the topics taught.  So when the deacon's button popped off, the good father said, "Come here son.  Let me show you how to sew on a button."  This is what priestly fraternity is all about.

Lucky for him I wasn't the one tasked with showing my sewing skills.  The results would have been less than satisfying.  On the outside it looks Okay, the inside threading would look like vandalism.

The next picture is not new and has shown here before but I like it.  It is of seminarian David Stavarz at his home parish of St. Francis de Sales.  There is so much peace in the picture.  Everything outside of this frame may or may not have been flying apart, but here there is peace.

This picture appeared this past week on the St. Anthony Parma Facebook page.  It reminds me of the recent post that said, "It's good to have friends who don't have beards.  That way, when you go out, everyone will assume that you are their leader."  The "leader" here is Fr. Kovacina who was once at St. Sebastian.  This will confuse someone who one day will be going through the archives trying to place pictures in chronological order.

Finally I had my phone with me one day when Sebastian was making a snow angel.  Now that I look at it again, maybe it is more of a snow ameba.  

Two days ago, one of our secretaries came into my office and said, "Father, there is a priest with another gentleman walking around the church."  Not expecting anybody, I went over to see what was up and indeed there was a priest (on his day away) with a friend who stopped by St. Sebastian to visit.  They are close to St. Agatha in Upper Arlington (see HERE) which was also designed by Mr. Robert Krause.  Apparently St. Agatha was the precursor to St. Sebastian and they wanted to do some comparisons.  Here is the facade of St. Agatha.

Here is the facade of St. Sebastian with some interesting similarities.

Notice, in particular, the ceiling and the pews.  At the top is St. Agatha and the bottoms is St. Sebastian.

It is not easy to see, but the metal grillwork over the pipes here is exactly the same as the wooden grill work at St. Sebastian (not pictured.)