The Second Week

The second week is drawing to a close and has been a good week. We had our third funeral since I’ve been here. The priests and staff jokingly tell me that I will be the best trained transitional deacon in funerals in the whole world. Perhaps, but I doubt it. It has been a blessing, though, to jump into this parish’s life and be welcomed straight into the midst of people’s intimate and delicate sufferings.

Though some of what is happening here may not be as exciting as other parishes, nonetheless, I have gotten to share some experiences which will be very helpful to me in the future. The parish is going about eliminating one of the Sunday Masses and changing the times. They’re going from four Masses on Sunday (not counting the Mass of Anticipation on Saturday evening), down to three on Sunday mornings. Apparently, while they were asking for the input of parishioners two months ago when they began thinking about it, there wasn’t much said, but now that the decision has been made and the change is actually going to happen, oh brother, watch out!

The parish is also losing its very, very capable office manager. She keeps the pastor’s schedule, does the weekly bulletin, greets people at the office door, answers the phones, maintains the website, keeps sacramental records, handles mass intention offerings, and a plethora of other small tasks—including making the daily batch of coffee for the office, something much appreciated by this addict. So, the parish was going about hiring a new office manager and I had the privilege of sitting in on all of the interviews. They even asked for my input—oh my! I felt so special… Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration.

Lastly, I sat in on last night’s special meeting for the Finance/Pastoral Councils. They weren’t happy with the budget. It doesn’t come as a surprise that the parish is struggling to make ends meet. Perhaps it should, though. They lamented the fact that this same issue comes up year after year: Catholics (or at least the Catholics at this parish) don’t do well with contributing their treasure—though some are very good at contributing their time and talent.

So, week two down (for the most part). I’ve just got to put shape to my homily for this weekend. Who is the one who can destroy both body and soul into Gehenna?