Repeats OK

I said in an earlier blog that I am shallow with only a few things to say.  I get out of town before people realize I am repeating myself.  Then I got to thinking, maybe I ought to hang around more.  I had a running coach who said the same few things over and over again, but we never tired of him.  Why?  Because we did not listen well enough to put what he said into action.  We made the same mistakes time and time again.  Is this not like sin?  So for those who hear but do not act or understand, I will repeat myself and stay around more.

Ban On Altar Girls

A Church in San Francisco is putting a ban on having altar girls.  One reason is that having just boys is that it will make for a bonding experience among the guys.  Yes, now that you remove the servers who are smarter, more reverent, and just more together than the boys.  My experience of girl servers is that I much prefer them to the boys.  Boys seem more clueless than the girls at the same age.  When boys and girls serve together, the girls at times hold back from doing something in deference to the boys.  When it is all girls, that is the best.  At least that is my experience.

Freedom

Freedom is not about doing anything you want.  If everyone is free to drive wherever and however they want, there will be crashes and destruction of things and people.  We have traffic laws.  When the Hebrew tribes were freed from slavery in Egypt they did not know how to live as free people.  So God gave them laws.  As slaves, they did not need law.  They knew their role and did what they were told to do by the master.  When someone says, "I am free to do whatever I want," that person is not free.  They are slaves to whim, ego, selfishness and some other bad habits.  Freedom is work.  It is work that makes us who we are at our best.  Doing whatever you want can become an addiction.  Freedom is a choice and sometimes we need help to make that choice on a daily basis.  I do.

The Tide

God is a bit like the tide of the ocean.  If you want to swim in the ocean it helps to know about tides, what and when they are.  If you swim against the tide, you don't get much of anywhere.  If you swim with the tide you get somewhere much more easily.  Hopefully, that somewhere is your destination.  You get to know God by experience, rather than by reading.  You can read a little about tides to know that they exist and what they are, but until you try to swim, you don't know tides.  Catechism is learning to swim, the technique.  You can practice in a pool, or pond with smooth surface.  Swimming in the ocean is like experiencing God.  It is more than catechism which tells you there is such a thing as a tide and what it does.  Many of us just read about stuff.  We do not plunge in for the experience.

Small Weddings

There was a time when a Catholic church wedding did not cost much.  The priest got a tip of a few bucks, maybe.  As a server I might get all of $5.00 for being the altar boy.  The musician, if there ever was one, might get a little or was paid by the parish.  The use of the church was free.  Marriage prep with the priest was free of charge.  Then my church decided to get in on the action.  Charge for the use of the church, the priest and the music.  Charge for marriage preparation classes.  Churches made some money for sure, but then something else happened.  Couples gave up on big weddings, including church ones.  We have fewer weddings today than in the past.  Brides are not so much interested in walking down the aisle with people looking at them in their expensive bridal gown.  It is not just about some loss of faith or church interest.  It is a lot about $$$.  God's grace is not controled by how much you spend on a ceremony, be it church or otherwise.  Grace is free.  God does not charge.  The price you pay is in the way you love over the years.  For that we all need grace, free of charge.  

Just Enough

I try to stay in Boulder long enough so that when I leave people will really miss me, but I don't stay so long that people get bored with me when I say the same old stuff all the time.  My problem is that I am shallow.  I know one or two things but not in so great a depth that I am profound.  If I stay too long people will catch on that I am a pleasant, approachable, but lightweight priest.  This is why my parish missions go so well.  I am really good for a few talks.  I tell stories and make a few points.  Then just as people want me to stay longer or come back, I leave.  I am really helpful, given my shortcomings.  We all have to do the best with what we have, and not bemoan what we do not have.  I have learned to make the best with my little.

NOT ON Vacation

I will be in Florida for about seven weeks, teaching and doing sacramental work.  When I was about to leave the cold of Colorado, my friends said, "Have a good vacation."  Why do people think I just play when I leave town?  What if I said that I was going to work for seven weeks in Northern Ontario.  Would they think I was going on vacation?  I doubt it.  They would think I was working or why else would I leave freezing Boulder and go to more freezing Ontario?  Is it my fault that I save souls in warm places in the winter, fun places like San Francisco in the California Fall, and do my summer retreat in the mountain valley of a Trappist Monastery?  Well, maybe my life is a bit soft, but I am working too.  I just have a low threshold for cold weather.