1/365 Poinsettias and Families

"Thanks for taking care of them while I was gone," I tell Lynn (all names in this blog are changed), standing at her front door.

"How was your trip?" she asks.

"Oh, you know, it was good. Christmas. Hectic, but not really. Kids did well, it was good."

She smiles, not sure if she believes me. "It's been 23 years with Pat's family and I'm just now getting used to it." I think about things I've said in the past in the same spirit.

"Fourteen for me," I admit.

"I didn't get to them on Monday," she switches tracks. Talking about the poinsettias at church. "But I was there yesterday and watered everything."

"Good, then," I take my keys. "I'll stop by tomorrow and make sure everything is set for Sunday."

Poinsettias. I've heard so many stories about how to care for them, I just don't know anymore. Hal, the new guy who helped with Christmas decorating, seemed to think they could be kept alive forever as a houseplant. I just don't know if I believe him, though. They don't seem very sturdy. But I know I can get them through to the end of Christmas season, which is two weeks from now. This coming week they especially need to still look nice.

This Sunday is Migration Mass, our parish's big shindig that winds up on the front page of our diocesan newspaper most years. People come from all over. It's a big production on one of my favorite Sundays of the year--Epiphany Sunday, the day the foreign magi come to visit the Christ child, thus becoming the first gentiles grafted into the People of God. I don't usually go, frankly. It has never felt right to me when I do go. One year I left after the homily. But I think I need to go this year. I need to suck it up and be a part of the parish family even when it irritates me and feels like a show.

Kind of like Christmas morning at relatives' houses. When I give in and just let it flow, you know? It's ok. Pleasant, even--and this year it was downright enjoyable now that I've let it stop being about me, all about me, in my own head and just let myself be there. I can do the same at church. As Jane will say next week at coffee, "it is what it is." And then it'll be back to Ordinary Time soon enough.

2/365 Cry Room

"Who set up the Utah Vestibule that way with the gates?" Becky asks me at coffee.

"I'm pretty sure that was Sr. Joanna," I answer, not sure what the impression is.

"It's great," she tells me.

"It makes a really nice space," I agree.

Our Utah Vestibule is a small room on the left side of the church as you face the front of the building from the street. When you walk into the main vestibule through the front doors, you step into the main part of the church (the nave) and turn directly left. It's another anteroom, another small space to gather yourself before you enter the church properly. It is the old baptistry, and was called that for many years after the baptismal font was moved up to the sanctuary. There is a stained glass window of the baptism of Christ and two cherub faces carved into the tops of the columns that would have surrounded the font when the church was built.

For a long time between the time when the font was moved and its most recent changes, the Utah Vestibule was a storage room. It was still a passage from Utah Street (hence the current name) into the church, with a door leading out onto the steep north side of the building and down many steps to the street level. But in in vestibule itself were random liturgical items--two astonishingly beautiful statues, one of St. Anne and one of the Sacred Heart, placed there like an afterthought; candle stands for devotions to....what, exactly, I'm not sure; plants that lingered and died under a fluorescent lamp too high up on the ceiling to really do them much good; and so forth. It was a place to hurry through and ignore.

A few years back, this began to change with the appearance on our parish's scene of a new pastor and a pastoral associate and other folk who decided finally it was time to clean up around here. I don't know all the details--I was just creeping back into parish life myself at that time and although pleased with the results, did not have much to do with it coming to fruition. This room was painted and cleaned and refurnished. Not as an afterthought but purposefully, as a sort of cry room.

I am not a fan of cry rooms. I believe that babies are part of the community and should not, with their mothers, be shunned behind glass with sound piped in through a speaker. But I also know that babies and toddlers (and Maeve) sometimes do not agree with sitting in pews and being quite for an hour or more at a stretch. I don't like to be a hindrance to others and so for a long time I'd walk to the back with a baby and stand there listening. Later, the Utah Vestibule was furnished with soft side chairs and even a rocker--and then that's where I took babies and uncooperative toddlers.

Now there are two gates, one at each entrance into the church. They're the kind with a lever you can step on to open it like a door. Nice. Now I can take a mobile child back there and let him burn off a little steam in the coming months--which I'm sure will happen. On Christmas Eve there was a mom there doing just that. It is separated from the assembly but not so separate. You can hear what's going on, but not on a speaker that makes the mass seem like it's happening on TV far away. You're in the back of church. It's your time of life to be in the back of church. At least now there's a way to make it comfortable.

3/365 The Magi

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, so named because it comes from the Greek term meaning manifestation--because this celebrates the day upon which Christ's divinity was manifested to the gentiles. It is when they had their epiphany. The gentiles. The non-Jews. Here they are represented by the magi, a somewhat mysterious band of astrologers who came to pay homage to the newborn messiah.

Jews are the people of the book. The people of the Word. God comes to them in dreams, in words, in prophecies. God reveals truth by telling the truth. Telling instead of showing.

The people around them--the gentiles--learned truth through nature. They read the entrails of animals, for instance, and they look to the stars. And so the Magi saw "his star at its rising." They went to Herod and asked him where the child might be found--note that Herod asked the scribes about the prophecies about the messiah--not the omens from chicken bones, but the prophecies. Bethlehem, they informed the Magi.

So the people of the book deliver the message to the people of nature about the coming messiah. The Magi go to Bethlehem, find Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. They bring gifts representing Christ's station of priest, prophet, and king (frankincense, myrrh, and gold). All seems well. They're about to return to Herod to tell him about the child but then....

But then they are warned in a dream. Suddenly they aren't getting their truth from nature, from stars, from astrology. They are told. They are warned in a dream not to return to Herod, and they don't, returning to their own country by another route.

In this moment, they become part of the People of the Book, of the Word. They become grafted onto God's Chosen People. They are, in essence, the first Christians, the first converts. Who knows what they go and do when they get home (to Iran, perhaps?). Who can be sure of anything--their number, their intentions, their existence--but the story is still True. We are all part of the People of God by our belief in the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ. The story of the magi shows us how. We are to listen to God's word. Listen.

Reminds me of that oft-quoted preface to the Rule of St. Benedict: Listen, my child, to your master's teachings, and incline the ear of your heart.

The magi listened and followed what they heard. May it be that I take the time to incline the ear of my own heart and do the same.

4/365 Lectors

"Bridgett, why aren't you a lector?" Joanna asks me point-blank in the middle of Christmas decorating.

Christmas decorating. It's one of the things I do at my parish. I do many things, and I have done many things. Over the years, I have taught at the school, helped out with the picnic, helped plan a garden, and rebuilt a school library. I started but did not finish a wall mosaic project. I was secretary of parish council. I arranged flowers. I mopped the church floor and polished the brass. I've bought ribbon and flowers and wreaths. I talk to florists on the phone now, and I sit in excruciating meetings on occasion. Sometimes I sit in really good meetings. I serve on the RCIA team (helping people come into the Church), I have run an Atrium (helping children come into a fuller participation in the liturgy through catechesis of the Good Shepherd), I sort of run Children's Liturgy of the Word, I make banners, I take pictures, I make meals for the homebound, I deliver Christmas and Thanksgiving boxes to the poor.

But there's one thing I'm absolutely in charge of when it all comes down to it. I mean, yeah, I'm the one making the banners but nobody would look around and get overheated if the banner didn't happen this Easter and had to wait until next. But there's one thing I do that rests sort of completely on my shoulders when it's all said and done. Christmas decorating. I've done it 4 years now and it has changed here and there from what it once was to what it is right now. It will change more with time, I am sure.

Each year, after the 4th Sunday of Advent's 10 a.m. mass, I get a queasy feeling and a sense that everyone is looking at me. They aren't, but still. The first year, I stood my ground against an awful boy scout leader and started dragging stuff in all by myself while my predecessor told people I'd ordered too many poinsettias. This year there wasn't anything like that--Bev arranged the flowers like she once did; Rachel and Keith and Fr. Anthony and my husband and Sr. Joanna and Sr. Christine and new people whose names escape me before I can even change them here stepped up to the plate and got all the bows on all the wreaths and all the trees where they belong and Sal the janitor didn't knock down any trees and everything went just fine.

Joanna says this to me as I am clutching a large piece of gold cloth--like 12 or 15 yards of shiny gold cloth--that we thought we'd lost and it was, in my mind at least, my fault. I wasn't putting the cloth down until it was time to place it under the nativity figures. I'd just made the call to cut one of the big trees down, bring up one of the smaller trees that was frankly too big for the nativity scene, and to somehow place the other large tree to one side...sort of an asymmetrical altar design that I was totally not sure would work. But the afternoon was starting to wear on me and I knew I couldn't be the only one. I didn't want to be that person.

But I turned and looked at Joanna. Sometimes when she says things, she doesn't mean them. Sometimes when she says things, I take them the wrong way. And sometimes when she says things it's because it's high time they were said to me.

"I just don't think I'm very good," I say honestly. Or maybe that's what I've been saying to myself because I just don't want to. I'm unsure. Even now a few weeks away I'm still not sure if this was just one of those lines I throw out to avoid engaging...or if it's true. I fear it may be true. I also fear it may not be.

"It's just that we're looking for folks who will really pray the readings," she starts explaining. I know what she means. I know the difference--this past Easter, Paul stood up there and read a reading from Genesis that was like listening to a bedtime story. I told him after that I loved listening to it, and he started talking to me about stars and birds and how he had these stuck in his head as he was about to read and he just tried to let the words flow that way. I hadn't understood completely what he meant, but it stayed with me. In comparison, there are a few lectors that I need to read along with or else I just don't hear the words. Even when I know the readings beforehand. I don't know how I feel about this--the choir doesn't tend to employ bad soloists but allows anyone, including my 8 year old, to sing the melody. Is it right to tell bad lectors they can't proclaim readings anymore? Is there another way to let them participate? I don't know.

And that isn't my job.

Thank God.

I stood there holding the gold cloth and someone--it might have been my 8 year old, in fact--came up to ask me a question. And I figured I was being asked another question as well and so I turned back to Joanna.

"If you need lectors, I'll do it."

And I will. I have my fingers in many pies (sometimes literally down in the kitchen on Christmas Eve morning) but that's ok. I've always been a sort of jill of all trades.

Christmas undecorating is next Sunday after the 10. I need volunteers too.

5/365 AKA

"So I'm Joanna?" she asks me. She reads my blog. I'm breathless, in from the cold into a crowded church for the migration mass. We're heading up to the choir loft because I can see it's hopeless to try to find a spot in the pews.

"Well, I had to come up with something," I defend myself.

"What about Hildegard?" she suggests. It's a name I use occasionally online (my ravelry account, for instance), although I'm more enamored with other identities for myself.

I love Hildegard. Not technically a saint of the Church (I believe the story goes that she was right at the point when the Church started asking for more proof of sainthood than before, like numbers of miracles and so forth, and her supporters never got the stuff together. But everyone refers to her as such). She is part of the journey from "I think I'm going to leave the Church" to where I am now.

Briefly. Maeve was born and the diocese was going to close my parish. I had fallen out of favor with the pastor and I had stopped being involved in parish life beyond the occasional softball game or chatting after mass. I spent about 10 months wringing my hands not knowing what to do or think. I started reading Thomas Kelly and was drawn to the Society of Friends. But Mike really wanted me to give it one more try and so I went on the women's retreat in the fall of '05. There, I was briefly introduced to Hildegard and the amazing life she led. Intrigued, I read some more on my own, which led me to the Rule of Benedict, which led me where I am now. And along the way I jumped back into parish life.

So given that she's one of my only readers and all that, I'll go ahead and make the change. It's only the 5th day after all. Still early in. Hildegard it is.

6/365 Remnant

Yet I will leave a remnant (Ez 6:8)

I don't know the whole story. Some is speculation and some is fact and some is a mix of the two. But sometime in the 80s, my area of town had a huge influx of Vietnamese immigrants. My parish (remember, this is before my time) was small and rather white. We either welcomed the Vietnamese or we wound up with them. I'd like to think the former. Probably. Suddenly our parish was very Vietnamese. Readings were said in Vietnamese and then in English. At one point there was a separate mass in Vietnamese.

Time passed.

At some point in the 90s, but still before I got to the parish in 1998, the Vietnamese appealed to the bishop to have their own parish. They were given St. Thomas of Aquin down further south of us. But since there was no school there, our parish school remained about half Vietnamese. When I arrived at the parish, and soon after, the school, the feeling at our church was still one of a strong Vietnamese presence. The readings were all in English but the names on the prayers for the sick list were a mix. The school still took a day off at Tet. Those sorts of things.

The school merged with another Catholic school further east and moved its campus. I don't know what the demographics are now. I do know there are fewer Vietnamese at church on any given Sunday. St. Thomas of Aquin has closed, but they are now centered at Resurrection Parish. I don't know what their numbers are, but here there is only a remnant remaining, a few families of former schoolchildren.

At the migration mass on Sunday, though, the second reading was read in Vietnamese. At the end of readings, a Vietnamese reader will sing something that must be the equivalent of "the Word of the Lord." It asks for a response in the same melody, same tongue, but of course hardly anybody in the congregation knows how to do it. On Sunday, the reader did this same ending and I held my breath up in the choir loft. There below me on the St. Joseph side of the church came the sung response. That's where the few Vietnamese parishioners traditionally sit. The younger generation folk who were upstairs with me (also coming in right at 10) did not respond. I don't know if Thuy at 21 knows much Vietnamese anymore beyond conversation, for instance. But the older generation downstairs in the back replied to the reader and then she said the same ending in English: The Word of the Lord. We all replied: Thanks be to God.

It is often said that our parish is stronger because of our diversity. It's almost as if we have to say that. Never that it is a struggle to combine two disparate cultures (or three or four). Never that some of them would really rather have their own church with their own traditions--Americans and Vietnamese, frankly. But I think it does make something stronger to have different people in the pews with you. I think the remnant that does remain--either Vietnamese or Eritrean or Nigerian or Irish-from-way-back-baptized-in-this-parish or yuppie couples or gay men or converts or whatever demographic category you want to put yourself in--does make the experience stronger and deeper for all.

Sometimes, like Sunday, our parish is overwhelmingly what it is. We are sometimes more like what we are than we really are. Other times, we are a shadow of that, with only a few Vietnamese folks on the right hand side, a handful of other immigrants scattered throughout the nave, some school families, a few old die-hards, new people who joined with our pastor, the choir...but this remnant, too, of our best moments, remains, so that it can be added onto as we build up the city of God.

7/365 A Note in the Sacristy

I was here to water
poinsettias on Tuesday
I will return on Friday
to check on the iffy ones
I will rearrange them then
if I need to

8/365 Peace be to this house

I learned of the custom when I was teaching at the school. Our former pastor, Fr. Bill, came by with a box of chalk. I was already in the west-facing classroom so it was my second year. I don't know why he didn't come by the first year. Perhaps he'd only recently become acquainted with the practice, which I cannot find any exact ethnic reference to online (and I haven't gone to try to research it elsewhere, honestly). Is it Orthodox? German? Irish? I don't know. I had never seen it done, but after that first day, I would see it on occasion driving down St. Louis streets.

Bill knocked on the doorframe and stepped into my classroom. It was the middle of the day and my homeroom class--a group of 10 boys and 2 girls--were there for math. He pardoned his interruption and handed me the box of chalk, which I thought was amusing considering how much chalk I went through in a given month as the middle school math teacher in the building. Then, without apology or explanation, he wrote this on the lintel of the door:

20 + C + M + B + 01

Which, of course, looked like an equation to me and I wasn't exactly sure what he was going for. He explained that the past Sunday had been Epiphany and this was the traditional house blessing over doors done on that day (or on the traditional day set for Epiphany, January 6). The 20 and the 01 represented the year (2001); the plus signs were crosses; the CMB were Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. The traditional names given to the 3 wise men, who of course are not named in the bible and aren't even numbered. But it could also stand for the Latin phrase, Christus Mansionem Benedicat, although I personally think that might be a stretch. Either way, the mark was made above my classroom door.

He did go around the hallway with his box of chalk and repeat the blessing on other doors. And I went home myself with my own chalk from the board tray, got out a ladder, and put it above my own door. I was 3 months pregnant at the time, I realize looking back now.

Rain and snow washed the chalk away after a time, although it created a new tradition for my family and I try to remember as I'm putting away Christmas, that it's time to bless the house. My classroom door, though, was indoors. The weather wasn't going to rinse off the chalk. And knowing the janitorial team, nothing else was, either. It was there the last day I worked in the building.

The school closed two years later. I don't know why I was there, but sometime a few years back before we started the process of trying to sell the building, I was up on that floor again. Some of the doors still had the blessing written above them.

Sometimes I wish our parish had a more traditional Epiphany, although our migration mass is appropriate to the theme. But it might be nice to have the announcement of the date of Easter, for instance, and a blessing of chalk for us all to take home and use to write cryptic messages above our front doors. I haven't done my door yet this year--Epiphany came with the snow and I knew it would all be washed and blown away faster than I could put it up. But I'll get it done during the next few days. A sort of ephemeral mezuzah.

9/365 CLOTW and Selfish Desires

CLOTW is my abbreviation for Children's Liturgy of the Word. We restarted this program at my parish after a small seasonal program had been disbanded. Sr. Hildegard gathered up a group of parents and other interested child-oriented catechists to take a few Sundays every semester and be in charge of presenting the Word of God to children, ages 4-10. This is done down in the basement of the church, with a rug where the children sit, a candle on a stand, and an ambo/lectern of sorts.

We were kind of a large crowd of catechists and helpers the first year but have dwindled down to a bare-bones operation. It essentially means I will miss at least 1 homily a month, sometimes more. Leading Children's Liturgy still "counts" for Sunday mass--I'm still participating in the liturgy--but I think I'm going to have to start attending the 7:30 a.m. mass if I'm going to not resent this service.

See, I really like our pastor. Really. And not just because he is personable and I served on his first parish council and trust him and all that--not just because he's a good person and a great priest and we're so fortunate he's at our parish and so forth. He could be all that and fall flat at the pulpit, but he's good at that too. I really like listening to good preaching, and he pulls it off more often than not. Almost always, actually, I go home ruminating on what's been said. I love words and people who use them well, whether written or spoken or sung (or in any combination). So it's hard to know that I'm going to walk out with a gaggle of children and head down to the dim basement to try to present the gospel to them in a way that is child-oriented and lovely...because I miss out on the adult version upstairs that I yearn for.

But I'm reminded of something I read by Fr. Dominic Garramone OSB (the Fr. Dominic from the PBS bread baking show--another one of my steps along the way in the summer of '06). He was complaining to his abbot that helping an elderly monk at the liturgy of the hours was seriously detracting from his own prayer life. The elderly man could barely see the pages, was always getting lost in the office books, kept forgetting Dominic's name--in other words, being a big pain in the rear. Dominic insisted that he could "hardly pray" while helping out this monk. The abbot pointed out to him that without his help, that monk could not pray at all. It is unlikely that the children I share the gospel with down in the basement of the church are going to go home and ruminate on my words. It is doubtful that the things I say will be of any great and wonderful importance. But if it allows them to more fully participate in the mass (and if it, frankly, lets their parents have a moment upstairs to more fully participate in the mass), then it is worthwhile. Even if I miss out on the good stuff once in a while.

So I'll suck it up and enjoy it. Because in the end, I always do.

10/365 Ordinariness

Ordinary Time is so named because it is counted, like ordinal numbers (first, second, third, and so on). You have Sundays of Advent, you have Sundays of Lent and of Easter, but you have Sundays IN Ordinary Time. In fact, there is no First Sunday in Ordinary Time because by the time you get to the first Sunday, it's the second week. So it's the Sunday of the second week, and therefore, the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time.

This is the sort of thing that I love about Catholicism and probably would like about other ancient denominations and religions (Orthodox Christianity, Judaism). It's like a flaky crust--the many many layers of butter and sugar and flour symbolic of the humanity layered on top of itself over thousands of years. At some point, this counting was so important to someone. It probably is still important to someone. For the average churchgoer, maybe not. It took me a long time to notice seasonal changes at church beyond "C&E". But for the most part, I look at words like of vs. in or first vs. second and I just smile. It's kind of cozy.

Today we undecorated. The evergreen trees weren't too evergreen anymore, and while the poinsettias lasted remarkably well, the wreaths were crispy. Christmas was over for another year.

More than the end of Easter, which of course falls at the beginning of the school summer break, this end always brought a bit of sadness for me. The specialness of Christmas is replaced with...January. With ice and salt and the inevitable winter headcold. It indeed does feel ordinary, and not meaning counted. Like bringing your lunch in an ordinary brown paper bag. Wearing plain old ordinary school uniforms. I remember the first year I was in charge of this, sitting in a front pew and staring and the blankness behind the altar and feeling oddly empty.

This year wasn't as bad. Maybe it's because I'm taking megadoses of vitamin D. But maybe more than that, it's because this chunk of ordinary time, mardi gras season really, is full of good things in a way that the brown paper lunchbag is not. Next Sunday is the wedding at Cana. Following that, the many parts of the Body of Christ. The month ends with Paul's treatise on love (Cor 13:4-13), which many consider appropriate for weddings but I desperately want read at my funeral. Early February has fishers of men, "Here I am, Lord" from Isaiah, and the Beatitudes. It's a lot to think on while in my ordinary life, I am busy too with Irish Dance competitions and girl scout cookie sales and meetings, meetings, meetings.

Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (Atrium) divides the year first by color and then gives it simpler names: the purple is the preparation for the feast, the white is the feast (or red for the Holy Spirit), and green is the growing time. Later they fill in the real names and count the weeks and all that but I like the idea of green not having the connotation of ordinary but instead of growth. Grow, grow, grow.

11/365 And Now...

And now Miguel. (Which school children with obsessive English teachers, as well as obsessive English teachers, will note as the title of a Newbery award winning children's book).

It is interesting to write a reflection a day--on any topic--and I've been doing so for 3 1/2 years now. Something strikes me and I put it down on paper (or in pixels). A year of people I know and used to know--back when nobody was reading anything I had to say online, at least nobody I know. I got to know lots of people from around the country doing the same project. Then I did a year of songs that turned into an autobiography somehow. This past year I worked on a year of conversations from my daily life. And now this--which is sort of a blending of a lot of different things, but the biggest change is that I'm writing about goings on at a place where the people I'm writing about see me all the time. Know your audience, and yet...write as if everyone you knew were dead. So it's fun thinking about what to say, but then editing myself is a careful job. Because I am known to be caustic. And I go to these meetings...

So more than ever before people are talking to me in person about what I have to say. Now, it's like 4 people, not like 40, but still. And yesterday at church undecorating my pastor made a suggestion for his pseudonym.

The whole idea of changing the names is funny since the only people reading know all the players--well, not completely true. But if anyone really wanted to try, they could figure it out. Maybe not everyone. I might be able to disguise some folks. But not all.

On the other hand, I like pseudonyms. I have several handles online, all very clever, trust me. In college I played a long-running roleplaying game character named Ursula who basically became an alter-ego. I know the importance of names. I dropped my first name when I got married but have unofficially (not through the Social Security office) taken it back. Getting married also saddled me with a big mispronounced German last name and hid my nice alliterative Irish one in the middle. Becoming an oblate gave me a set of initials at the end of my name that I can't see ever using in any capacity but I like rolling them around in my mind: OblSB.

So when he says, "Miguel," I know there's a story. My history with Miguels could be summed up in the phrase "Lost in Translation" and this would not have been a name I would have considered. So there must be a reason.

"For Miguel Pro. He's a Blessed. Jesuit priest in Mexico at the beginning of the 20th century." He tells me a bit more and I know I'll be looking him up later.

Well, I did. And once again I'm sitting here thinking that our parish got lucky or blessed or something to bring this pastor to us--the role models we choose for ourselves always tell on us, and this, I think, is no exception. So Fr. Miguel and Sr. Hildegard. You haven't heard near the last from them.

Now I want a name. But I have plenty already.

12/365 Tree Finality

I sent Mike with my dad's truck to pick up the trees left in the parking lot. We didn't want them left by the dumpsters to be tossed in a landfill. There's a perfectly good recycling center down at Carondelet Park. The park mulches them up and uses them as, well, mulch.

It's a big job to haul, and they're big trees. I was exhausted. Mike went alone and I put girls to bed.

He got back over an hour later.

"Well, only one tree fell out of the truck," he starts.

"What?"

"On Grand. Folks pulled up next to me to tell me. So I went back to look for it, but it was gone."

"It was gone," I repeat.

"Yeah, I mean, middle of the road, I expected it in the gutter or on the sidewalk but it was gone."

"Somebody needed a tree, in mid-January?"

He shrugs. "Everything else went fine. Took me two trips."

13/365 Good Priest, Bad Priest

So I was thinking last night about priests I've known, ones I've known well enough to have stories about or eaten meals with--not just every Jesuit who taught me at SLU or the parish priest in Macon whose name escapes me. Ones I knew well enough to like or really not like...

And I think I've concluded that most of the priests I've known have been bad at their jobs. Not bad people, not EVIL in some major way, but just not very good. And I thought that I should probably write a bit about them just to demonstrate why it is that I (and many many other people) really like our pastor.

But not today. Because today is our pastor's birthday. So happy birthday to our Fr. Miguel and I'll have more to say coming soon. Maybe in a few days, I'll just reminisce. But today this is enough to say.

14/365 The People in the Pews

In a conversation about why I remain Catholic when I do not share what non-Catholics typically see as "Catholic values" one time (over the internet, of course--in person people are never as bold), one ex-Catholic mentioned that she had to leave in order to find a church where she knew all the people sitting in the pews near her shared all her beliefs.

I never considered that something I would want. Sure, when I sit in a Catholic church, I expect that the majority of people there are Catholic. That they can recite the Nicene creed and at some level believe what they say. Beyond that? I don't have many expectations.

I didn't seek out a specific kind of church when we moved here--we'd been attending, half-heartedly, St. Henry/Immaculate Conception (my mother asked me at one point: "Was St. Henry immaculately conceived? Who is St. Henry, anyway?"--it's a combined parish that kept the names...and now it is no more). We lived in its parish boundaries and that's where we went. We moved into our house and my grandmother told me that she knew the pastor and I should give him a call. Turned out, we didn't live in the parish boundaries, but as I was about to hang up to call the correct one, he said, "Wait, do you have kids?" And as we talked more, I decided we'd give it a try. We were geographically closer than to the parish where our address fell, and we went a bit.

Obviously we stayed, with some backsliding and handwringing over the years. But never once did I say to Mike, "I can't belong here because Adam keeps talking about things I don't agree with." I never once felt as though I didn't fit in due to my opinions about politics that did not fall directly into the sphere of belief. I am very liberal on some topics, somewhat less so on others in comparison to Americans in general. I figure I'm probably to the left of the average Catholic, but trust me, there are others far far further to the left.

And a few of them attend my church.

Many people to my right, politically, attend my church. And there are a lot of people who are vaguely similar to me. At least, that's the way it feels to me--politics don't come up as often as they once did with our former pastor. So it could be that I have a skewed view.

But that's the point. It doesn't matter that much at my church (anymore). I can sit in the pews next to that old guy from the Knights of Columbus who couldn't understand Mike's hesitation about joining up. We can both be at this church because we don't have a problem with group think. We are a geographic parish. We do not have any particular focus around politics or devotion. We aren't the Tridentine Latin Mass church and we're not the radical left. We are in the middle. And that's what makes us a good place, frankly. I guess our diversity does make us strong.

Heck, my parents even came back.

15/365 The Rewards of Stability Continue

The choir loft is locked. For a long time I thought this was amusing--what, was someone going to steal the organ? A pipe at a time? But then I figured for safety reasons--who wants a nine year old going up there on a dare and pitching over the side? Nightmare. Then, I was taking the photos of the rose window and noted the door on the opposite side from the stairwell. I mean, I had noticed the door before. It has a glass window in it, and it is obviously some creepy storeroom where also is found the ropes to pull to ring our church bells. It has a padlock on it. But no lock that day--just the catch for it. So I opened the door. It's a creepy little room, with stairs going up. And on the walls near the stairs, grafitti from 80 years of altar boys "discovering" the place just as I had and leaving their marks.

The darkroom at my high school was the same way. It was a tiny concrete room off a science lab. John and I had keys. There was grafitti all over the walls. We added quite an astounding amount.
Then Mr. Termuhlen found it all, made fun of us, and had the closet painted. I still have the key, though, on a rubberband keychain from the yearbook advisor attached to a pinback button that says "Pfui!" Ah, good times.

I taught Joe and Sam.

Funny how you become Mr. Termuhlen somewhere along the way. I guess you stay in one spot long enough. But I don't want to paint over this. My kids will be altar servers (Sophia is ready now and keeps asking--5th grade is so so far away!) and they'll find this hideaway. Maybe it's a bit much to wax poetic about circle of life in a graffiti filled bell tower stairwell, but it makes me happy.

16/365 The list is long

So this week was Fr. Miguel's birthday and the anniversary of his ordination. I went up to church to look at flowers today and ran into Jack, who reads this blog, and mentioned that maybe he was getting tired of hearing how great Miguel was.

But we both agreed that, of course, he was, and this was due almost as much to past experiences with priests as it was due to something specifically about Miguel. To put it another way: many many priests we have known have been not so great. Not so great. In fact, some encounters have been absolutely miserable experiences. And I don't want to dwell on the negative, especially negatives from long ago that have no influence in my life, but I feel I need to give some of them a sentence or two.

Without going too far back--I don't remember any pastors before 3rd grade, for instance, well, except for the Redemptorists down in South County but they aren't on this list--here are a few bad priests. Here names are absolutely changed. Totally.

Fr. Fritz...an associate pastor who invited boys up to the rectory after school. It's like a miserable cliche. But when Fr. Fritz is one example of the priesthood...

Fr. Cuthbert...a former army chaplain, very charismatic, but thought that before we were confirmed, all the 9th graders needed rebaptism. This is directly opposed to Church teaching. Seriously. And where were the baptisms going to occur? In a friend's swimming pool. Obviously, I did not attend. And I wasn't confirmed. He also banned the use of real candles in church since they were a fire hazard. Real flowers? Forget that.

Fr. Anastasius...who, during a homily, doubted there was an afterlife. This was at a high school mass. He said, "I think that's probably just wishful thinking but you can believe what you want."

Fr. Isidore...was not very inspiring as a preacher but was adequate. His weird quirk is that he never greeted people after mass. The church was modern and there was a hallway connecting it to the rectory. He would disappear, still dressed for mass, down the hallway while we were singing the closing song. Sometimes the associate pastor would take his place. Sometimes not.

Fr. Bell...my boyfriend in high school called him that because he was obsessed with tardy students. My list of complaints about him is long but I look back and I think he was really depressed and out of his element as a principal. He had a definite eating disorder and often talked inappropriately about girls' anatomical features.

After high school, I attended a Jesuit university where, for the most part, the priests were just like the obstetrician I had when I was pregnant with Maeve. Excellent experts in their fields, confident in their abilities and knowledge, and zero bedside manner. Zip. Nada. For instance:

Fr. Newburg...a convert, once pointed to me during a homily in the dorm and said I was no Teresa of Avila. This was in context, but I had never made such a claim. He also didn't go in for all that "feminist mumbo jumbo" of inclusive language.

Fr. Cannoli...who could not keep from laughing when he made the announcement that they were closing one of the dorms and all the residents would be placed elsewhere the following year.

Fr. Howdy...who never really left the fraternity party of his youth and still attended them in his forties.

After graduation, Mike and I got married and started attending St. Henry/Immaculate Conception, a dying parish that has since bit the dust. We could barely drag ourselves there because every single homily dwelt on the topic of "things aren't like they used to be," mostly involving the sad (?) fact that no one in the parish was willing to participate in Eucharistic Adoration. Now, I was a young woman with my own mind and things to do. Nowadays I might like the silence for an hour or so in adoration. But then? Nope. And after a while, listening to someone talk about how the pews used to be filled and people used to come and wah wah wah--it makes you walk away too. I don't even remember his name--we belonged to the parish and he never learned our names either.

Other more recent mediocre priests I've known:
Fr. Jimbo...told me that if Mike and I had gone through marriage prep with him, he never would have allowed us to marry due to our fill-in-the-bubble test scores. He said it was the number one predictor for failed marriage and he bet me (he actually said that: "I bet you any money") that my marriage wasn't going to last.

Fr. Bud...the pastor where Jimbo was the associate, he once decimated a Sunday mass attendance by preaching heresy during the homily (in this case, the divinity of Christ: "Who knows? Maybe he wasn't divine!"). Turned out later, he was just drunk. The bright red flushed face should have been a clue.

Fr. Snore...used to be the pastor at my mother-in-law's parish. He would lose his place during mass. His homilies rivaled the St. Henry pastor's. In his defense, since I actually knew him through Mary Helen better than I knew many of these, he was an order priest living on his own in a tiny aging parish. I would place good money (perhaps "any money" would be stretching it) that he was depressed. He retired and spent some time in Africa although I think he's home again now.

Fr. Viktor...used to give homilies that were centered on depressing poetry. In February. I had several loud arguments with him in parking lots. He had no sense of humor. He didn't seem to understand human relationships very well. I knew him for a while, though, and so my opinions of him are colored by that, but I'm pretty sure getting drunk at a party and making references to things said in the confessional are right out regardless.

Fr. Symmachus...once told the parish that it was due to their lack of prayer for vocations that made him have to be brought there from Nigeria to be their pastor. He had his dying parish give him the funds (besides his salary) to fly home for vacation. There is so much here and I can't give it justice. Just to say that when I visit my inlaws? I don't go to church.

This leaves out the many visiting priests and deacons in training with simply bad speaking skills and limp handshakes. It leaves out priests I know only second-hand. And it leaves out the good ones. I'll talk about them tomorrow. But just to say. There's a reason we like our pastor.

17/365 The good ones

As promised, the good priests. This is leaving out Fr. Tom, my mother-in-law's brother who died this year, because I knew him as a relative and not as a priest. Considering what his memorial masses and funerals were like, though, I think he belongs on this list.

But others:
The Redemptorists. My parents and grandparents were amongst the first parishioners down at a new parish in South County run by this order. There were several priests and a brother (or maybe a deacon?) there. They baptized me and two of my siblings. My parents were married there (as I learned today, "married by them" is not exactly correct--it is better to say "their marriage was witnessed by them"). I never knew them well but it seems it was a good place to be. The first place I ever went to church. Who says first impressions don't matter?

Fr. Keith...was a friend of the family long before he became our pastor. He baptized Colleen, gave me my first communion, and vacationed with my aunt and uncle every summer. When it came time to get married, Mike didn't have any opinions either way about a priest--and his uncle would have stepped in without question--but I knew Keith was the one I wanted. By then he'd already had a heart transplant and the second heart was giving out. He died three or four years later, refusing to put his name on the transplant list again. His funeral fell on the feast of the Sacred Heart. He's one of those people that comes into your life, and when he leaves you walk around where he used to be, expecting him to be back any moment.

The Benedictines...it was a small abbey of fewer than 20 monks. My school was on the campus and so my first introduction to the Old Testament beyond children's stories was in the hands of Br. Bede. Br. John followed up with the New Testament, with flannel shirts under the black habit and running that classroom like an army captain. I remember him lifting a kid up by his shirt against the lockers in the hallway. I remember thinking it was well-deserved. Br. Bede and I kept correspondence for a long time after I left. He was a permanent brother--he wasn't on his way to the priesthood--so I suppose he doesn't count on this list. But others belong here: Frs. Jerome, Columba, Gregory, Maurus--Maurus gave lovingly crafted homilies to schoolchildren during the week and turned around and could do the same to a packed house of adults. And then when someone would compliment him, he'd tell them to blame the Holy Spirit. And not in a smarmy self-congratulating way. They were as they appeared, personal flaws and all.

Fr. Kip was probably diagnosably ADHD, but it didn't matter because you were along for the ride. His homilies were predominantly church and biblical history, but fascinating. You left there knowing far more than when you came in the doors. He was somewhat self-congratulating, but charismatic enough that you didn't notice until later. But what puts him on this list is that he was always honest and plain-spoken. He told you what he thought and you could pretty much guarantee that it was the truth and that if he changed his mind, he would let you know. He was a force to be dealt with.

Fr. Christian is on this list because he surprised me. I don't know him well but in the 2 hours I spent with him, I knew he was a good priest. When my aunt Maria died after many long years in a nursing home with Friedrich's Ataxia, we attended her funeral at the funeral home, because it was during the 2006 blackout and All Souls had no power. It wouldn't have worked. The priest walks in, in a bit of a frazzled hurry, and I sigh. He's from India. Couldn't they have found a priest from her younger days at All Souls? Wasn't there a family friend they could have turned to? His English at first hard to understand, by the time we got to the gospel, I could follow him pretty well. And then he talked to us about Maria and her faith. He was the chaplain at the nursing home. He'd met with her at least weekly for several years. They were friends. The words he had to say touched me. And chastised me for that old sin of mine of prejudgment. I don't know where he is or what he's doing now, but I have a feeling he's doing it well.

There are several other Benedictines from Conception Abbey that belong here. The priest who used to be at my mother-in-law's parish--actually, at three parishes down there--once you know him for ten minutes you realize you've found the man Diogenes was looking for. And the bishops--the auxiliary bishop in Houston who had a soft spot for my high school and used to talk about how much he regretting dropping out (the Navy saved him later and he entered the priesthood then). We gave him an honorary diploma in my graduating year. The bishop who came over to my mother-in-law's house after her dad died and was unassuming and nice. Nice. The bishop who kept my high school open because he'd made a promise to the order who turned it over to the diocese--kept a promise, imagine that--and of whom my brother talks about in host-eating contests: "That bishop could eat some host." That doesn't make him a good priest one way or another, but there's something to be said for plain speaking, word keeping, having a sense of humor, being pastoral, not being full of yourself.

It is possible to make my list--I don't even think it's that hard, really. What's sad is that it always seems like such a lovely surprise when it happens.

Tomorrow, back to where we are.

18/365 Stream of Consciousness from Mass Sunday

Here, I've got the door. Ah, there's Yvette. I'll take the program from her so I don't have to engage in conversation with Jim. She bought girl scout cookies last year. I'll have to have Sophia talk to her after mass. I hope my hair isn't too bad. It's been so hard to deal with. I wish my striped cardigan had been clean. Ah well. Three days of Mike out of town and a crazy week.

There are my parents. But I like sitting in the front. I think that's probably fine. Hey. We're sitting up front. I know it's warmer here. Yeah. Nobody up front yet. Third pew sounds better than second. We won't bother Lucien if we're in the third pew. At least not as much. Ah. I don't know this opening song. Hmm.

I don't know her. Why is she sitting next to me? The next pew is empty. So is the one behind me. Can't she see the two kids? Coach bag. Like I care. Why do I look at labels when I'm oblivious to their meaning? I can't help reading words, though. Can't help it. I wish Maeve would stop clinging. Good. She's lying on the pew. That's fine. I'll just let her until children's liturgy begins.

Opening song. I can hear my own voice better here than usual. Leo. So cute. I wonder if I'm bothering the woman next to me. I wonder if she is a regular here and I'm too focused on people I already know and so I don't know her and it will be awkward to introduce myself later and find out she's been in the parish 32 years or something. I don't think so, though. The sign looks better over there. I don't like it behind the ambo where it was earlier. I wish there were a way around the sign.

The green. The deacon matches, almost. Maybe all the way. Is it the same green? I think there's more of a woven pattern on Miguel's. The poinsettias are fine. I can toss them out or I guess bring one home later this week. Maybe tomorrow since we're off school. I don't know. I know this gloria. Do we sing the gloria during Advent? It seems like it was a while. We sing it during Christmas though. Gloria. Brian's smiling at Leo. So cute.

Maeve is asleep. Asleep. Jeez. Breathing? Yes. She's taking up the whole pew. Yeah, sit by us. That's a great plan. I guess I'll sit in front of us when it's the first reading. She's not going to children's liturgy. Not if she falls asleep in 5 minutes like that.

Yup, watch me. Sitting up in the next pew. Ah well.

Is that Isaiah he just said? I've never heard it said like that.

Ah, Paul has the responsorial. He's gotten so much better with time. What a nice guy.

Becky reads so slowly. I need to slow down when I read. I wonder if I should reiterate to Sr. Hildegard my willingness to be a reader. Many gifts. Is it a reminder in the positive or the negative? Of course I'm in charge of plants. Not one of my gifts, really.

I hope Miguel has the homily today.

Why does John's gospel refer to Mary as "Jesus' mother" instead of by name? Do whatever he tells you to. Wow, that about sums it up. I love that she ignores his response...or maybe she knew he would do something if she asked. But does that mean he'd done things before? How would she know he could help, if not? The apocryphal gospels have all sorts of cockamamie miracles early on. I just can't see him going around doing little favors for the neighbors, though. Honey could you fix this pitcher. Wait, that was Benedict. Or was it Scholastica?

Ok, time to head up here. I wonder what Joel will be like. I should have been going to RCIA all along. I hate picking up midstream. But there are so many obligations. Wow, in these shoes I'm taller than he is. Do I carry the book of the gospels out held up high like for Children's Liturgy? I guess I'm just going to assume I do. I hope I don't look stupid. I'm walking too fast.

And then we headed down to the rectory basement for dismissal catechesis and a nice chat. Good Sunday.

19/365 RCIA

I'm on the RCIA team. Sr. Hildegard has a way of asking me to do things that I have a hard time saying no to. Now, there are things I would say no to. I would never have tried to run the church picnic back when we had a church picnic. I won't join the stewardship commission. I don't have anything to bring to finance or to any task that requires many many phone calls.

There are things I do that are in my comfort zone--it is easy to make a banner. It is easy to water plants (and let them die accidentally, mysteriously...easy, but I wonder if I'm the gal for that job sometimes). It is sometimes excruciating to go to Worship Commission meetings but it's ok because I know many other people are aggravated as well. Children's Liturgy of the Word is easy now that I'm not making the schedule. Cooking for the homebound, delivering food, sitting on parish council. All easy.

And then there are things that I probably should be doing but that fall outside my comfort zone. Long ago, being on the Art & Environment committee was outside that zone, mostly due to Dolores and Roxanne running the show back then. Nowadays it's ok. I've learned how to deal with Lynn as best I can and it's ok.

But all that aside, RCIA is the one thing I do at the parish that consistently makes me feel awkward and unqualified. I'm fine with being there. It's when it's my turn to run a session that I feel like, well, like I used to when I was in a classroom and my principal was observing. Uneasy. I don't know why, although I have some hunches. Perhaps it's because I'm not ever sure I'm representing The Church as well as I should. Perhaps because I don't have the education or background of many of the other catechists--I have the least, in fact, I would venture to say. I know, someone has to be the least qualified and that doesn't mean I'm not qualified at all. I just get all worked up.

Sunday was my first RCIA session since our new candidate Joel joined us. And it went fine, although I wish we had two or three more candidates so that the dismissal catechesis, when we leave after the homily to go "break open the word" more on our own, would have more brains to draw on. The session after mass is even more awkward with just one candidate. On Sunday there were 4 catechists and his sponsor there, which is a big number considering there's only one of him. Nothing I could have added that would have brought more light to the conversation, really. But I was there and maybe that was enough.

I'm a pretty decent writer. I feel like I communicate well on paper. One of my readers (and amazing writer who is no longer blogging, alas) once compared me to Orwell that way--as he put it, "not in the feverishly dystopic way, but in how you put words on paper." Good prose is like a windowpane. The words shouldn't block the view. But when I'm called to take those words in my head and speak them? It doesn't go as well as I would like. It isn't the same.

So I'm struggling with RCIA. Hildegard says they need me. So I think I should stay. But I wonder if someone else would be better. So then I think I should back off. But who is that person? How do we find her? I don't know these answers. So I hang on for now, quietly dreading the Sunday when it's my turn but knowing that it is something that needs to be done. So I'll go eat my powder milk biscuits...which of course give shy people the strength to get up and do what needs to be done. Heavens they're tasty and expeditious.

20/365 Lazy River

Ok.

Our church was built in the early 20th century. At that point in history, baptisms were not especially public events. They didn't happen during mass, for instance. The Utah Vestibule was the baptistry, with a simple marble font watched over by cherub faces and a stained glass window of the baptism of Christ in the Jordan.

At some point in history, this font was moved to the front of church into the sanctuary. Then baptism became a public event, more at the heart of things than at the beginning (in the entryway).

I was baptized in a similar font--although 1970s groovier by far down in South County in a church with interior brick walls and chunky stained glass. My brother and one sister were baptized in the same place. My last sister, in 1985, in a similar small font at St. Bernadette's.

By the time I was having babies, our church had established this odd sort of hot tub fountain thing on wheels in the back of church. I cannot describe it more than that, really. It was paneled on the sides, there was a step up, dying plants adorned it, and the water was pumped up through a fountain to create the sound of running water at all times. That, I think, was the positive to this font. Nothing else. It was cumbersome, imposing, ugly, and awkward. Kind of like a guy named Bubba you don't want your daughter to date.

But my first two children were baptized there because that's what we had. I wasn't going to search around for someplace pretty. This was my parish.

In the general overhaul in the past few years, this font went away. Far away. We started using the small font up in front with the hope that someday we would be able to create a more appropriate one in the back (entrance area but still in the main part of church).

Three years ago, we had two adults who were going to be brought into the church at the Easter Vigil. The font in front was designed for infant baptism. We needed a new plan. We did not have the thousands of dollars required to build what had been recommended by the ad hoc committee on church redesign. But having Kevin, at over 6 feet tall, bend over that font to be baptized would have been ridiculous. So we improvised. We built a font in back out of a pond liner, stones surrounding it, and lots of plants. Lots. And it worked well for us.

Last Easter, we did the same. No adults coming into the church, but plenty of baby boys, including Leo. We baptized him there on Pentecost Sunday, Fr. Miguel splashing maybe a bit too much water in his face on that third go-round.

Lent is coming--and Easter of course after that. Easter water in a font in back? At coffee this morning Astrid asked about Worship Commission. I said I'd be going because we were going to talk about Lent and Easter. "Are we putting in that temporary font again?" she asked.

"Probably," I venture to guess.

She goes on to describe it to the other women at coffee. Astrid hates our temporary font. I believe she'd be fine with it if it were permanent instead of sort of makeshift. She has railed against it in the past and I'm sure she will again. She's not the only one. And in some ways I agree--when we used molded concrete bricks around it, it was, well, makeshift. But this past year we used cut stone and I liked it just fine. Of course what I want is a permanent one. But we have no money...

"And at that church in Kirkwood," she goes on to describe another church with a permanent font in back, "it's like a lazy river. Maeve would want to get in it and float down to the pool. That's not what we're going to do, is it?"

I assured her there would be no lazy river in the back of church.

21/365 Coffee is Helpful

I went to Worship Commission last night even though I was going to beg off because it was Leo's birthday. But it starts at 7:00 and we were done with the sour cream chocolate cake and the opening of presents by then.

I steeled myself for crazy. The combination of personalities is not always good. Even people I get along with really well, people I like, get on-edge at this meeting. So I drank a lot of coffee well into the afternoon yesterday. You know, self-medicating. Great. I don't use alcohol that way because I lose too much of myself. And there's a family history to avoid and one day at a time, I will not do that. But I do use caffeine that way. As far as I know, there is no "Coffee Drinkers Anonymous". It makes me more able to ignore certain people and makes me way more talkative, which is what I need. I have opinions. I just usually do not share them in this meeting because it's so punishing. But with coffee, well, I can't help but share sometimes.

I really wanted to go in spite of the atmosphere because we were going to talk about Lent and also review Advent and Christmas. So I wanted to be there. And I went.

It was a small group--who knows why but can I venture to guess--and the first thing that happened when I walked in was get handed a new parish pictorial directory. We spent almost a half hour perusing this and chatting, which was a good ice breaker, frankly.

Lynn, who can be strident and hard to handle, wasn't the worst she's ever been. Or maybe it was the caffeine. Everything she had to say--which of course was almost entirely negative or strangely self-referential with a cackle--just sort of rolled off my back for a change. She didn't like red at Christmas. She didn't like the Christmas proclamation. She thought melting down old candles and making our own for next Advent sounded like a brilliant plan. Hmm. There were other small things.

But I don't think it was as bad as usual. Hildegard didn't cross her arms in front of her and change the subject. Miguel didn't straighten and re-straighten his pen alongside his binder. Sr. Vanda kept talking. And Hazel didn't sit in sleepy depressed judgmental silence--as much as I probably disagree with Hazel's opinions, so often Lynn is so loud that nobody else adds anything anymore. And that's disappointing. We don't have to be all in agreement. We just, well, it would be nice to be able to say something and not be shot down in the rudest manner possible.

After December's disaster of a meeting, I never wanted to go back. But one of those little aphorisms kept coming to mind, like "evil flourishes when good men do nothing" or something like that. Not that she's evil, but it was sort of like that. If I walk away, then eventually it'll only be staff members and Lynn at worship meetings. And then what.

So I'll keep going. And I'll keeping showing up jittery and without filter because it's better that way. At least for me.

22/365 St. Joseph vs. Infant of Prague

It's an older story...from a worship commission meeting.

We were sitting at the table and the fact that our school building hasn't sold came up again. Someone--I don't remember who it was--mentioned St. Joseph and maybe burying a statue of him in the garden to help sell it.

See, it's a superstition, or devotion if you will, to pray to St. Joseph to sell your house. The usual method is to bury a statue of St. Joseph in your yard and then when it sells, dig him up and put him in a prominent place in your home. Don't leave him behind! Now, the details change with the storyteller. Some say to bury him right side up. Some say upside-down. Facing towards the house. Facing away. My parents always buried him upside-down facing away--and they sold 6 houses between 1985 and 2000. They still have the cheapy little St. Joseph statue on the mantel in their living room.

Hazel was sitting there at the table and wrinkled up her nose. "That's just superstition. We shouldn't do that." She sort of pooh-poohed it with her hand and shifted in her chair. Of course it is, right? But any little bit has to help, right? I don't know. I don't think it probably matters since I'm not the owner looking to sell (although I must admit I considered burying one in my neighbor's front yard when his house went up for sale).

Later in the meeting Fr. Miguel mentioned the Infant of Prague. Now, we have one of these statues in the back of church. Many churches do. They dress up the statue in fancy little dresses (Miguel mentioned that someone at a former parish said with a sigh, "Isn't she beautiful?" when, of course, the Infant of Prague is the Infant Jesus...). A question came up about perhaps why we would have such a devotion in our parish, why that statue, why not Gertrude or Bridget or various Our Lady's? A couple of folks mentioned that the Infant of Prague had many superstitions surrounding him--most involving money.

My own grandmother told me once that if Mike and I were having money trouble, we should place an Infant of Prague statue in our front hall, facing out the door, with a dollar bill under it. "You'll never have money trouble then." I mentioned this, and Hazel perked up.

"Oh yes," she said. And she went on to describe the devotion, as she called it, in great detail. And I remember sitting there thinking about the earlier conversation about Joseph. I didn't think she was wrong or a hypocrite or anything like that. I just wondered about how things like this get started and why they continue in some houses but not others. Why do some people bless their front doors for Epiphany? Why do others say St. Theresa the Little Flower novenas? Some people I know are obsessed with the rosary. Others with the Divine Mercy whatever that is. What's with all those icons of Our Lady of Perpetual Help? St. Christopher statues? The Sacred Heart of Jesus? Praying to St. Jude and having to give something back? For that matter, I'm always singing the little St. Anthony rhyme: Tony Tony look around, something's lost that must be found! I love St. Anthony. He's good to me.

Along with the layers and layers of intricate details involving the church year, the mass, the little rules that have more to do with us than God, I love these things. I love that we develop these devotions, or superstitions. I love that my mother used to burn palms on stormy nights when my father was working. That we said a Hail Mary before we left the driveway, every time we got in the car.

I don't have an Infant of Prague. And I don't plan on moving so I don't have a St. Joseph. But when my sister started looking for a house? I lit a St. Joseph votive in my front hall. Just to keep me thinking about it.

23/365 Trivia Night

All I got to say is that St. Cecilia's is on Alaska. We got the question right but the church is on Alaska. I know. The address is for the rectory. It still got me going. That's where Mike and I got married.

There was a whole category of that--the questions were all addresses of St. Louis city Catholic churches, and we had to name the church. We got 10/10, of course. We had two nuns at the table and I've got genealogy on my side. It was my favorite category this evening. That and the state capitals one. My least favorite? Talk show hosts. We had, umm, two nuns and me and Mike at our table. We were undermined by that category. Thank goodness for mulligans.

We came in third, which should not have happened. We were doing so poorly. I say this as someone who pretty much always places in the top three at trivia nights. At least in the last 8 years or so. I love trivia nights. They're my favorite fund raiser.

I hope this one made us some money. It was crowded enough and seemed to be a good time had by all sort of evening.

Miguel mentioned to me in an email earlier this month that a couple of questions he thought to himself, oh, Bridgett will know this one. I hope I got them right....and I wonder if he threw in the hardscrabble question because I use that as one of my internet handles.

Astrid's daughter Nissa babysat for us. We came home and lo and behold, all three kids were asleep. I'm going to stop this wrap up. I think there's some 30 Rock to catch up on. Or, perhaps the second-highest rated show in 2009. That would be Dancing with the Damned Stars.

24/365 It just slipped out of my mouth.

I was rushing into church Sunday morning. Just so you know, I'm always rushing into church Sunday morning. Sophia attends an atrium in the next neighborhood over and she gets out at 9:45. Just enough time to speed down Grand and scan the parking lot impatiently for a space. How I remember with fondness the leisurely walks to church 3 years ago. Not anymore. We're always in a hurry now.

Hildegard is standing in back. The procession is assembling. I smile and nod at them and she asks, "Are you children's liturgy today?"

"No," I remember back to the email. "Today is Jessica and Eva. But if they're not here, I'll do it."

We quickly moved past them and up the side aisle to the second pew, where we've decided to camp out a while. The entrance song plays. We pass the baby, we get Maeve settled. And then it hits me. I just totally volunteered to fly by the seat of my pants at children's liturgy. I guess I finally did make the decision to be that person. In a good way, I mean.

26/365 Girl Scouts

Technically Girl Scouts may not be a parish event, but we are commissioned from our church (as opposed to our school, for whatever reason) and we meet in the church basement.

Tonight we made a snack that required using a few kitchen bowls and spoons (Sr. Hildegard, if we need to do more than we did let me know but I think we cleaned it all up). We walked into the kitchen and my girls looked around at the details I don't even see anymore.

The singing fish plaque on the back of the door. The, well, everything marked "Property of Fish Fry." The sign on the wall for those serving on the line, reminding them that they are serving "our guests." Poppy asked who our guests were.

Our guests.

I was expedient and explained the fish fry. But I let that question float in my head while we learned about food safety and how to measure milk in a cup and how much milk did we need....who are our guests?

And that question was answered, for me, just a few minutes later when the buzzer rang and one girl scout trailed in late. Arcelia and her mother Yvonne are not my favorite people. Actually, Arcelia is just fine. Yvonne, though, is not someone I want to spend any time with, at all. In the recent past I have been somewhat thin-lipped and thinly-veiled with my emotions. I don't even know if she's noticed. Her behavior hasn't changed at all, for good or bad. Maybe....no, I'm pretty sure I've been behaving badly.

To our guests.

She came in with a flurry of her own emotions, hands waving in the air, bending forward when she talked to me, like she was aiming for me with her forehead. She followed me into the old atrium. She chatted to me as I got the girls centered on their next task.

"Can I stay? Can I help?"

I thought of something I'd read about Benedictine hospitality back when I was becoming an oblate (I have been remiss in Benedictine reading lately...). I think it was in How to Be a Monastic and Not Leave Your Day Job or one of those books by Br. Benet. How an elderly monk was on his way to do something that was important to him, whatever it was, when the doorbell rang and people had come to tour the monastery. He threw his hands in the air and muttered, "Now I have to do hospitality!" And then went to do it.

That is exactly how I felt as she asked those questions. "Sure," I answered, making eye contact. "I can always use another set of hands." I explained the activity. She mother-henned a bit more than I would have, but she stayed and maybe that's what she wanted to do. We got the activity done, had the snack, and then she stayed to help Jana and I clean up after the girls had left (the last bits in the kitchen, that is--the girls clean up their stuff all the time). I asked her if she'd like to come a bit early next time and help set up. She said she definitely would. I'm not sure if it will come to pass--she classically falls through on her promises--but I knew she was going to volunteer with hesitation and asking her, well, made it seem like she was doing me the favor instead of what was really the truth.

It probably wasn't my most Christian example of hospitality. But frankly, visiting my ailing grandmother is easy. Inviting new neighbors over for coffee is easy. Babysitting Dolores' granddaughter in a pinch is incredibly easy compared to handling the relationship with Yvonne. I have fantasies of paying her off. Of claiming there isn't going to be a troop next year and then sneaking around behind her back. Things that won't work.

I'm stuck with her.

I don't think we'll ever be friends, for many deep reasons, but I think I can manage to be nice. I broke the ice today. We'll see if I warm up more next time.

25/365 I'm not as Catholic as I thought I was

Huh.

I've been dabbling in genealogy again. I do that when I need to kick other bad habits or when I need something, anything, besides facebook to stare at when it's late at night and the computer is free. And it turns out I'm about half German and the other half is split, not evenly, between Irish and English--although the English is really Norman and we can trace it back incredibly far into France and beyond.

The English, of course, were not Catholic (recently Methodist, and before that, Anglican). The Irish, just as obviously, were--we were from western Ireland. The Germans I always simply assumed were, since the ones close at hand down in Perryville, my goodness, sent a priest to scope the place out before they moved en masse to southeast Missouri. This always makes me laugh a bit. The idea that Fr. Miguel would go find a good place for us to settle down in, say, Mongolia, and then send us 140 character messages on twitter to tell us where to go.

But recently I started looking through my grandmother's father's side of the family. Someone else has already done the hard part for me and all I have to do is click to accept once I see that the dates match and the names make sense. I prefer hunting for the Irish amongst the diaspora as opposed to this orderly (German) way of having it all spelled out for me. But it is good to get done as well.

But I was looking closely at the records and things just didn't seem...Catholic. And a quick Google search (of course) found what I suspected. Lutherans. I was disappointed, I'll admit. But then I looked at some other records.

Mennonites!

I will not hide my excitement.

I know it has nothing to do with my current parish life. But it made me want to call the one Mennonite friend I have and tell her. Dork that I am. I'll probably tell her anyway when I see her (our daughters attend the same school).

But what it does have to do with, parish-wise, is conversion. My mother's mother converted from Methodism. Obviously somewhere along the line somebody converted from Lutheranism. And how did the Mennonites get mixed up with Catholics in Pennsylvania, home of the Quakers, anyhow?

It always fascinates me to hear stories of conversion. Some convert, I'm sure, because of a friend or a spouse. A few from going to Catholic school. But I always marvel at the ones that come alone--or with a casual acquaintance who told them, sure, I'll take you to church...the spirituality of the human heart fills me with a great joy. And although I remain Catholic, I understand those who leave better sometimes than those who join. At least, those who leave for something (instead of for nothing). Search, seek, come and see. Or bloom where you're planted. But be alive.

27/365 So Sorry

I've been meaning to say something since before Christmas. But I never know how to approach this. We've chatted since then about many things, but finally I just walked up to her after the meeting and looked her in the eye.

"Are you and Frank no more?"

She gave me that grim look that meant yes. "We are on the way to being no more, yes."

"I am so sorry," I said, and I meant it.

"Thank you," she said, and she meant it.

She didn't say any more, and I didn't either. But not awkwardly. There wasn't anything more to say.

28/365 Universal Church

Long ago I remember sitting in a high school theology class and the teacher, a convert from the Lutheran Church, said that the most wonderful part about Catholicism, for her, was the universality. How she could go into a church in Paris, or in Seattle, or Mexico City, and it would be the same. Yes, in the language of the people, but the same. She would know what was going on. She could find out ahead of time the readings for the week. Nothing was based on the whim of a preacher deciding what to preach that Sunday. Sameness.

And I thought that was a nice idea. Somewhere in the world, at all times, mass is going on, and it's my denomination's version of it. It is still a nice idea. I just don't think it's so true for me anymore.

I visit my in-laws in southern Illinois and when I attend mass there, I have many moments where my feet want to get up and walk out. More importantly, my heart already has walked out. So I simply do not attend anymore because it was getting to the point that it was detrimental to my faith life. Same with traveling. I used to make a point to find a church and attend mass while I was on the road. But not anymore. I'm so much more likely to leave rolling my eyes and thinking what a waste of time that was instead of being inspired.

Why is this? I think I've found my little corner of Catholicism here in South St. Louis (and in a monastery in Western Missouri) and the universality of Catholicism is important to me not because of the sameness but because the world is a big place. In a big place there can be much diversity. I am part of the church--I am the Church--and knowing that, I can find my way.

This causes me great difficulty sometimes when it comes to ecumenism. I have a hard time saying that I fit into the Catholic Church but others do not. This makes RCIA a difficult place to serve, but a good place nonetheless.

29/365 Name Tags

The other day at coffee Astrid said it would be so nice if we wore name tags at church. I mentioned that the parish where I was baptized did wear them for a long time--it was a brand new parish with no history at all, and everyone was new. They were gray with white raised letters--probably made on some handheld punch machine. But durable--my mother's is still in her jewelry box along with other trinkets that won't make any sense in another generation. Everybody wore them and nobody felt embarrassed for not knowing someone.

So many times, especially in the past 5 years, someone will say "Good morning Bridgett" at church and I can reply with a friendly greeting but not with a name. And they know me well enough to use my first name...or at least know OF me well enough. I am shy by nature on top of being rather oblivious to details sometimes, and so I'm mortified. Sometimes I figure it out through other connections. Or I ask someone I trust. But other times I just wish we had a better way.

We had a good idea--a parish pictorial directory. When it came out, we sat in that Worship Commission meeting for a half hour perusing. But it wasn't complete. So many families didn't participate at all. There were still regular faces at mass completely unknown to me. I am in and out so much--with each baby I was down for the count for a bit, and of course there have been several long stretches where I didn't go at all. If I introduce myself now, what will that look like? Then again, when it happens to me, I never take it personally. No, sometimes I do. But not usually.

But upon further reflection sitting in Astrid's kitchen watching Leo play on the floor, I thought about the transient nature of our parish. How folks come and go and sometimes come back but sometimes disappear into the ether. Name tags? They probably wouldn't work. An idea whose time is not now, not here.

30/365 Pipes

From below, the pipe organ. Our organ is a "Kilgen organ of moderate size, in working playable condition", even though we don't play it very often. I've heard it at 10 a.m. mass perhaps 3 times. They may use it more at the other masses, but I'm thinking not. We have a shortage of piano players, much less organ players.

The grate on the right hand side is on the ceiling--it's an air vent. The ceiling is curved, but the outside of the building is gabled. I remember Fr. Bill mentioning once that there's a crawlspace above the ceiling. Yeah. Let's go see.

31/365 Sorry about the delay

I'm sorry I'm behind on these. This week got away from me in a lot of ways. And, to top it off, I haven't been at church for mass or meetings! So I'm going to totally cheat here and just skip ahead to February 5!

36/365 (skip a few, Brother..) The breezeway

There is a ventilation duct that goes down the center of church in the ceiling. So "goes down" is not really the bad descriptor I want. "Runs the length of" would be better. There are holes in the ceiling of church with grates on them, and I sat there for many years wondering what those holes were for.

Eventually, I was told what they were for. And I was told that somehow there was a passage to them. I never considered the possibility that they were accessed from the bell tower, but they are.

I've been up the first set of steps, high enough up to turn on the incandescent bulb with a string pull. But abject terror (I love that phrase) kept me at bay. Now I hear Miguel and Jack could take me up there. Perhaps someday.

All I know is that one time, little Sadie O'Toole turned to me and asked where Dolores was. "Dolores?" I confirmed. "Why do you need to talk to Dolores?"

"She's going to take me up into the ceiling of church," Sadie explained. Sadie is my daughter's age. At the time, she was probably about 5. I wonder if Dolores took her up there. Perhaps I need to stop my silly fearful handwringing and just go. It would make good pictures, after all. Documentation.

37/365 History: Our First Time

We sat in the back half of the church, to one side. We didn't know anyone in the room. I had talked with the pastor on the phone, briefly, long enough for him to convince me to give it a try. It was June.

We walked out the front door and found Fr. Bill on the steps. He's so much younger than I expected, I thought to myself. My grandmother made him out to be older. I know this is the guy, though. She couldn't have put it more clearly: Go there. Fr. Bill Richardson is there and he's so charismatic. I needed charismatic. After we left the Jesuits in college, we church-hopped. Fr. Stoker down at St. Cecilia's was not charismatic. The really really horribly old priest in residence at St. Henry's Immaculate Conception wasn't either. No, that isn't the real name of our former parish. I just like to pretend it was.

At the time, I was about to start teaching at another Catholic school run by very un-charismatic unapproachable alcoholic priests. I was 23. Catholic schools were comfortable even though they didn't pay for nothin'. We'd bought our house, though, on Mike's salary alone, so any additional was better than the assistant teacher's salary out in the ritzy private school in the county. To be honest, I sought out the parish partially because I needed something to fill a void in my life, but the biggest reason was so I could talk about a parish at school.

Seriously. I needed an experience that would match, closely enough, the experience of my team teacher or my assistant or the music teacher I would sit next to at lunch. Later in the year this would prove fruitful when my pastor was interviewed on TV about the Pope's upcoming visit. Mrs. Matusek turned to me in the faculty lunchroom while everyone was talking at once and said, "that pastor of yours! His face belongs on television!" She was always falling for inappropriate unavailable men.

But that would be later. At the moment, we stood on the front granite steps regarding each other.

"We'd like to join the parish," I announced.

After a duel of calendars, all three of us realized that right then was the best time. He showed us how to go downstairs for coffeeanddonuts and promised he'd be right behind. He was. Ten minutes later we were filling out the paperwork.

"I think I'll have Frank and Jessica call you," he said, staring out into the middle distance and clicking his pen. "Young couple like yourselves, energetic, welcoming. Just to help you make a connection."

We left without parting gifts. It's not like signing your child up for kindergarten or signing on the loan for a house or a car. All you do is say sure, I'll come here for mass. And we did.

God, we were young.

38/365 History: Finding a Niche

It's hard to find a place. Once you find a place, it's hard to find your way into the place. Having spent most of my childhood packing and unpacking boxes, I knew there was a lot of "finding my way" that was on back order. I would talk about this with Fr. Bill over the first few years we were at the parish. How I was always leaving and really didn't want to. Not just the parish, but everything: marriage, friendship, neighborhood, jobs, commitments. He would challenge me to stick it out. For all his faults (and mine, being a damned liar that I am) he saw that yearning for stability writ large in my life.

Our first year there, out of the blue, he asks the two of us to join a committee to bring a prayer group project to the parish. Based on a program my mother had been involved in back when I was a child, this one was adding the futuristic "2000" to the name. Renew 2000, like the "Fridge-O-Matic 5000" or some other silly faux product. At our first meeting, I don't remember who else might have been there, but Dawn Armstrong was. By the end of that meeting, she had appointed herself and my husband as co-chairs and I decided I didn't like her very much.

Before the program even got launched, she realized this about me. I don't, well, I don't hide my feelings with much success. She confronted me on the phone and brought up three instances that made her wonder what the hell my problem was. Those weren't her words. But that was the tone. I was terrified. She asked if she could come over to talk about it. She was there the following night and I had to explain, basically, what a flake I was.

I think about this when I have trouble with Lynn or, for a time, with Dolores. Or Yvonne or wonder where I screwed up with Judy and her husband. I think about how it is to be in a parish and try to really be in it. How personalities clash, people get offended, and then people walk away. How brave (and terrifying) Dawn was to show up at my house and ask for an explanation for my jerk behavior. And how, in the end, it made me a better person. She wasn't going to walk away from our parish. It would have had to have been me if it had come to blows. Obviously it did not.

That would be later, and it wouldn't be with Dawn.

39/365 History: RCIA

It took me a while to realize that Sr. Liz attended our parish. She'd taught one of the classes I'd taken in the Theology department at SLU--Women in a Theological Perspective, which was an interesting choice for me, being nothing like a feminist at the time. Sr. Liz didn't change all that, by any means. It took me a while to get where I am. But she held class in her office in Verhaegen Hall, holding her dachsund Roxie on her lap. She was soft-spoken and this made her words all the harder to take. She could knock you flat.

It was about the time Fr. Bill asked me if I planned to be confirmed at some point--he was gearing up, it turns out, to interview me for a position at the school, but I think wanted all my ducks in a row. Or something. I sort of shrugged. It would probably be a good idea.

Sr. Liz ran RCIA. Sitting around the table with her were Fr. Bill and Dawn Armstrong. And Ralph, the deacon. This wasn't going to work, I kept thinking.

But it did. Sr. Liz became my sponsor and I decided Dawn wasn't so annoying after all. In fact, I liked her just fine. I was in a class, I guess you could call it, with a middle-aged guy named Jim who was converting from Pentecostalism. He made it worth my time, frankly. He had so much to say and was open to anything. It was my first set of real conversations with a convert and I've been fascinated by stories of conversion ever since.

I joined the RCIA program in Lent and was confirmed that Easter Vigil. I'd never been to an Easter Vigil. I've been almost every year since.

As I stood there in a moment before I was drowned in chrism oil, Jim stood next to me, far more nervous than I was. I was simply sewing up some loose ends--he was changing a lot about his direction, his path. I stood there while Fr. Bill talked about the ceremony, and Jim started whispering: Dear Jesus, let this be your will. Over and over again. It was a little unnerving.

We made it through and went downstairs afterward for cake from Dickmann's Bakery, with the strawberry filling, the one that Fr. Bill always liked so much. Sr. Liz gave me a bible, the New American I use as reference all the time, since its pages are sturdier than the one Br. Stephen gave me back in 7th grade ("To my bible trivia champ").

Fr. Bill moved on to other things. Sr. Liz lives with her community now. We've lost touch--her health was fragile and the mother house is far away. But Jim is a deacon now in the diocese somewhere. I suppose it was Jesus' will after all. And I'm still here.

40/365 A Tweet from Fr. Miguel

The worst Mass at home is better than the best Mass most everyplace else. Good thing Jesus is in charge of all that and not me.

He's on a trip, or at a meeting or something. I've been gone from the parish for two weekends in a row so I'm out of the loop. But it made me happy when I read that.