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.