What Paddy Shot At

I have been beset by devils! As I was typing last night, the computer froze up on me and wouldn’t let me type.

I was saying that the deacon said that there was much dislike of Hook’s painting of the “laughing Jesus”. He later did one called Jesus with the children and again Jesus is smiling. The deacon told of the conflict so that we would know that Sally loved the smiling Jesus and smiled just like him to all those she met. I think that is a great thing to be said about you.

In that message that I hadn’t been able to get out, I also talked about the 5:30pm Mass on Saturday, which was about the Beatitudes. I was blessed to meet in the first few months I came here to SBS, a lovely lady who had just learned she had inoperable cancer. I came to see her a couple of times a week and we had great talks – and laughs! January 29, 2011 was the first anniversary of her death and two of her five children were coming to the Mass. I hadn’t intended to talk about her but as I prepared my homily on the first beatitude, I couldn’t help but speak about her.

After Mass, a young family came up to speak to me and tell me that their son was away a few weeks ago when we had our First Penance. Could I celebrate it with him.  I love such opportunities and because of the “seal of confession” I can’t tell you anything about it except that when we finished, he, Jesus, and I were all smiling!!

Then I went out to dinner with Pat, a daughter from Atlanta, and Terry, a daughter from Cape Cod, who runs a cookie business. We laughed and talked about Jackie (their mom) and when they left me, I had two packets of cookies – that I am sharing with my rectory mates.

Well that brings you up to date on Saturday

On Sunday, Deacon Mike Roach, from Pittsburgh (and Catholic University) preached at my Mass at 12:30. He gave a great homily and I was glad not to repeat mine from Saturday night.

After Mass, I headed to the Beltway to go to Southern Maryland for a TEAM meeting. Imagine my surprise when I got on at Conneticutt Ave and discovered that an accident at Georgia Avenue had the whole beltway at a standstill. It took my an hour to get to Georgia, which was the first off ramp I came to. I called the TEAM and told them I was going home to a nice welcoming bed.

I tried to write that night and it didn’t work either, so now you are up to date on Sunday.

Monday, I got up early and joined my rectory mates at “exercise”. We have a trainor, Jeremy, who comes twice a week. I have avoided them for over a year but I went  that morning, since I ate whatever I wanted on the cruise and the pants I wore down to Florida, I couldn’t fit into on the day we were coming home. I’m glad I went and will try to join them each day they meet.

I had the 11am Mass and Patrick Mullan, a seminarian at Mt. St. Mary’s, who had been my last seminarian at St. Michael’s and who lived with us here at SBS last year, came down to give a talk for Catholic Schools’ Week. He joined me for Mass and afterwards, we went to lunch and “caught up”. He is a second year Theologian and will be ordained a deacon in the Spring of 2012. Everyone – including me – loves him

I drove down to Maggie’s and took a nap. Had some supper and then Kerri and Tim came and we had another one of our “pre-cana” meetings and then we played cards.

I got up early on Tuesday and after dropping Kerri at school, I drove over to St. Michael’s to be a “Celebrity Reader” as part of their celebration of Catholic Schools Week. I loved it. I read about Eyegore’s birthday from Winnie the Pooh to two groups of the little children and I read from Harry Potter to the 6th to 8th graders. I was so good to see the children and how much they have grown. I was very pleased at the number of names that came back to me. I loved seeing the teachers and there were a few parents, including the Greenwell family, who had a five day old to show me. I married them and baptized their first two children. Claire I had seen in her classroom but Joey, who is only 5 isn’t in school yet and he came withhis parents and as soon as he saw me, he said, ” Hi, Father O’Connell!” It was worth three times the drive just to hear that!!!!

As I left Ridge, I stopped into the Day Care center but Miss Mary (Norris) was out on break so I missed her but I saw Miss Dana and the children. One of whom was Kyle Kovich, whose brother Nicholas, I saw at St. Michael’s and whose grandparents are my dear friend John & Shirley.

I came home and had the 5:30pm Mass, and afterward I went to the rectory to try to write something and that’s when my computer “froze”.

Today, Mark McCaffery, who is just the best office manager in the world and won’t give up till he solves the problem came and made this computer in the parish center work in spite of itself.

While he was hard at work, I went off to say the 11:00am Mass. I talked about this being the day on which many religious communities took and repeated their vows, so we remember all the sisters, brother, and religious order priests who have served us so well and asked God to bless them.

As soon as Mass was over, I headed to the St. John Vianney House, which was the former convent at Holy Redeemeer parish in Kensington. it is now a house for prayer, meetings, and to relax in for the priests of the Archdiocese. I have stayed over night when I use to come up from Ridge for meetings. It’s very homey. We hold our “Senior and Retired priests” meetings there on the first Wednesday of each month. I tried to go to them becaue Frs, Kane, Duffy, Liston, Hill, and Bishop Olivier come and we “catch up” and then have a nice lunch. Today I sat with Fred McIntyre, Sal Vittorino, John Brady, and the Bishop. It was very pleasant as we talked about the liturgical changes and basically agreed they don’t have enough to keep them busy in Rome and that why they keep upsetting the people with more changes! Who would have ever thought that I would be on that side of change??

You are now up to date!  And now that this computer works, I’ll try to get the one in the rectory fixed, so I can get back on track with Paddy.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011 at 3:13 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.