Yes, I wore Rose today but I stressed it wasn’t pink, although I am secure enough in my masculinity to wear pink but this is Rose.
In my homily at the 10:30am Mass in church and the 5:30pm tonight, I talked about Joy. It seems to be a quality of life that a lot of people are missing. I don’t imagine that John the Baaptist was full of joy in that prison from which he sent word to ask Jesus if he was the Messiah who would overthrow the Romans and restore the Kingdom of David. Jesus gave such a clear answer, “Tell John, what you see. The blind have sight, the deaf can hear, and the poor have the Good News preached to them” He was saying I am the Messiah, but I am the “suffering servant” of Isaiah. So, John had to rethink his notion of Messiah. Sometimes we have to do that. If Jesus has inaugerated a Kingdom of peace and joy, then we must live in such a manner of joy that people will come to know that the Kingdom has come and all its members live like Jesus – out of the abundance of love.
We didn’t have anything special for Our Lady except for his picture and lots of flowers and candles. After Communion, I stood before her imagine and asked her to bless all the peoples of the Americas.
After Mass, some people asked for confession and I was able to do that, which is almost my favorite sacrament. Tomorrow, we will hear confessions for Blessed Sacrament School.
Beside the Masses, I went on Amazon and wrote two reviews of books, Swampoodle and Mightly and Sweetly, a biography of Mother Josephine, who began the Sisters of St. Joseph of Hartford.
I also stopped over and saw Jim & Sandy Vidas, Deacon John & Marge Locke, and Jane and Robert Jackson, all of whom were in a Teams of Our Lady group that I was chaplain for when I was last assigned uptown. We had a great visit and a chance to “catch up”.
Fr. Jim and I just switched Masses for tomorrow. He has a funeral at 11, so I will take the 8:00am, so I am off to bed early as I will rise early.
Tony Pogerlc, our presider, focused on “patience” and what he plans to do the next couple of weeks. I never thought that multi-tasking pushed against patience, but the more I considered it today, I can see he was right. Thank goodness we have 2 full weeks left to prepare for Christmas!