I might not get to talk with you again until Easter. I'll try. But you realize that we are terrifically busy this week changing the altar and dusting the pews. Sister St. Aloysius is doing very well with her arm. She doesn't even have to wear her cast very much.
Isn't that amazing? Remember the days when, if you broke your arm in three places and the bone was sticking through the skin, you'd be wearing a big heavy clunky cast for at least six weeks while your skin underneath it sort of rotted off? Oh! the opportunity for suffering!
She still suffers. The plate in her arm hurts all the time, poor thing. The doctor told her the other day that her x-ray is the kind one only sees in med school. It certainly is the kind of thing I would like to never see because I am not in med school. Now a picture of it is on the refrigerator with a Immaculate Conception magnet. They don't make a St. Drogo magnet. He would be the patron saint of broken bones.
I digress.
As usual.
The whole broken arm thing is going to slow us down quite a bit, even though her range of motion is improving. The altar is completely stripped for Good Friday and at our parish we put up a large cross. Then before Easter Sunday the large cross gets the "He is Risen" sign tacked onto it and the lilies have to be arranged. All the purple things go. Everything turns white. And we have to find everything. You never know when some well meaning parishioner will come in and put things away in an effort to be helpful and then we can never find it again. Our "He is Risen" sign, for example, is only a year old because the old one was sucked into the vortex of well meaning parishioners.
Happily for us, we know to pray to St. Therese the Little Flower, the patron saint for people who are annoyed by the annoying habits of others.
Somewhere in there, we're going to do a batch of brownies. This time they'll be in something Easter-y.
But keep the questions coming. I do love to visit and check on the ongoing discussions. I'm sure there are some questions I have missed
7 comments:
In our parish, the one who knows where everything is moved to Alaska. We'll manage somehow.
Thank you, Sister! Best wishes for good health all around, a deep experience of the triduum, and a very happy Easter full of blessings. I am home from singing in the choir for a Tennebrae service -- a long meditation in darkness, with Renaissance anthems in Latin, on the sufferings of Jesus. Now we've got to get all those basins and towels out so Father can wash some feet ....
Hi Sister, and Happy Triduum! Could you shed a little light on the tradition of "stripping" the alter after Holy Thursday liturgy?
Have a very blessed Easter!
Dear Sr. MM, It's me again, Alexa. I have a question for you. My pastor isn't able to make an appointment with me until after Easter festivities die down, apparently, so I haven't gotten any advice from him yet about the question, but will still be asking him what he thinks.
The question is this: My oldest son, who is 26 years old got engaged to a girl in October who is Catholic, but non-practicing. My son himself is Catholic and hasn't been practicing for more than a year now - primarily because he doesn't drive, worked 7pm to 7am on Saturday nights (stocking shelves at a grocery store) and Sunday nights (so he'd sleep instead of going to Mass) and said he couldn't afford a taxi to get to Mass each Sunday and back. The church nearest to his apartment was 4 miles away. He lived about 30 minutes away from us.
He also claims he doesn't "agree with everything the Catholic church teaches" - but says he's still Catholic. ?
He is not the brightest bulb on the tree - but has been a good son for the most part - with the exception of lying to me here and there about various aspects of his lifestyle (i.e., smoking, getting into debt, promiscuity)...
So. Now he is engaged to a girl who is 3 years younger than he and she has a daughter who just turned 2 years old. The daughter's father is "not in the picture" - has never met the child and apparently is not interested in meeting the child and gives no support.
My son plans to adopt the child after they are wed and loves the little girl as a Daddy would. In fact, the little girl is apparently calling him "Daddy" ever since they've become engaged. And no, I am positive it is not his child.
The two of them met on the internet - and were engaged within a month or two of having met...
His fiancee lived an hour away from him and would visit him (she drives and borrowed her parents' car, as she lives with her parents).
Her parents (both on their second marriages) are Catholic and apparently "go to Mass every Sunday".
The father of my future daughter-in-law one day suggested that my son quit his full-time job (that has good benefits) and move in with them so that he could establish residency in their town and thereby be eligible for a position as a garbage man for the city - a job which he apparently has a way of getting my son on the top of the list for...but at the moment there is a "hiring freeze".
So. My son did just that and told me he would be living "in their basement". Then it slipped out that no, he is actually shacking up with his fiancee in her bedroom of her parents home - and it's "okay with her parents".
I pretty much knew that that would be the case - and didn't buy the crap about him living in their basement - and never approved of the whole idea and told him so.
As an aside, our son also has difficulties managing his money and we've recently had a creditor calling our home for him - even though we have different last names (my son's father passed away 16 years ago, you may remember, and I remarried).
The fiancee's parents, I was told, gave them $6000 for a wedding. My son called us the other day asking if we would help them fund the wedding a bit financially because they don't have enough money.
We said, "no". We said we would pay for the "rehearsal dinner" for out of town guests and the bridal party. They called back and wanted us to forget the rehearsal dinner and give, instead, them the $$ to help pay for the wedding.
We said, "no".
Then I let it all out - I told him (and she was listening in) that we didn't have to pay for anything at all - and certainly not for a wedding in the Catholic church that looks like it is more than likely going to be a hypocritical farce - as they are not practicing the faith and are living in sin.
I also am of the opinion that this girl has got everything to gain and nothing to lose by marrying my son - and my son has everything to lose. The few times (maybe 4 times) I've have been in their presence together, I have noticed that she doesn't treat him very kindly and criticizes him. She is very very large and has health issues that my son won't tell me about - she is apparently on disability and welfare. She also puts her daughter in daycare 5 days a week from 9am until 4:30pm when Grandpa picks her up at the daycare worker's house and brings her home. What does my son's fiancee do all day?? Well, I was told she cleans the house and studies for her GED. She is a high school drop out.
That's one clean house, eh?
I'm being tedious in details here because I hope to paint as much of the picture as I can -
bottom line is that I'm thinking of writing to the pastor of the church they're planning on getting married in and telling him they are not living chastely, nor do they go to Mass on Sunday.
I thought of CC-ing the letter to my son and his fiancee as well to be in the open.
I thought that whether or not we attend the wedding would be based on whether or not there IS a wedding after the pastor knows the situation.
Regardless, I am fairly confident that my son is about to step off a cliff and I feel powerless to stop him.
He will resent my interfering - he resents my "ultra conservative" ideals anyhow - and though he loves me, I know that he feels that if he doesn't grab this opportunity for marriage, he'll never find anyone again willing to marry him.
I'm prepared - more or less - to stand up for what is right, regardless of the outcome - even if he never speaks to me again.
As it is, I am fairly certain she is filling his head with prejudices against me and my husband - as are probably her parents.
It's as though he's living in some secular cult over there and they've brainwashed him.
If you haven't any advice - please pray for him will you? His name is George.
Thank you.
Alexa roalgeroc at yahoo dot ca
Oh no, my cat ate my palm leaf. Are we both going you know where?
Also Sister, I have been reading up about St. Pio and it seems many think his stigmata is a hoax. Also that he was mentally ill. I was hoping to learn good things about him but it seems so fake.
I heard on NPR the other day that if we dump our loved ones ashes into the ocean it takes 25 years and our little pieces will cover the world. I wanted to be dumped into Lake Superior. Would it be better to sneak into the cometary at night and dump me into a quick hole in the ground near a loved one?
Christine
We had a cat who ate palms. He would go to great lengths to get to them. Then, he'd go to great effort to replace the undigested remains on the floor. Ick.
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