Jan 15 Ita 6th c

Jack and Thom
Good Morning, I love you

Is being Eucharistic Minister like being an altar boy like playing at being priest? The altar boy period, fifth grade through sophomore year was a play at being priest. A prep of myself toward becoming a priest. It was a rise through service to leadership. It was a ‘here I am doing sumthin you ain’t.’ ‘I learned the Latin, you din’t.’ I tell you, learning the rituals and priests’ peccadilloes was much tougher than memorizing the Latin.

[The publicity of men who were “abused” as altar boys would make you think it was a common, every day, every priest, every kid sort of thing. Let’s not let data dissuade our misbeliefs. Plus, it did not happen to me. It did not happen to anyone I knew – and as head altar boy for two years, I knew all the altar boys in the parish. I did not hear about it happening to any boy, not even a whispered rumor – and we had plenty of rumors about our priests. Maybe being fat and ugly had its advantages.]

Being an altar boy is genuinely a life time duty and opportunity. Look at any daily mass, even some of the Sunday Masses, see all the old guys helping out when there are no children or a deacon. It was a privilege to be assigned altar boy duty in the novitiate: except for it usually being a six a.m. Mass in a private chapel. There must have been more than a dozen priests at the novitiate for the sixty or seventy novices and juniors. It’s not about making like a priest any more. It’s the ingrained attitude of service to our priest. (For whom do you have that ingrained attitude?)

I ask the EM question because I’m doing that this evening. As a child, we paraded up to the altar rail, knelt hip to hip, as three or four priests with the altar boy and his paten, zipping along the row putting the host on our outstretched tongue. [I tell you from my altar boy experience, tongues are not pretty; and there are some very ugly specimens of tongue out there. The circumstance of ‘the tongue’ would make a ‘metamorphosis’ type short story. Think about all you know about tongues. And if you don’t know a lot about tongues, I recommend against having one stuck into your mouth.]

With Vatican II, we returned to receiving communion under both species. Even in my childhood there would not have been enough priests to do both the host and the wine and get us out of church in less than five hours. So, the Church rejuvenated the ‘extraordinary minister of the Eucharist.’ The priest and deacon are the ordinary ministers. Unlike some protestant denominations, we don’t take our cup of wine, we receive the body and blood of Christ. For us to receive it, we have to have some one to give it. Notice, not even the EMs take the chalice from the altar. The priest gives it to us. We receive as an intermediary for others to receive.

Look at the people who are EMs. Men and women of all sizes, shapes, ages, and, sometimes, colors. [Not much diversity in the parishes of Greensboro. But we do have our ‘black’ church so everyone’s covered.] Are these people looking to play like priests? Or fulfilling their baptismal priestliness? Or wanting to serve from the front of the church? Look around in the parish. It is those who serve who are the leaders.

It is a privilege to be a EM. The piety and the personal ecstasies that people display, that EMs get to see up close and personal, are a privilege totally unanticipated when I started doing this in the novitiate. I didn’t realize it then. I didn’t see but flashes of it for the longest time. Now I see it commonly in the eyes, on the faces of the people who come to receive from us the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

But I digress. Today we’re up to the 15th of January. St Ita. Have you known an Ita? I haven’t. If you have, the name probably flowed from this saint. She is also known as Midre and Deidre. I have known a Deidre. Only one. Dee for short. She wasn’t short, though. An attractive woman of slightly above average height and slightly below average weight; a whirlwind of energy; smart and happy; someone to know and admire.


January 15

Ita

Ita was reputedly of royal lineage. She was born at Decies, Waterford, Ireland. Waterford crystal. Here waiting for you. A collection started before you were born. The best way, if not the only way, to savor Middleton’s or Bushmill’s green or any of a number of nectars of the gods.

Ita refused to be married. She secured her father's permission to live a virginal life. Since her father was probably at least a chieftain, his daughter was a valuable chit in the life of the clan, in their relationship with friendly and hostile neighbors. Not to mention her responsibility to bear future chieftains. Her father loved his daughter immeasurably. What behooved him to release her from her familial obligations? Maybe she was eighth of twelve children. Clearly she a typical Irish woman; she knew her own mind and insisted on following it. Maybe it was because she agreed to leave Waterford.

Ita moved to Killeedy, Limerick, and founded a community of women dedicated to God. A genuine Irish Warrior Princess and dedicated to God. At a minimum we are called to imitate Ita in our founding our own community – aka family – dedicated to God. Unfortunately, that often requires moving on to another county. In your case, that may be the best proposition. Spread your wings and fly with The Spirit.

Ita founded a school for boys. Note, school! The Irish way! A foremost responsibility, especially for our own children, is to educate. Educate in the faith. Educate in our Traditions. Educate for holiness. With any luck, you’ll find an Ita to educate you and foster the proper education of your children.

One of Ita’s pupils was St. Brendan. You will have many students of your own throughout your life time. Here I am 61 and I’m teaching a handful of third graders. You are lucky when you have one genius along the way. A student that much smarter than you – an Aquinas to your Albertus Magnus. You’ll also be blessed with a St Brendan, too. A holy one. You may not recognize the saintly one in your midst or the one who will become a saint. You must treat all your students as Brendans: people for whom you are responsible to bring to God and once on their path are likely to bring us along with them.

Many extravagant miracles were attributed to Ita. (In one of them she is reputed to have reunited the head and body of a man who had been beheaded. Women do that to and for us all the time! Pray that it is an Ita who does it to you. In another she lived entirely on food from heaven. But isn’t all food a gift to us from heaven? Bless us oh Lord and these THY gifts… How will your life be different when you always remember that the food you eat is a gift from heaven?]

Ita was reportedly asked, which of the three foibles of mankind did God most detest? “A scowling face, obstinacy in wrongdoing, and too great a confidence in the power of money.” We each have these foibles to some degree. How would your life be better were you to eliminate these traits from your repertoire, one at a time? Go for it.

I love you
Dad
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