110104 notes to sons

Jack and Thom,
Good morning, I love you
110104, 1011

Happy New Year!

I’m mobile for the first time this year. I got back from Frank’s funeral about 2030 Friday. In time to welcome the new year at the stroke of twelve in GSO. I wrote a letter to Grandpa – who continues to have a computer only as a boat anchor in his basement – that details the trip to and from Rockville Center. Continue to pray for Frank and, in his grief as well as recuperative efforts, Grandpa.

On Saturday I had four readings to do. Coincidental. I signed up for the 10 a.m. Mass for Mary Mother of God. No longer a holy day of obligation, though I continue to feel obliged. As often as I argued once that our Church has too many obligations I now wonder if we don’t have enough ‘obligatory guidance.’ I wonder if we lifted obligations because people stopped feeling obliged or stopped caring about fulfilling our obligations. A slippery slope leading to, in America, the second largest religious group being ‘lapsed Catholics?’

But, I had only one reading to do at the ten. The coordinator for that Mass had found someone to accept the second reading assignment. For the vigil of the feast of the Epiphany, our liturgical coordinator knew that the person doing the second reading was not going to show – no call, no sub, no show. That gave me both readings – profound for us Gentiles, difficult to proclaim, easier to read in silence – and the responsorial psalm. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat in the nave and railed to myself about one person taking on so many roles. It’s a defect in our system. We have a plethora of volunteers. Too many people let the system fall to the default mode and don’t make the outreach that the coordinator for the morning Mass did.

So we prepare for and deliver the readings. Then the priest preaches on the Gospel with no reference to the other two readings. Go figure. Disheartening. Why make all that effort to deliver the Word in a way that resonates with the congregation and then be ignored in the sermon? Don’t get me wrong. Fr Allen is an excellent homilist. But Isaiah and Paul deserve some inclusion in the homily, don’t you think?

By Sunday I was burrowed in my cave, life strewn around mumbling at me to pack it up, get organized – again, it’s a new year, what other excuse do you need. So I wrote for the day. And for another day yesterday.

But today. January 4th. Feast of Elizabeth Ann Seton. In honor of Aunt Monica, I got my ass to Mass. Now to panera’s. Later to the library to work on my next project.

Aunt Monica. At Frank’s wake, there was a picture of Frank with Monica. If you want to imagine what Monica looked like, pull up pictures of Mother Seton in her most modern garb. Or vice versa. I was surprised that my cousin Larry, the youngest of all of us cousins, had his memories of Monica. I had guessed that Monica died before he was born. Obviously not. He had stories of his father, my uncle, Grandpa’s brother, Arch, taking him and Elizabeth to visit Aunt Monica – aka Sr Anita Rosaire – at the convent, retirement home, infirmary in Westchester. His memories, when he was maybe five-ish, seem to be clearer than mine of the same period in Monica’s life. I do remember, and still have in a box, her letters, her wit, her encouragement, her fundamental holiness. Ora pro nobis.

I love you
Dad
1039