This morning we had a substitute priest at our parish; this is his third year spending about a month in Alaska giving our pastor a hand, and we are grateful for his sacrifice coming here and helping our pastor out! As I understand it, each will be saying two weekend Masses (different schedule each week) and they will trade off during the weekdays. I am sure that it is helpful for our pastor to get a bit of a break; we are the largest parish in the diocese, and he generally has to handle everything liturgical himself since our diocese simply doesn't have enough priests.
Which is why I feel so guilty about my reaction upon finding out that our pastor was not the celebrant of the Mass we attended this morning. We were able to attend Mass; there was a priest; he didn't change the words of the consecration or anything like that; I have absolutely 100% no right whatsoever to complain. But I looked at my husband, sighed, and maybe even rolled my eyes a little bit, because both of us are bothered by his delivery of his homilies. And yes, he did swear in his homily today like we remembered from last year. But he did have a good message, and it's uncommon these days to hear about the redemptive nature of suffering from the pulpit, and I realize that it was not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things. Totally not justification for being annoyed and allowing myself to be distracted from what I should have been focusing on. Mea culpa.
Would it be wrong, or rude, or in poor taste for us to attend a different parish for the next few weeks? Does the intention behind the act matter? We could say that we were doing it because we really do like the priest at the university parish and don't get to hear his homilies very often... or because we wanted to save some gas money by going to a parish that isn't 20 miles away... or because Little Bear has been unusually fussy with new teeth coming in lately... And all of those excuses would be true, but they would still be excuses. Is it enough of a reason that we don't want our (preverbal) son to hear a priest swearing? That we don't want to hear that? I don't know.
Anyway! What you're really here for:
Scarf that used to be on my head: garage sale
Green microsuede skirt: Sears
Shoes: hand-me-ups from my little sister
Disaster of a hairdo: scarf + child
The little man is all in hand-me-down Old Navy.
It has been chilly! The high today was theoretically 72, but I don't think we ever got there. I definitely wasn't overwarm in the crowded church in this sweater/scarf/heavy skirt combination, and Little Bear didn't complain once about wearing flannel. Is it really still July? It feels like September!
I hope that you are enjoying more seasonable weather. Have a lovely week!
You can feel free to send that unseasonable weather down to Ohio. :) I am starting to remember just how much I dislike heat. And sunshine. Terrible things.
ReplyDelete(I think I have reverse seasonal affective disorder. Is that a thing? Probably not. But summer is depressing.)
You are a more tolerant woman then I am, Rose. I would have said something to the priest, and then never come back for any of his Masses. Swearing is such a problem these days and to have a priest do it for whatever reason only reinforces in people's minds that there is really nothing wrong with it. If you can't tell, I feel pretty strongly on the subject. Sorry.... :P
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