Sunday, July 24, 2005
I THOUGHT IT WAS ODD
I'm still trying to figure out what he thought he was doing...?
We had a visiting priest from the home missions today who gave the homily. We had a different visiting priest who said Mass, and our pastor gave a short...uhm....announcement, I guess, before Mass began.
Anyway, after the Gospel, the first visiting priest gave a very brief introduction of the visiting missionary priest from the pulpit, and then stepped down. The visiting missionary priest stepped out into the sanctuary from the sacristy and bowed to the congregation. He ignored the tabernacle completely. He gave his talk, and then he stepped down from the pulpit and once again bowed to the congregation, ignored the tabernacle, and went back into the sacristy. Our pastor never ignores the tabernacle. He always makes a reverent gesture of some sort when he steps into the sanctuary. So I don't get what this missioary thought he was doing by bowing to the congregation and ignoring the tabernacle.
Following the man-centered Gospel that finds God in the pew partner?
When communion rolled around, the usual cadre of EMs marched up to the altar to get their ciboriums. So there were two other priests available who had played some part in the Mass, but who were apparently unwilling to distribute communion. One was my pastor. The other was the missionary priest.
Meanwhile, I went to an earlier Mass today to see if all the people who used to fill the pews at the noon Mass which I usually attend had migrated to an earlier Mass. Nope, they weren't at the 10:30 either. Oh, there were more people at 10:30 Mass than have been attending the 12:00. But not enough to make up for the people who used to fill the pews at the noon Mass. I wonder where they've gone?
Father's comments in the bulletin were centered around the need to stop seeing everything that is wrong and start looking for the good in people and the Church. I expect I'm failing on both counts.
