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From the Pastor: Thanksgiving With The Family
Thanksgiving was last Thursday and you know what that means: another enjoyable, though slightly strange, day with my family. In case you cannot figure out the timing, this article had to be written before any of the below mentioned activities actually took place, in order to make the publishing deadline for the bulletin. Sometimes I fall way behind with everything and other times I have to find ways to get things done even before they occur. I wish the seminary had taught a class on this whole time warp thing so that I wouldn’t have had to figure it out on my own! This year we all gathered at my sister’s house. There was a larger crowd than normal, as one of our cousins recently moved to south Florida with her husband and kids and they drove up to join us. We also took in a couple of “orphan” priests who had no family of their own to share the day with, and there were neighbors and neighbors’ kids in and out of the house constantly. Sometimes I wasn’t even sure whether the people around me were family, friends, or friends of other family members, but I suppose that on Thanksgiving it doesn’t really matter. We were all thankful for having plenty of people to share the great feast and festivities with. Except for Aunt Irma, that is. She drove up in a prissy pink Prius sporting a coexist sign, a rainbow flag and a “Hillary for Pope” bumper sticker, and had a 10 inch long baby diaper pin (excuse me, “safety” pin) adorning her Che Guevara tee shirt. She had purchased all of these items (including the “car”) while on a recent retreat (sorry, “self-realization retrocognition celebration”) at the Cosmic Christ Consciousness Revolution Holistic Metaphysical Center and Hemp Coffee Shop run by the Popefranciscan Sisters of Perpetual Heresy. She had learned to channel her inner Bodhisattva and, with the great excitement of a new convert, wanted to share her new gnostic knowledge with one and all. The children escaped her by jumping into the pool, completely ignoring the chilly 81 degree midday weather. Strangely, while most of the children were turning blue in their successful efforts to keep Aunt Irma at bay, the newly transplanted Michiganders were acting like they were basking in a hottub. “This is soooo much warmer than Grand Traverse Bay!” they excitedly shrieked to the thin-blooded, jacket wearing Floridian elders. The women all piled into the kitchen when Aunt Irma began expounding some Mother Earth savior nonsense, and they managed to chase her out simply by leaving styrofoam food packaging and chain grocery store receipts out for her to “accidentally” see. They found something almost sinfully enjoyable about explaining that, no, the turkey was not a free-range bird humanely dispatched by being gently smothered with purring kittens and butterflies; that the cranberries came from Publix rather than from the local farmer’s market; and that the pie crusts contained flour and lard rather than grated leftover gluten free pizza crust scraps and coconut oil. Though close to a swoon, my aunt managed to stumble out of the kitchen before being overcome by such barbarism, much to the relief of the women but bringing fear to the men. We had naively thought that, in the outside patio where we were supposedly keeping an eye on the swimming children, we were safe from our loving--and loved--but crazy aunt. We were doing “manly” things that were sure to keep her away. We were watching football, drinking scotch, smoking cigars, one-upping each other with tall tales of glorious achievements during our youth, and, to stop the kids from bickering, occasionally encouraging them to do all the fun (read: dangerous) stunts their mothers wouldn’t ever let them do. All these things usually drive up testosterone to such levels that it acts like a force field against all but the most determined of women. But Aunt Irma was a very determined woman that day. She was resolved to convert someone from “old fashioned” and “rigid” Catholicism, and bring him into her newly discovered Age of Aquarius Laetitia. Fortunately, I was ready for her. When I had heard where Auntie was making a retreat, I had asked the Bishop for faculties to perform an exorcism on her ASAP. At first he had denied my request but I gave him an ultimatum: “Either I exorcise my Aunt or I send her to spend Thanksgiving with you.” That didn’t faze him a bit. In fact, I think he was looking forward to swapping notes with her. So I got mean, rotten and nasty: I gulped, prayed that he wouldn’t call my bluff, and told him, “Either she gets exorcised or else I will spend Thanksgiving with you!” I have never seen him procure a document so fast. Aunt Irma only made it halfway across the yard before she sank to her knees at the sight of the Benedictine Crucifix I held as I prayed the Latin prayers. Soon she was back to her crazy old self and we had a great Thanksgiving. Anyone want to buy a slightly used Prius? With prayers for your holiness, Fr. Edwin Palka From the Pastor: Some Important Announcements!
I have written before about some of the differences in the liturgical calendars for the Novus Ordo Mass and the Traditional Latin Mass. Today we experience one of the biggies. Last month we celebrated the feast of Christ the King in the TLM. This weekend the remainder of the parish celebrates it! But, more than just celebrating this feast this weekend, it is also the “traditional” day for the bishop to bestow his honorary St. Jude Award to those who do exemplary and usually unnoticed work at their parish. This year the award for Epiphany of Our Lord goes to the man who probably greeted most of you when you first arrived at the parish; the man who is always around helping out, making sure everything is safe and secure, assisting newcomers, locking and unlocking rooms when needed, and generally just making sure the people and possessions at Epiphany are cared for. He also assists in the choir at the Saturday night vigil Mass and reads the petitions at the weekday morning Novus Ordo Masses. He is an active member of the Knights of Columbus, helps in the office every Monday, and folds bulletins for you on Saturday mornings. For somebody who gets around so much, you might wonder just what he would accomplish if he wasn’t wheelchair bound. By now, of course, you all know that Robert Thibodeaux is the man of whom I write. Be sure to congratulate him. Maybe he will bring the medal with him next weekend to show it off! Next. Thanksgiving is this Thursday. It is not a Holy Day, so there is no extra TLM in the evening, but if you wish to attend Mass with St. Joseph Vietnamese Mission, they have a 5:00 pm Mass. It is also the fourth Thursday of the month, which is normally a night of prayer, catechism and socializing for the men’s Holy League. Since both Thanksgiving and, next month the Immaculate Conception and Christmas week interfere with the normal schedule, we are changing it up a bit. There will be no more meeting in November, but in December we will meet on the 1st, 15th, and 29th, returning to the normal second and fourth Thursdays in January. Please mark your calendars! Finally, there will be a weekday Mass time change in the new year. When we first came to Epiphany, the huge majority of people who thought they could come to daily TLM wanted it at 9:00 am. But traffic is still pretty bad at that time and it takes up a big chunk of the day for homeschoolers, so only two families have been faithfully bringing in altar boys for the Mass. One of them is now moving away. We had three adult servers, but two of them left to enter religious life (what a great reason to lose altar boys!), so most days we are down to only one regular altar server, and when he is missing, there is no server. One the other hand, last Lent we started a 6:30 am Mass and it now generally has more people in attendance than the 9:00 am except on First Fridays, and I have never been without at least one server at Mass. I have also been in the position of having to celebrate three Masses several times a week, as the 8:00 am Novus Ordo Mass is also my responsibility. I am only supposed to celebrate two daily Masses, so one needs to be cut out. After much consideration, it is the 9:00 am Mass which will go bye-bye. I am still willing to celebrate a second TLM at 8:00 am IF THERE WILL BE PEOPLE ATTENDING! So I need a commitment if you would like to have a TLM at that time. If there is no demand for it, I will simply celebrate the 6:30 am TLM and then, when needed for the 8:00, instead of celebrating a Novus Ordo Mass, I will celebrate another TLM at 8:00 and those who normally attend the 8:00 NO Mass can simply attend Mass in the Traditional form. (Why not just celebrate a NO Mass, you ask? Because of the different liturgical calendars. It is tough and confusing for me to switch back and forth on a daily basis, so I will stick with just the one calendar whenever possible.) Will I have altar servers for the 8:00 TLM? We shall see. Right now there are not servers for the 8:00 am NO so I don’t expect it to change unless additional people attend. Of course, unless you attend daily Mass, you won’t know the difference. Which reminds me... Now is a good time to seriously think about attending daily Mass wherever you are, even if you cannot get to Epiphany. If you need an example of how important daily Mass is, let me share two things nobody ever says on their deathbed. 1. I wish I had fewer kids; 2. I wish I hadn’t gone to Mass so often. With prayers for your holiness, Fr. Edwin Palka From the Pastor: Thank You, God!
Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. Thank You, God, that the elections are over. Please be far more merciful than we deserve. With prayers for your holiness, Fr. Edwin Palka From the Pastor: Of Clocks and Cuckoos
This week brings the end to daylight savings time. I whine about the clock changes every year, twice a year. I cannot stand losing an hour of sleep in the spring, not just for one night but for as many as it takes for my body to finally adjust to the time change. Just so, I cannot stand “gaining” an hour of sleep in the fall, for I don’t really gain anything for a number of days either, as I wind up waking up at the “old” time, regardless of what the clock says. So I complain, bellyache and gripe about it as if it is a big deal. In reality, it is not. Compare this semiannual inconvenience to what is happening just a couple of days later and you’ll see what I mean. This Tuesday everyone who has not already cast an early ballot goes to the polls to vote for, among other things, the next President of these United States. Elections and what leads up to them also bring out the whiner in me. I moan and groan and grouse and grumble about the system, the voters and the dummkopf candidates much like I do about changing the clock. There are several big differences between those two things, though, which you may not have ever thought about. First, nobody has ever told me to keep my religion out of politics when I complain about the time change. No, really. Have you ever seen anyone holding up signs proclaiming, “Keep your Benediction out of my Post Meridiem!” or any such thing? Second, nobody is ever “undecided” about the clock issue. If it was coming up for a vote next year, the polls could already predict which way the hands of time would turn. Nobody ever says, “Well, I just cannot make up my mind. I need more information.” Rather, they either love the time change or hate it and they don’t really care about its history, who else supports it or abhors it, or even if it might cause another Y2K-type worldwide appliance meltdown. Everyone is ready to vote now and decisively. Yet with the Presidential election, seemingly millions of people, having already had the benefit of listening to the candidates, having been bombarded with countless ads, having good information as to who is more immoral than whom, and having been embroiled in or at least reluctant witness to many passionate arguments about each candidate's policies, morals, manners, riches and looks, will walk into the voting booth still trying to decide which cuckoo will get the check mark. A third major difference is that I really don’t have to let the time change affect my life very much at all if I choose to ignore it., whereas the President will control some aspects of my life no matter what I pretend didn’t occur. For instance, what would happen if I decided that I was not going to ever come off daylight savings time? What if I refused to change any of my clocks, my watch or even my cell phone time? (There is actually a setting on the phone which allows me to only change it manually if I desire, instead of it updating automatically according to location and time zone.) All I would have to do is put on my personal calendar that the 10:30 Mass is now scheduled for 9:30 and my unchanged watch would match with your changed watches and all would be well. But if I tried that with the elections, nothing would match at all. For no matter how fervently I proclaimed something like, “I insist that Cardinal Sarah is President” (don’t laugh, he was born on the same continent as our current Prez, after all) our Church would still be forced by President Hillary Clinton to allow contracepting polygamous lesbian women married to transexual men/women/other to become bishops; or women would still be engaged in something that is not to be called what it is, for the sake of deniability, in the Oval Office by President Bill Clinton, Jr. --oops! I meant President Donald Trump. The fourth, and most telling difference between the two, is something I have completely forgotten. Which is too bad, since it was the most humorous of all the reasons, although that is not saying much. But that’s why I saved it for last. It was what I was thinking when I first started writing this stupid column, and I was chuckling about it as I tried to come up with the other lead in shenanigans. But, as happens so many times, I wasn’t able to write the whole story uninterruptedly, and by the time I have returned to the computer, my mind is blank. So unless it soon jars loose in this noggin of mine --before I have to get the bulletin printed-- I will have to end by asking you to just laugh really loud right now and pretend that whatever I failed to write was a real knee-slapper. With prayers for your holiness, Fr. Edwin Palka |
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