Luke 9: 11b-17 (links validated 5/31/22)

over the last 23 years of priesthood – for me, the hardest part has always been the extremes that a priest can encounter just in the course of one day. Being a part of one family’s incredible joy and then another family’s incredible pain in a matter of a few hours. One Saturday I will never forget comes to mind. Saturdays ordinarily in our parish were relatively manageable (compared to some other parishes) so when my pastor was away for the week, I wasn’t concerned about the fact that I had an 8:30 am Daily Mass for Saturday – a Nuptial Mass (a wedding) at 3:00 pm, confessions at 4:30 and the Vigil Mass for Sunday at 5:30 pm. Sure it was a bit loaded of a day, but as still a relatively young priest, I thought I could handle it. The Daily Mass and Vigil Mass were something that was familiar by that point (even with a group of Confirmation kids coming to the 5:30 mass for something they needed to do); I was excited to celebrate the wedding Mass with the couple I had been working with for over a year. What I didn’t expect was a funeral coming in that Saturday morning...

("There is a fascinating story told of scientists from NASA interested in experimenting with the energy of the human body and how the aura might be affected by prolonged travel in space. They devised a camera that could perceive the aura. They asked permission of a dying man in a hospital if they could observe his aura as death approached...")

("Remember the two little kids who 'almost drowned' in the storm on the lake? After their father had brought them ashore, what did he do? Well, of course, he gave them something to eat. Now their father was not much of a cook and their mother had gone shopping with their big sister...")

("Among those who begged for the services of Doctor Lorenz was a very wealthy woman in Chicago's East Side. She told him that she would pay any price he named. She also told the pastor at her local church to pray that God would send the good doctor to her home. Here's where the story gets really good...")

"'Grandma, you want to play Mass?' 'Play Mass? How do you play Mass?' I hated to think this about my own Grandma Klein, especially as she was staying several days with us that summer, but she was a little slow. She wasn't good at playing Candy Land, and, in summer, who wanted to play board games anyway? It was too hot, and she was too heavy, for tag. Mass in the garage seemed a perfect choice, and she didn't know how to do it!..."

("Fred Craddock, one of America's great teachers of preaching, tells the story of another breakfast experience. He was stuck in Winnipeg, Canada and in the midst of an early October snow storm which paralyzed the city. Everything was shut down and his host could not even make it to Fred's hotel to pick him up for breakfast....")

("Many years ago my schoolmate Paddy was engaged to marry Kay when she was discovered to have cancer and to have only about a one-year life expectancy. She told him that he could call it all off. He replied that if he had loved her in good health he would love her in bad...")

I once read about a Canadian man named Kyle MacDonald who decided to see what he could end up with if he took a seemingly worthless thing he had and kept trading it for something better. He started with a red paperclip. And he ended up with a two-story house...

("if we are parents, we find ourselves at times pushing our children to find their full potential at an early age. The following newspaper headline caught my eye last week in the San Francisco Chronicle: Parents who push children to strive for accomplishments...")