This week has been a good one, but busy as usual.
The pile on my desk is back down to a manageable mess; I've gotten a bit caught up (that means, I'm behind to a more tolerable degree). I'm making progress unpacking things at my house; yesterday, I hung about a third of my pictures, I'll get the rest next week. (Thankfully I have a parishioner who is helping me.)
Meanwhile, we've been preparing for an Open House at the Parish Offices. We wanted to do it when things were somewhat--but not too--presentable.
Part of my purpose is to make St. Mary parishioners welcome, as the offices moved from St. Mary to combine with St. Boniface. Another part of my purpose is for folks to see how the office staff does its work, what it takes, and that we are trying to be both professional but also frugal.
Yet another part of my purpose is to be open about what is still needed. While we did maintenance and improvements to the priests' house before I moved in, that wasn't practical for the parish offices; so many needed maintenance and repair jobs remain undone. On the interior, a few thousand dollars' worth of painting, plumbing, electrical work, and some plastering. On the outside, tens of thousands of dollars in roof repairs and exterior maintenance.
I am praying we will have a good showing; and that people will be willing to help, in whatever way they can.
So, yesterday and today, a parishioner who is helping me with this went around and posted signs in each room or office, explaining what is needed; and we have a display down in the front room. A bit ago, I was downstairs, putting out some food; I will go back downstairs (I'm in my office) a bit later to put out the cold items. Tonight folks get chips and dip, cheese and crackers, beer, pop and wine. Tomorrow it's coffee, juice and doughnuts.
Meanwhile, today, I had two meetings, and did a little work at my desk. Saturdays are a great time to work at my desk, I'm all alone.
5 comments:
Wait, you guys don't have some sort of time warp machine that lets you be in 12 places at once and get everything done between 9am-5pm???
Now THAT is what you should ask for...
Well, yes, the power of transubstantiation takes advantage of energies that exist in the space between subatomic particles, and it's that same energy, channeled through the flux capacitor at 1.21 gigawatts that allows the priest to be in 12 places at once and makes time travel possible.
Father, a group of us at the seminary have placed a bulk order from the St. Meinrad Archabbey Press (Abbey Press) operation for what we call "preface books." These books are beautifully bound, with all the prefaces and Eucharistic prayers and everything, all set to chant arrangements based on Gregorian modes, with a nice ribbon sewn into the binding that slides between the pages to hold your place. All the settings are the official texts in English, and the arrangements use the four-line "square notes" (neums). Most of the arrangements were done by Fr. Columba Kelly, who studied Gregorian chant at Solesmes Abbey in France, and then got his degree from Musica Sacra in Rome.
I was wondering if you'd be interested in having one, because I think we'll have extras.
I hope you don't mind me using your blog to leave you a note. Feel free to edit my comment, and reply to me via the email link on my own blog.
Dennis:
No, I don't mind.
What is the cost of the book?
Also: I hate to mention this, since it appears you have already ordered them, but -- current translation, or the new?
Well, since the new translation isn't official yet, it's the current translation. Yeah, that's a shame they don't have the new one promulgated yet.
But when the new comes out, it won't be that tough to modify the books. At least, I think it should be easy enough to make a change to say "the many" or "many" instead of "all," whichever way the go on that.
And they'll do another run in a couple of years and I'll probably buy a new one when that happens.
Every other year or so, one of the formation monks puts out feelers to see how many guys would buy a book if they did a run of them down at the press. And they usually have extras. Typically, they run $35, but we won't know for sure until later this week when they come back from the bindery.
On a note more relevant to the subject of this post...
I don't know why it is you say you're so busy. You guys only work one day a week, don't you? (Just kidding.)
Oh, and by the way, Joseph Newton is a classmate of mine. He's back in seminary after taking a few years off, and he says he knows you from his days at Mount Saint Mary's of the West.
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