Burdened With Much Serving

With the Solemn Mass of the Lord's Supper we have begun the sacred Triduum: the Church's annual reinsertion into the Day of Salvation.  I was basically the MC for our parish's Mass.  On such occasions I become acutely aware of my poverty of preparation and difficulty with conveying instructions.  Thank God I had notes from previous years, and thank God our Director of Religious Education is well organized.

I recall the story of Msgr. Joseph "Holy Joe" McMullen, who as a Master of Ceremonies for the great Dennis Cardinal Dougherty of Philadelphia, accidentally put on his miter backwards, so that the flaps fell right in front of his eyes!  The story goes that McMullen, soon the object of the Cardinal's ire, was "banished" to teach in the seminary.  He made a long and storied career of that.

Would that I were banished to teach in the seminary, I sometimes think.  Some years ago, I would have loved to take post-graduate education in Sacred Something-or-Other and teach in some post-secondary setting.  Then for two years I taught high school, doing what I would call a lackluster job.  I am not so sure I will ever become a Weapon of Mass Instruction.  But RCIA has given me a forum to teach interested adults.  I often get to talk to our school and CCD kids about religious and spiritual matters.  And I got to be the referee for a Rock-Paper-Scissors contest.

And I spent the earlier part of this Holy Thursday taking Holy Communion to about ten parishioners and assisting a family with making difficult end-of-life decisions--which is why I had less time to train the servers.  So, for me, perhaps I currently enjoy the better part.