Remember that Broadway musical, later a movie - Evita?
Many great songs within the telling of a great story but presently one of those songs stands out in my mind.
Don't Cry for Me, Argentina.
Evita sings that, reflecting on the many life sacrifices" she has made for love of her country.
Anyhow, the melody and especially the words, "Don't Cry for Me" are ringing in my mind as I begin this writing. My last blog installment relayed my producing a researched paper regarding the Sacrament of Confirmation at a time when the hierarchy was debating and discussing the proper age for the Sacrament. End result was that the paper was never acknowledged.
That prompted some messages to me expressing support and sympathy for hard work ignored. While I appreciate all those kind words, I have survived and now, in retrospect, can declare, "No regrets."
That research and resulting paper were never solicited by any authorities. I choose to do it feely on my own. Call it a work of love for the Church. Nothing was due me for it. And for those who asked if a copy might still be available, unfortunately this goes back to a time before storage disks and such. So, lost in time. But if anyone really wanted to do a study of Confirmation and its disintegration in the Western Church, other, even more thorough and technical studies have been done and can be found. (Not, I would suspect, in most bishops' libraries!)
But let's get back to those tales about Detroit's bishops and some of my dealings with them.
Like this little episode.
This one takes place in my days as pastor of St. Margaret of Scotland Parish in St. Clair Shores.
Let me suggest that this parish was something of a scavenger!
We had stained glass windows in certain areas, retrieved from a closed parish and restored. We had bells from Immaculate Conception Church in Poletown, retrieved when GM managed to gain land rights.
And in my time we retrieved the majestic pipe organ from the recently closed St. David's Parish in Detroit. Having rescued this beauty, we hired professionals to completely rebuild it and modernize it into a state of the art instrument. The project lasted a number of years and at various times needed review by the Archdiocesan Board of Consulters, headed, of course, by our very own Archbishop, Adam Maida.
He was in on the project from almost day one and so, when finally the instrument was installed and deemed ready to go, it was only proper to invite the Archbishop to preside at Mass and do the actual blessing of the restored, refurbished instrument.
The invitation was accepted and date and time were set for the blessing of the organ. Excitement was high because so much time, effort, and yes, even cash had gone into this work.
Pipes, gleaming like new now graced the wall above the choir as well as the wall behind the loge. The old electronic instrument was out and seriously outclassed.
Ministers were vested and ready in line to process in beginning this grand event.
At the end of the procession was the Archbishop with me, as pastor, at his side.
All was set to begin when the Archbishop leaned over to me as, just to be certain he was on the right page, asked me, "I will be blessing the bells, right? I'm here to bless your new bells!"
Several folk nearby must have heard that because there were several very audible gasps.
I believe that I found myself straining to hold back some serious laughter.
Remembering, I thing that laughter is still eager to burst loose!
Infallible - maybe not this time!
Maybe a bit more from The Maida Era
No comments:
Post a Comment