Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

I slept in for a second day in a row today; as it turned out, it didn't matter too much in the long run, as I still had ample time to wash up, eat breakfast, etc. before heading out to the school. Fr. Steve and I shared a nice breakfast conversation about politics, of all things (who wants to know some juicy details about wannabe congressman John Fritchey?). If nothing else, it woke me up. What a way to start the morning!

I needed the wake-up call, however, for the meeting with Patrick O' Rourke of Resurrection Hospital. To make a long story short, after an rather..."interesting" set of ethical conundrums at a hospital visit my first week here at St. Ben's, the parish nurse here at the rectory, Mary Fitzgerald, thought that it would do me some good to speak to this man - as the resident medical ethicist at the hospital well versed in Catholic medical ethics (he was even in the seminary for three years himself), he could answer my questions about Catholic medical ethics. This isn't the "Catholic Bioethics Blog," after all, so I will not go into the nitty-gritty details of the meeting here, but suffice it to say, it was certainly worthwhile. I look forward to touring the St. Vincent DePaul Center with the parish nurse next week.

Brief errands consumed the remainder of my day, though I did manage to help set-up for Tuesday night BINGO (I'm a regular over there, now...one of the ladies has even taken to calling me "handy Andy"). Hopefully I was a help to the maitenance guys as opposed to a hindrance. They can't seem to catch a break from the other people around the block, so I'm hoping that a little help here and there brings a little bit of Light to their lives. We all need it, and they are no exception.

There was also a (fairly) brief Athletic Department meeting; the principal of the Elementary School, Rachel Gemo, commented upon my arrival: "Wow, Andy! You're here for the Athletic Board meeting. Fr. Beaven must not like you much!"

Well, it wasn't all that bad, actually. Sure, it didn't involve the high-strung financeers at the High School Board meeting, or the spiritual discussion at the Pastoral Council, but I was glad to see SOME committee at the parish were, for once, the majority of attendees were men. Do women REALLY do EVERYTHING at parishes? I have yet to encounter a parish where this isn't the case! Is it just a "motherly" thing that I can't possibly understand? Is it a problem that men, with the exception of the priests, seem to be generally less involved with the running of the parish? I'll be pondering this as I crawl into bed tonight. There's a funeral for a beloved member of the St. Benedict's tomorrow. I won't be doing the committal, but even with the brief time I spent with this particular woman, I understand why she was so beloved to the parish. May she rest in peace. AMEN!

No comments:

Post a Comment