Work Orders: I have written in the past that my family often jokes around that we have our own work order system to deal with family tech support tasks or projects that need my attention. While tech support needs get priority, there are times when things fall through the cracks, or the busyness of everyday life causes a task to get thrown onto the back burner.

This story involves my mom and a “work order.” As many know, my mom just got home from a brief rehab stay after her temporary knee was replaced with a permanent one. She is doing well and is glad to be back home! Thanks be to God! Our family is grateful for all the prayers!

As we were getting my mom settled back at home last week, I overheard her say to my dad and sisters, “Yes, I submitted a work order with George, but he never got around to it.” Now, my family doesn’t often call me George unless we’re kidding around with each other. So I thought my mom was poking fun at me because she was looking for something to get done before she left rehab, and it didn’t get done. I was trying to figure out what I was supposed to do and started to feel guilty that I let something fall through the cracks before she got released. The only thing I could think of was that I didn’t have time to undo all the technology changes I made to my mom’s rehab center room. Let me explain (and I have to share a story from the past as part of my explanation).

When the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center first opened in March 2001, part of the grand opening celebrations included a visit by President George W. Bush. It was quite fascinating to be part of a planning team for a presidential visit. You could not imagine the behind the scenes work that had to take place and the vast array of technology that got temporarily installed because the President would be onsite. The short story here is that an amazing amount of technology was temporarily installed to accommodate a presidential visit.

While Wellbridge wasn’t getting a visit from the President of the United States, they were getting a visit from the mother of the Pastor of St. Joan of Arc Parish. As a result, a bunch of technology had to be temporarily installed to accommodate the special visitor (more likely to accommodate the Pastor). Since my mom has been at Wellbridge before, I knew exactly what I had to do to make her stay a bit more pleasant. Wellbridge of Romeo is a great rehab center, and I highly recommend them to anyone who needed a rehab place. As I did the last time my mom was there, I installed a network switch and some cabling to accommodate a Roku streaming device so my mom could enjoy much more television than the channels offered through Wellbridge’s system. Plus, this would allow my mom to have a DVR and also be able to tune out the world by using her headphones to listen to her shows or whatever she wanted to stream. So, I came in with all my gadgets and wired what needed to be wired and put together to make all of this work … after all, you’re dealing with Father Gadget and he has to live up to his reputation. I’m sure the staff was wondering what the priest in a collar was up to with his several boxes of wires and stuff. I then used a large candy jar filled with chocolate (of course) to hide all the cabling and networking stuff on her dresser.

When her discharge date was set, I realized I couldn’t swing by Wellbridge to undo all that I put into place. It was a bit complicated, and I wanted to return the cabling to the way I found it. My sister Jackie said she would take care of things for me, and if there were problems she would call me. So, when I inquired with my mom what work order didn’t get done, I assumed she was talking about me. When I asked, she said, “No, I’m not talking about YOU. I was talking about George, the maintenance man at Wellbridge. I put in a work order because my wheelchair had a screw loose, and I wanted them to know about it before the wheelchair was given to someone else to use.” WOW, I was off the hook for a change! Thank goodness it was the wheelchair that had a screw loose and not the priest son with his boxes of wires, cables, and stuff … at least THIS TIME!

Liturgical Ministries Fair/Meeting on TUESDAY, February 18: If you are involved in any liturgical ministry or are interested in becoming part of any liturgical ministry at SJA, please save Tuesday evening, February 18 on your calendar. What is a liturgical ministry? The shortlist would include those involved with Children’s Liturgy of the Word; Funeral Servers; Funeral greeters; Sacristans; Altar Server Parents (we’ll have something separate for Altar Servers later); choir members, cantors, and musicians from any of our music ministries; Ushers; Lectors; Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion; Sunday Greeters; and RCIA Leaders.

The purpose of the evening is twofold: 1) to share the benchmarks we have identified as important to us as we move to improve our Sunday experience and 2) to do some formation/training and thus recertification for existing liturgical ministers as well as training for those interested in serving in any liturgical ministry.

We will start with a brief talk at 6:30 p.m. A light meal will be available starting at 5:30 p.m. We will then have two breakout sessions for training/ retraining for the ministries noted above. These sessions will be repeated that night so that if you are a musician and a lector, you could attend the musician and lector sessions that night. If you are only an usher, you would attend the first session for ushers, and then you could call it a night. The entire evening will be over by 9:00 p.m. You are asked to sign up for the evening by going to sjascs.org/festival -of-ministries or by calling the Parish Center.

To help us in planning for the evening, it would be extremely helpful if you would forward any questions you might have about a particular ministry ahead of time. This could be questions about the practical or the not so practical. This way, we can anticipate some questions and provide resources for further study or discussion. You can submit your questions at sjascs.org/festival-ofministries. I’ll share more details next week.

Enjoy the week. Know of my prayers.

In Christ,

gmb
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