Trying to do a favor that BACKFIRED: On Saturday and Sundays, I open the church at 6 a.m. I’ve been doing this since the death of Ray Fuhrman in 2013. Ray used to open the church every day of the week until he got sick and eventually went home to the Lord. I don’t mind opening early on the weekends because I enjoy the silence of the mornings and the opportunity to spend some quiet time in church. Once I have all the doors unlocked on Saturdays, I like to take on a project or two inside the church that otherwise would never get done. It might be fixing some electronic thing or straightening up some mess. On this particular Saturday, I saw a beautiful flower arrangement left from a funeral earlier in the week that was approaching being deader than dead; it was time to get rid of it. Usually, Fr. Rich handles this task, but since he is off on Fridays, he would not have seen this dead and pathetic masterpiece that was gracing the altar of Saint Joseph. Besides the dead flowers, what caught my attention was the container housing the arrangement. From experience, I know Fr. Rich likes to save some of the vases and flower containers so he can reuse them. So, my mission was to ditch the dead flowers and save the container … all as a favor to Fr. Rich.

Usually, I carry off our dead plants and flowers in totality over to the dumpster. The problem with this method is that I often have to clean up the mess I leave behind. Given my vast experience in wasting tons of time cleaning up the mess I leave behind as I drag flowers and plants off the altar, I decided I would be “smart” and get a garbage bag and dismantle the arrangement right at the altar of St. Joseph; I figured this would save me a ton of time. So I went off and grabbed a large garbage bag and returned with the mission of quickly dismantling the arrangement. The arrangement itself was beautiful when it arrived on the day of the funeral. It had Birds of Paradise, plenty of Cattails (or commonly known as “Hot Dogs on a Stick” – they can be found near ponds and streams) and other beautiful flowers. I dismantled the Birds of Paradise and got them in the garbage bag. As I started on the greenery, I brushed up against something that completely exploded in my midst. All of a sudden, I had little fuzzy things floating all over the place. My brainy idea of dismantling this arrangement at the altar completely backfired on me. These fuzzy things were on my coat, in my hair, on my face, on the carpet, and all over the area near the altar of St. Joseph. My simple little job was now going to take much more time because I had to drag out the vacuum and rid the place of all the fuzzy things that were all over and still floating through the air. I still wasn’t sure what caused the fuzz storm, but I was confident it was something in that arrangement. Being still totally clueless about what happened, and in order to dispose of the remaining cattails, I simply grabbed the next cattail by the brown part and … yes … it disintegrated in my midst and created a fuzz storm that was WORSE than the first. I should have saved the video from the security cameras for submission to America’s Funniest Home Videos. Once was bad, but twice was ridiculous! The fuzz was EVERYWHERE! Of course, it was the cattails that caused all the mess; I must have missed that class in grade school and then subsequently in pastor school. Seriously, how was I supposed to know those brown things on a cattail explode into a million fuzzy things when they dry out? I learned later after doing some research that those cattail heads can house in upwards of two million seeds! I don’t doubt the two million part given the mess I had to clean up. I searched for the vacuum and cleaned up what I could. I then dismantled the rest of the arrangements and dragged the bag over to the dumpster. When I returned, I found a trail of water that now had to be mopped up. At this point, I wanted to go back home and start the day over again. But by golly, I saved that container for Fr. Rich! All I can say is that he better use it after all I went through to save it. As the saying goes, “No good deed goes unpunished.” Moral of the story: don’t touch dried brown cattails in flower arrangements, unless, of course, you want to deal with a fuzz storm. I wonder what other important “factoids” I missed in school?

Parish Center Hours: We are making a slight change in the hours the Parish Center is open on Fridays and Saturdays. Effective immediately, the Parish Center will only be open from 8:30 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. We rarely get much traffic or many phone calls past 4:00 p.m. both days, so it made sense to adjust the hours. Thus, the Parish Center’s hours are now 8:30 a.m. – 9:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday and then 8:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Holy Hours in Church and Adoration and Benediction in the Parish Center Chapel: I also want to call your attention to the fact we’ve moved our Holy Hours in church to Thursday evenings beginning at 7:00 p.m. These Holy Hours don’t occur EVERY Thursday, so it’s important that you pay attention to the schedule that is published in the bulletin. Given the addition of these Holy Hours in church and the fact many of the people who attend the closing of adoration in the Chapel with benediction on Mondays and Thursdays, are, well let’s say older than me, and there is concern about leaving in the dark with snow and stuff during the winter, we are moving benediction to 4:30 p.m. on Mondays and Thursdays until the spring.

Feather Bingo Party: On Thursday, November 21, beginning at 6:00 p.m. at the Assumption Cultural Center, the Order of Alhambra Galicia Caravan and the St. Joan of Arc Knights of Columbus will be hosting the annual Feather Bingo Party in support of our Exceptional Needs Religious Education Program. Our awardwinning Exceptional Needs Religious Education Program is unique in the Archdiocese as it provides religious formation to a special group of God’s holy people. The Alhambra and the Knights have hosted this gathering for the past several years to raise funds to help defray the costs of this unique religious education program. I’m grateful to Mary Cal and her entire team of catechists who devote so much of their time and talent to this beautiful program, and for all the love and care they bring to our special needs parishioners. I’m grateful to the Alhambra and the Knights for their willingness to sponsor this annual Feather Bingo Party. I hope you can join us! Please see the flyer elsewhere in the bulletin for more information.

Enjoy the week. Know of my prayers.

In Christ,

gmb
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