They Clearly Don't Pay Me Enough

It started off as a very wacky day here today. Our pastor forgot it was Pentecost even though he mentioned it in his sermon 58 times. Last night he read the wrong preface and wore white. At the early Mass this morning he figured out the preface but still was wearing white, until I told him he should be in red.

He's finally in red.

The grade 1 teacher contacted me to ask if I could send the readings for the final school Mass so her class can practice them. The school always seems to get terribly inappropriate readings for kids. The first one was the other grade 1 class learning to read, "He is a priest forever in the line of Melchizedek." Six- and seven-year-olds saying Melchizedek about 14 times, because it appeared in the Responsorial Psalm, was quite painful to watch.

Just after Easter it was this doozy from Acts: "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears!" The principal called this the children's introduction to fire and brimstone.

As I was typing up the readings this time, I think I found one from Genesis that surpasses them all, about Ishmael: "He shall be a wild ass of a man, with his hand against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him."

If a six-year-old proclaiming the word "ass" in church doesn't send the whole school community atwitter, I don't know what will.

Thank you, sweet Jesus, I will be on holidays then.

Just to keep the day on the bizarre side, we had a youth mass where one of our regular "customers" started swearing and cursing and screaming during our mass. The kids looked terrified. Eventually the police showed up, but not before the presider actually left the altar and told him to get out.

And one of my favourite moments of the day came when I was setting up our gym for a party with one of my youths. As I was walking him out, our pastor came walking out of the women's bathroom.

Yes, you read that right. The women's bathroom.

I just looked at him and started to laugh and said, "The men's is downstairs." It wasn't 20 minutes later when I walked into the church and saw him coming out of the (unisex) church bathroom too, which I have never seen before -- we both looked at each other and laughed.

They clearly don't pay me enough after days like this.