Tag - parish

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Christmas Eve, 2011
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Christmas Preparations in Oceanside

Christmas Eve, 2011

Christmas Eve here in Oceanside.? A half hour of confessions in the early afternoon-?a nothing assignment compared with the hours we used to spend in the box in Chuuk and the afternoons of penance services on Pohnpei.? Mass at 4 PM in a crowded church, with Christmas mass celebrated in two other locations at the same time.? Here as everywhere there are crowds who haven?t seen the inside of a church in months, but people who seem to cherish even these occasional ties with the parish.? The traditional Christmas hymns, a homily that tries to speak to our lives on the day after Christmas as much as on the day itself, and communions that seem to go on forever.

Right after mass a visit to the hospital here in town to see a woman with one leg amputated and another Read More

Christmas Preparations in Oceanside

While I was in the gym working out the other day, I heard a voice coming from the other side of the alcove.? ?Hey, Tony, whatsamaddah wichya?? You can?t even do one push-up?? Dere?s a guy 93 yeahs old doin pushups.? Whatsamaddah wichya??

At that I stopped my 20 push-up routine and looked around the gym to see who this 93-year-old wonder might be.? I scanned the gym before I realized that there was no one doing push-ups but me.? (Gulp!)


The face of suburban poverty is becoming real here in Oceanside.? Read More