I took my father to mass in Cork this morning. We went to the same church where my mother’s funeral was. I’ve been there lots of times since but it made me feel gloomy this morning for some reason. My parents would have been 52 years married on Friday so maybe that is part of it. The priest recited this slightly mawkish prayer (thanks Cardinal Newman) and I was a bit weepy whereas normally I am superior about the sentimentality – the parish priest in Cork is keen on it and recites it often and I think he may have done so at my mother’s funeral:
O Lord, support us all the day long,
until the shadows lengthen,
and the evening comes,
and the busy world is hushed,
and the fever of life is over,
and our work is done.
Then in your mercy,
grant us a safe lodging and a holy rest,
and peace at the last.
Amen.
My father was quite cheerful though, I have to say.
Great readings this morning anyhow: real crowd pleasers. The gospel was about the steward who gets fired for incompetence. A couple of the lines have survived in general conversation (at least in the house I grew up in): “Give me an account of your stewardship, for you may no longer be steward”; “Take your bond and write twenty”; “To dig, I am unable; to beg I am ashamed.”
All of these have been changed in the version we got this morning and not improved in my opinion. I mean “Dig? I am not strong enough. Go begging? I should be too ashamed.” Just not as good I submit.
The priest gave a big long sermon about stewardship of the earth and Laudato Si and how all the children who had been marching on Friday on climate change were terrific. I was quite sorry that herself wasn’t there as she had been dutifully marching and it’s not often that she is in a position to agree with a sermon on a Sunday.
How was your own weekend? I feel that most of mine was spent on trains.
we got a joke from our foreign priest (Romanian maybe?)
Woman is telling the priest about how her husband has lost his faith and how great it is. Priest is shocked by her reaction. “No father, it’s great, because he used to believe he was God”.
Did quite a good little homily from that.
I’m quite fond of that Newman benediction.
O Lord! thou knowest how busy I must be this day: if I forget thee, do not thou forget me.[1]
Prayer before the Battle of Edgehill (1642), quoted by Sir Philip Warwick, Memoires, 1701.
Pithy and to the point!
A prayer attributed to Jacob Astley, 1st Baron Astley of Reading and preserved by Sir Philip. They were both fortunate to survive the battle.
I do enjoy my commenters. Thank you for this.