{"id":8754,"date":"2024-12-30T21:36:40","date_gmt":"2024-12-30T21:36:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/?p=8754"},"modified":"2025-01-08T01:11:18","modified_gmt":"2025-01-08T01:11:18","slug":"freezing-fog-mass-mary-and-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/freezing-fog-mass-mary-and-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Freezing Fog, Mass, Mary: and Me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/brendans-island.com\/blogsource\/20241028ff\/20241229-ParishesOnThePrairiesLiveStream-658.jpg?w=640&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Screenshot from Parishes on the Prairie Livestream', YouTube (December 28, 2029) see https:\/\/parishesontheprairie.org\/\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Evening Mass at St. Paul&#8217;s, Sauk Centre. (December 28, 2024)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>As I said Saturday, getting to Mass is a big deal for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I stayed in all day Sunday, and probably will do the same today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s doubly frustrating, since Sunday morning Mass is one of the two times I get out each week, and I prefer doing my weekly errands Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But Saturday night and Sunday morning we had freezing fog. There was more in today&#8217;s forecast, and looks like we&#8217;re in for another session this afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Getting to Mass is a big deal, but so is avoiding accidents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Good news: no fog in tomorrow&#8217;s forecast, and we&#8217;ll see temperatures well below freezing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More good news: Parishes on the Prairie, our cluster of parishes \u2014 there&#8217;s a story behind that, which will wait for another time \u2014 records the Saturday evening Mass at St. Paul&#8217;s the other parish in town, so I could join the &#8220;online celebration of the Eucharist&#8221; Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With an &#8220;online celebration&#8221;, I miss out on the most important part. But it&#8217;s what I could do, and it&#8217;s better than nothing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GPe-sFGxtdY?si=gKU56q8BcMVmNdcY&amp;start=690\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Be aware, if you play this, that the audio level and quality is <strong>very<\/strong> uneven. I don&#8217;t know what the problem was there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The humming you&#8217;ll hear throughout isn&#8217;t just in the video. Fr. Greg mentioned it, along with apologizing for the elevator being out of service. The latter would make it difficult for folks in my situation to get up to the sanctuary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anyway, the humming might have been coming from the organ: but it wasn&#8217;t. And I&#8217;m drifting off-topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a name=\"twowomen\"><\/a>Two Women, Two Children, and an Important Mission<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Before I get back to sitting by the window with a cup of coffee and a P. G. Wodehouse story, something from the Old Testament, and something from the Gospels. Along with my take.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;She conceived and, at the end of her pregnancy, bore a son whom she named Samuel.<br>&#8216;Because I asked the L<small>ORD<\/small> for him.&#8217;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The next time her husband Elkanah was going up with the rest of his household to offer the customary sacrifice to the L<small>ORD<\/small> and to fulfill his vows, <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Hannah<\/strong> did not go, <strong>explaining to her husband<\/strong>, &#8216;Once the child is weaned, I will take him to appear before the L<small>ORD<\/small> and leave him there forever.'&#8221; <br>(<a href=\"https:\/\/bible.usccb.org\/bible\/1samuel\/1#09001020\">1 Samuel 1:20<\/a>:<a href=\"https:\/\/bible.usccb.org\/bible\/1samuel\/1#09001022\">22<\/a>) (emphasis mine)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>I haven&#8217;t dug into whatever socio-cultural context that bit reflects, or what folks have been saying about it over the last couple dozen centuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One thing I did notice was something that would have been unusual, at least, in the culture I grew up in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hanna, mother of Samuel, <strong>TOLD HER HUSBAND<\/strong> where their son would be living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, my mother might have done something like that \u2014 not dropping me off at a temple, but rather telling my father where I&#8217;d be going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But she was emphatically not of the &#8216;barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen&#8217; persuasion where her role in the household was involved. Or outside the household, for that matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My father wasn&#8217;t the &#8216;henpecked husband&#8217; stereotype character \u2014 can&#8217;t say I&#8217;m sorry to see that stock character having been de-emphasized \u2014 but he acted as if my mother was a &#8216;real person&#8217;. Which, of course, she is. And that&#8217;s another topic. Several, actually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Gospel reading was <a href=\"https:\/\/bible.usccb.org\/bible\/luke\/2#50002041\">Luke 2:41<\/a>&#8211;<a href=\"https:\/\/bible.usccb.org\/bible\/luke\/2#50002052\">52<\/a>: a vignette called Finding in the Temple, The Boy Jesus in the Temple, and probably more monikers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s a lot going on there, but I&#8217;ll wrap this post up with something that strikes me about what happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mary and Joseph&#8217;s mission was being parents for the Son of God. They both knew this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then, on a fairly routine annual trip to a big city: <strong>THEY LOST HIM!!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Under the circumstances, I think Mary&#8217;s remarks were extremely calm: even understated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, the usual vaguely-related posts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/christmas-family-lights-and-a-little-weirdness\/\">Christmas: Family, Lights, and a Little Weirdness<\/a>&#8221; <br>(December 28, 2024)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/false-mysticism-spiritual-abuse-and-the-news\/\">False Mysticism, Spiritual Abuse, and the News<\/a>&#8221; <br>(November 26, 2024)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/finally-getting-back-to-mass\/\">Finally Getting Back to Mass<\/a>&#8221; <br>(April 22, 2024 )<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/saints-depression-assumptions-and-me\/\">Saints, Depression, Assumptions, and Me<\/a>&#8221; <br>(March 23, 2024)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/christmas-sermon-for-pagans-viewpoints-nature-and-hope\/\">&#8216;Christmas Sermon for Pagans&#8217;: Viewpoints, Nature; and Hope<\/a>&#8221; <br>(December 23, 2023)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I said Saturday, getting to Mass is a big deal for me. I stayed in all day Sunday, and probably will do the same today. That&#8217;s doubly frustrating, since Sunday morning Mass is one of the two times I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/freezing-fog-mass-mary-and-me\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"Getting to church matters, but I missed Sunday Mass. I talk about that; mothers, making sense, and two Bible readings.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"Freezing Fog, Mass, Mary: and Me","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[215,192],"tags":[60,84,145,132],"class_list":["post-8754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-being-catholic","category-journal","tag-bible","tag-family","tag-holy-family","tag-weather"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7Dwtw-2hc","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8754"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8758,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8754\/revisions\/8758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}