Catholic Ragemonkey

Off to a great start
You might recall from an earlier post I mentioned some ideas I am implementing in my parish to observe the special Year of the Holy Eucharist. For the past two weekends I have been pushing the idea of having Adoration on all Fridays (currently we have it only on First Fridays of each month). I announced it two weekends ago and asked people to spend the week praying about what sacrifice they might make to attend Adoration on Fridays. This past weekend I announced it again, but this time I had a sign-up sheet in the back of church telling people I needed to see the interest level and commitment from parishioners so that I could know whether we could pull this off. Well, after all of the Masses last weekend I walked up to that sign-up sheet, not really knowing what to expect: Thirty-six people had signed-up! I am going to push it hard again this weekend, especially asking the youth to make a commitment. I am planning on starting this endeavor after the Mark Shea talk on the Holy Eucharist on November 15.

Today was also the beginning of our new confession hours. Previously, this parish had one hour and five minutes of scheduled confessions per week. I figure that our new schedule provides two hours and fifteen minutes of confessions per week! It is a bit hard to get an exact number on, because we will now be hearing confessions during weekend Masses (stopping just before the Consecration), meaning the exact start and stop time is a bit nebulous. But I figure that confessions during each Mass will add at least another thirty minutes of confessions, if not more. So, two hours and fifteen minutes is probably a reasonable figure to claim. Tonight, may have been a bit of a fluke, but we heard confessions for an hour and a half! In fact, I had planned to concelebrate Mass with my Associate Pastor after helping him hear confessions. However, at the time Mass was supposed to begin, there were still people in line, so I decided to remain in the confessional, figuring I could make a bit of a sacrifice myself by having a private Mass later on (which I am just about to go and do). All in all, I heard about 15 confessions. My associate probably heard anywhere from 5-7. A great turnout and a great start to this new schedule. Now, it may have been a bit of a fluke tonight because many people came to confession as part of preparation for a quinceañera on Saturday. (For those not in the know, a quinceañera is a special celebration among Hispanics when a girl turns 15.) The kids who participate in it tend to come for confession beforehand. Perhaps next Wednesday evening will be a better indication of what kind of regular/normal traffic we might expect. We shall see.