My husband went downstate to meet my mother-in-law and had the munchkins with him (another story I don't even want to talk about). I had to work, but chilled with my family afterwards. My family's routine is to go to the 4 o'clock Mass at the Church my father is assigned to. The pastor there has limited my father's deacon work to reading the Gospel at 4 o'clock Mass and doing funerals. (This guy is very insightful that he limits the responsibilities of a deacon with terminal cancer to doing funerals).
The Gospel was the Transfiguration. The pastor's Gospel was this (not verbatum, just from memory).
Want the condensed version today? (Everyone laughed and says yes. Oh that silly pastor, you know he is a good pastor because he is so witty). Recently philanthropist Warren Buffet gave 30 million dollars to the Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation is a foundation that helps people and does good and charitable works around the world. The reason he did this is because he said "Bill, I have this money and want to do something good with it. If I give it to you, you have a better chance of transforming it into something better."
That is the message of the Transfiguration. We have to be like Warren Buffet and transform what we have into something better."
And that was it.
Later at Communion, I genuflected before receiving. I always do and have done so for years. I wait for the person in front of me to receive, while they are receiving, I kneel for a second (unless of course if I am at the Traditional Latin Mass). After Mass my father got yelled at because someone in his family genuflected, and the Bishop (supposedly) has specifically said we cannot genuflect before receiving. We are to bow. My father was upset because he got reprimanded and told me we should just be obedient to the Bishop (i.e. don't make waves and make my life harder).
The pastor should have said something to me,and addressed me as an adult, not yelled at my father (my mother told my father as much as well). As always, people never realize how psycho they are when they show that relationships with people are not about manipulating or controlling them. How nuts is it to scream at a 33-year-old woman's father because she kneeled at Communion?
I still have not heard of this edict from the Bishop, only when I go to Mass with my family. When I am not with them, I go out of my way to avoid parishes that are about the Pastor's therapy, and not about Jesus (we have a lot of those in Albany). So I actually still see things like kneeling during the consecration, homilies that have to do with the Gospel, and communion received in the mouth. Although altar boys are pretty much a thing of the past around here.
My mother said next weeks homiliy will probably again be about the evils of genuflecting. Most of his homilies are about someone doing something that he doesn't like, and lecturing the parish about it.
