Who Knows Where the Time Goes

It's hard to believe that it's been over ten days since I last posted something here.  When I say it's been busy, I'm not making some vague generality.  A parish normally quiets down after Christmas with the lull lasting until Ash Wednesday.  Then it's breakneck through May, what with confessions, Lenten programs, the Easter Triduum itself, 1st Communions, Confirmations, the backlog of infant baptisms that have to wait until Lent is over, the spare wedding here and there.  Summer brings another lull of sorts before September when school and religious ed begin again and it's a blur until Christmas. But nothing stopped after Christmas, and now January is almost gone and I'm not sure where it went.

There are a lot things I would have liked to have done this month, especially considering the feast of Don Bosco is coming up next week (never mind that today is St. Francis de Sales' feast day).  Francis de Sales in many ways is a key inspiration for me in working on this blog.  He wrote an incredible body of work, much of it in simple pamphlet form, to convince people of the truth of the Catholic faith during the Counter Reformation.  While these works might be considered polemic in the sense that they addressed controversies, defending the Catholic position staunchly, St. Francis was the Doctor of Charity who understood that it was not bombs or guns that would bring the separated brethren back into the fold, but loving kindness, as well as passionate and intelligent apologetics. I hope to follow in that tradition in some small way.


But the time has been a dictator, as Nina Simone would say, and I haven't had the time or the energy to put my full efforts into this space.  But I know I need to get focused, and the best way to do that is by developing a theme over a series of posts, and I've got one (but I don't want to let the cat out of the bag just yet).  For the rest of this week I'll write more on Francis de Sales and Don Bosco in preparation for the feast, and then on to a topic that I've been mulling over for quite some time.


But time; what a mystery.  I offer you all one of the great songs on the topic of time and change, by Fairport Convention, with the late Sandy Denny on vocals.