Elections
dragged on and after the first round of voting a two-day break was ordered.
Electors departed for recreation. Three priests were discussing, sitting in a
boat in the middle of a lake and looking at their floats. The cause of the
dispute was a sermon at the Mass inaugurating the chapter. This was a Divine
Mercy Sunday, a mass was open to the public and many lay people from the town came.
The preacher nevertheless decided not to depart from the written text, so from
the pulpit fell maxims taken out of the Baroque: corruptio optimi pessima, etc.
The
gentlemen wondered if you still could say sermons to the “people” and if there was
still a popular piety. Father Adalbert, master of novitiate, a broadband
networks programmer in previous life, argued that there was no longer any “people”,
everyone was on Twitter. So you had to behave like on Twitter: short slogans would
do the trick. - "What have you done for Jesus?" Drag each syllable a little so
they sound out, and that’s enough - he said. Father Hyacinth, prior of the
Dominicans at an university town, invited to preach for electors about a spirit
of good choice, was against. - "There is no difference whether you speak
to people or not. A sermon reflects a prayer or the content of a manual. Contemplare
has to go first, then aliis tradere - he said. - Nihil nisi prius trahere posso
contemplatum "- he added a sentence of his own composition, for he knew Latin
actively; it was recently fashionable in the order.
- When I
was a pastor in a small town here for the first time - said Monsignor Paul, seated
on a narrow bench - the bishop sent to me a freshly ordained vicar, who was ...
well, after a few days I wanted to call the Curia with the request that the boy
was taken away for further education. I would add that he was handsome. He sang
well, so I sent him to the female parish choir. More mature ladies came there.
- Here Monsignor Paul stopped because their boat dangerously quivered, but then
it turned out that the wave was caused only by a motorboat going nearby.
- I talked
recently with one former parishioner of this parish - continued Monsignor Paul.
- He mentioned the vicar. He said: "You used to have a young, handsome
vicar. Once he got stuck in a sermon, he did not know how to end, and cried without
connection with the subject: "The heart of Christ, enlighten us!" Since
then, and twenty-four years passed, I remember his "Heart of Christ,
enlighten us."
The priests
sank in thoughts about a success of the vicar.
- It's a
beautiful prize for any pastor: to be remembered after so many years - as you
said, twenty-four - said father Hyacinth. - If this sensitive listener could be
converted, but we cannot possibly know this.
- That parishioner
of mine - continued Monsignor Paul calmly - worked as a journalist for a long
time in our diocesan " Radio Rejoice". Now he switched to the devotional
business, because the radio went bankrupt. He told me: "You know what, prelate, I
remembered this heart of Christ when I lost my job. God does not let you die!
I sold my collection of "The Catholic Journal" - complete yearbooks!, I
bought Japanese injection molding machine and started production. Now I make beating
tombstone hearts from extruded plastic, with backlit LEDs. Full range of
colors. A battery keeps a week – to ten days, depending on the pace of the beating.
It is being procured even in the Orthodox lands, in deep Siberia. People there
are more affectionate. And, mind you, I give an inscription engraved, on
a gold sash, reading: "The heart of Christ, enlighten us."
- I even
considered - continued Monsignor Paul – ordering some of these hearts to my parish shop – he finished and jammed the rod but there was just a small seaweed on the hook.