31 December 1995
St Norbert’s Parish
Orange, CA
Ten years! 539 weekends! 1119 Masses! Should seem like a long time. Should! The stroke of midnight tomorrow will ring out more than 1995. It will also ring out my favorite cartoon strip, Calvin & Hobbes, which is ending for good. And 1996 will find me assigned to a new parish, reminiscing about my years at St Norbert’s.
Memories come flooding back. I remember eating breakfast in the rectory after saying Mass one Sunday morning. I don’t even remember what the sermon was about. Anyway, the phone rings. Msgr Falvey answers. I hear him say, “Who? Oh, really? Well, I’ll tell him. Bye bye.” He turns to me and says, “A lady just called to complain about your sermon. She says that you used a word which should never be said in church.” I tried to think of a word that shouldn’t be used in church but which is okay to use elsewhere and gave up.
“What word did I use which upset her?”
“She didn’t say.”
“You didn’t ask her?!?”
“No need to. Joe, remember this: you can’t please everybody.
Don’t worry about it.” I resume eating breakfast, and the phone rings
again. Msgr Falvey answers it. I hear him say, “Who? Oh, really.
And what word was that. Oh, I see. Well, I’ll tell him.
Bye bye.”
“Not again!”
“This time it was a man. Said you used a word which should never
be said in church.”
“Well, what was the word?”
“I asked him, but he refused to say it. Said it was undignified.”
“Oh great! Now people are calling to complain about my language!”
“Joe, he was probably her husband. She probably told him to call.
Don’t worry about it.”
Many thanks to Msgr Falvey and to Fr John Janze for helping me over these ten years, encouraging me when I got nasty phone calls and letters. Oh yes, I got complaints in the mail. Just as there are movie critics, there are sermon critics, and some of them always seemed to give me two thumbs down. Sometimes I deserved it; the times I sang were really pathetic! And that sermon about condoms was horrible; I thought it was clever at the time, putting a motorcycle helmet on right in the middle of the sermon, and pulling out a gun that I borrowed from a policeman, and proceeding to shoot myself in the head with it right in front of everybody, and calling it “safe Russian Roulette.” I was probably listening to too much Rush Limbaugh at the time. Even the bishop got letters that time, saying “get this wacko priest out of here!”
[Without warning, launch into the following bombastically to the tune “My Way”]
I also thank you for your Christmas cards. This year my favorite card contained a rare and doubtlessly expensive gift: a certificate good for one free appointment with Dr Jack Kevorkian!
Although I am moving to another parish, I will continue to be a Norbertine priest and a high school teacher. And there will always be a Norbertine priest helping out here at St Norbert’s parish, as there always has been. This June there will be some new young Norbertine priests ordained, and if one of them is really lucky he’ll be assigned to St Norbert’s. Please treat him as kindly and warmly as you’ve treated me over the past ten years.
So much I’d like to say but I promised to keep this under 7 minutes,
so I leave you with a final thought. Parents who love their children
know when it is the proper time for them to leave home and begin working
on their own. The parting is painful, but the prospects of a challenging
future are exciting. In a similar way, my next parish assignment
will be difficult. If I succeed, it won’t only be due to the grace
of God. It will be because you lovingly and patiently prepared me
for priestly work. It is now time for me to go do that work.
Although it pains me to leave, I also thank you as words cannot express
for making this moment possible.
God bless you all.
Farewell.