Welcome to Recover Catholic... Our purpose is to help our fellow alcoholics and addicts. We welcome Mom's, Dad's, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, friends and colleagues of loved ones afflicted by the disease of alcoholism and addiction to join us here and those suffering in all stages of the disease.
To better understand and help those suffering and slowly dying in front of our eyes by this very cunning and baffling disease. To hopefully add some encouragement, peace, knowledge and fellowship to the alcoholic and addict. New posts will be available every Sunday afternoon.
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome... Part III - The Usher and The Collection Basket
Mass is over...Abby and I make our way to the car amidst the crowd of good Catholics. I expected question after question from Abby. Abby was a very quiet, reserved young woman when I met her, one of the many qualities that were attractive to me. She is still quiet and reserved to a certain extent, but only when other people are around. When its just the two of us, you wouldn't believe she was the same person, it's nonstop, a mile a minute. I start to drive off and nothing but silence on the whole ride home.
After a while, at home, Abby breaks the silence, "Where does the money go?".
"What money?"
"The money that all the people at the church give and put in the basket"
"It goes to the church, what do you mean?"
She replied,"There were a lot of people that put in envelopes with checks in the basket. The bulletin said that last weeks' collections were over $48,000".
"The Priest decides where it goes."
"Does it go to the Pope? It should go to a charity. Why does the Priest get to decide and not the whole Parish? It doesn't seem right, there was no mention of where the money is going." She was getting worked up. "How does he decide?"
"Ok, Listen. Like most things in the Catholic Church, there's a tradition, a ritual involved in any important decision. The Priest takes the all the money from the collection, takes it back into his sanctuary behind the altar, where only Priests are allowed. Not many people, Catholics included, know about this and I probably shouldn't be telling you. The only reason I know is because I saw it by accident when I was a kid, while Jimmy O'Connor and I were serving mass at St. Mary's."
Abby was silent.
So, one day after Sunday mass, me and Jimmy started walking home after we served 6am Mass. My parents would never get up that early to go to Mass, they usually went to 10:30 or Noon. So we walked to and fro' every week so we could serve and do our duty. I liked being a server, it gave me something to do other than daydream during Mass. We get about a block away from St. Mary's and Jimmy starts rooting through his pockets, and then an "Oh S***!! I forgot the two cigarettes I stole from my Dad's pack last night. I was saving them so we could smoke them on the way home. I must have left them in my cassock. We have to go back, Father Don will kill me if he finds them, he'll know they are mine, I confessed to stealing cigarettes from my Dad last month."
We sneak back in through side door in the priests sanctuary. Surely Father Don is long gone by now, having breakfast in the cafeteria with the Sisters of the Precious Blood, whose convent was across the street. We creep down the long hall behind the door and silently open the door to the sanctuary. Shocked, we see Father Don with his back to us and all of the money from the collection is spread out on a small altar before him. He is saying a prayer in Latin, an old prayer, my translation is a little rusty..."Lord, I offer these gifts to you from all of your servants here at St. Mary's. I shall throw this money up high into the air, Lord, whatever you need, please keep, and whatsoever you wish for me to have, let it fall back to the earth...
