out with the crowd

Parishes all over the Eastern U.S. may experience a priest shortage from April 15 to 20. I'm no Faith Popcorn but I'll predict this trend based on a conversation after Mass this morning. Fr. Ragan Schriver said he will go to Washington on Catholic Charities business that week. Not coincidentally, he will attend Pope Benedict's Mass at "some baseball stadium" on April 17. I told him that the Pope will be one of the first people to play the new Nationals Park. The others in the group were amused by my choice of theatrical verbs. Fr. Augustine Idra then said that he too was going to a Papal Mass at "some baseball stadium" but in New York. I then mentioned that Benedict XVI would be one of the last to play the old Yankee Stadium.

Here's more proof why the Internet is great. Almost a year and a half ago, I wrote a silly blog entry about a church hymn that reminded me of the Taylor Dayne song "Tell It to My Heart." On February 21, Ms. Dayne sang that very song on "Jimmy Kimmel Live." On Monday the church song came back into my life when I got an email with a large attachment. The sender’s name was immediately recognizable to me even though we've never met. It was from singer/songwriter Tom Franzak. Best of all, the attachment was a copy of the song I had written about. Tom's message was: "I arrived, somehow, at your post where you mention my song, 'Come And Follow Me.' Thought you might enjoy this." I wrote back thanking him. Now I need to figure out a way to get John D. Becker to send me a copy of his "Litany of Saints."