Lord, this time change our hearts.
"Change our hearts this time,
your word says it can be.
Change our minds this time,
your life could make us free.
We are the people,
your call has set apart.
Lord, this time,
Change Our Hearts."
This refrain from the last song at mass this morning started to erase the film that I saw at the start of mass. We watched a presentation from Bishop Blair that was supposed to play during Catholic School week. A level three snow emergency moved the film to this morning. As I watched, I was reminded of an evening years ago, when I had the opportunity to say a few words to Bishop Blair at the closing of a question and answer period. He and a few of his staff came to visit Upper Sandusky to discuss the closings with his parishioners. Basically I asked him to help us continue all the good things that were happening in the parish at the time. Things that might disappear without Toledo's help and support. As I watched him this morning, I wondered if he had given us the help we asked for.
Has Toledo's staff changed their minds over the course of all that has happened these past years? Do they still have the same mindset of closing and consolidating? Have they listened to their hearts? or listened to lay people in charge of facts and figures? The decisions that they make could make so many people free.
posted by Karen @ 12:12 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
How quickly they forget. It was just a few years ago that our dear bishop decided to go against all the hard work we had done to save parishes and just do what was easiest for him. With no concern for the communities he was destroying. And now it seems that enrollment is down and of course the real problem for the bishop is that the money is also drying up. Do they (the diocese) really think that we are that stupid? People are tired of being misled and lied to. Just this last week a reporter from the Toledo Blade called me about the diocese clustering more parishes and wanted to know if I thought it was a good thing. I told her that it is never good for communities to be shut out of the decision making and not have any say about their future. I also told her this was just another way for them to close more parishes. She was surprised at what I had to say. I told her to talk to David Yonke because he had a book wrote about the lies and corruption that has gone on and still is being covered up. For many of us we have tried to bring life back to these communities but with it being run as a dictatorship we really have no other option than to start things outside the walls of the institution. For the bishop to whine about people leaving and the need for more money is an insult to the many people HE chose to turn his back on. When will he realize that the people are the church and they need to be in on the decision making. They need to have their voices heard.
Everytime the diocese needs more $$$$ the answer is close churches, reducing expense, creating more revenue. If that formula worked then the schools wouldn't need more $$$$ now. All the parishes in the Toledo diocese would be operating in the black. The definition of insanity is "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"
Another thing that was disturbing about today's liturgy, how just one small word can change the meaning of the text. That word was "made".
In an "old" edition of the St Joseph Catholic Bible Luke 4 vs 9 (the devil) "set Him on the pinacle." In the reading today the text was
(the Devil) "made Him to stand on the pinacle." Look up the two definitions and you'll see how that one word changes the entire meaning of the passage and who or what is in control. It gives a whole new perspective on David Yonkle's book that Dan is talking about. If you haven't read it do so, it reaveals some very disturbing facts and events that have taken place (and covered up) in our diocese.
I read the last two comments when I came home from work and posted them. I then put my earphones in place, turned my ipod on(very loudly!) and went out to feed the dog. Ironically, the Christian song's refrain was, "You should've, when you could've,." Hmmmmmmmm...........
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