The thought was that if my life continued to go down the road that had opened for it on Sunday evening, as the bishop was "kicking off" the weekly Adult Faith formation Event that Belle and I have organized, I would perhaps come to smile a bit sometime around Friday evening at 10:00 PM or so. So far we have had a stream of people that is rather impressive coming through the various open doors on campus. We had about 400 last night and about 300 tonight. If this continues we will have our first 1,000 gross traffic year in the 6 years that we have put this in front of people. Imagine, 700 in two nights, one of which coincided with the State of the Union Address. Not only that, but this was the night when we had invited the church people who are dedicated to the treatment of post abortion stress syndrome in our diocese. Not a very gala topic. But you know what? Between the two national groups, Anglo and Hispanic, we had 60 people involved. What's going to happen when the ministers from Prison chaplaincy come, followed by the Ministry to Families with Gay and/or lesbian members. Actually, I'm allowing myself to be ready for the magic number to be realized. If that happens, It will be like when I first realized that 1,000,000 pairs of eyeballs had fallen on my Internet musings. I will shake my head in disbelief for a week.
Today, I was trying to enumerate the number and names of people who have been instrumental in getting this thing put together and rolling. Not that many, actually. But powerful ones. The steam roller lady from 40 miles south who is so efficient that I just had to be responsive to her acceptance of the invitation and to her constant, torridly accurate follow-up updates about what she was planning to do. The Bulldozer Deacon, head of Arab Catholics in Southern California who found not one but two Muslims willing to come to our church to instruct our congregation about Islam. The deacon works in a parish 65 miles away and the one Muslim who finally came traveled 85 miles one way for a two hour talk. For a couple of years now I have been seeking a good speaker to tell the Mexican population about a powerful part of their religious history called the Cristero Movement. I found one, pro bono (free) who came from 65 miles away for the occasion.
I'm not done. There's the nun who is coming from 60 miles and the deacon from 45 and the other nun from 45. Do you wonder why I shake my head?
I dare you to ask me about the January weather that God is sending us for this occasion. Hey, if he had not run out of Manna 6,000 years ago, He would share some with us. But He's a little short, what with the bad economy and all. So instead, all He's doing is seeing to it that the temp is hovering around 60 or so, with balmy skies and no clouds...and this is at night, not noon.
So all of you who have been praying for success, don't let your arms droop down yet. It's still just mid week, but the Heavenly Hosts are doing their part.
That is it for now. You should hear some of the testimony that has come to me as I walk around the campus, meeting and greeting people who are lost because they are unfamiliar with the church territory. I have told a couple of them to give a name to their guardian angel so that they can ask him to bring them back again next week for the 'Welcome Home" meeting for returning Catholics.
Now, I better get to bed before MY guardian angel falls asleep from over work.
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