I haven't posted my last three homilies because, to be honest, I haven't preached a homily worth posting since then. Three weeks ago, I had a wedding, a funeral, and Sunday masses after a heck of a busy week. My homily was...thin. Two weeks ago, the Ascension, I had another busy week and another wedding but the homily just wouldn't come together. I never did write the thing down because it was just blech. Then, last weekend, I had a further crazy/busy week, the last wedding, and the deacon preached. I'm thinking that things are going to start to slow down now and I'll finally get to spend adequate time in preparation.
In my leadership training course, we talked about how, when you are learning a new skill, you go through a process of losing energy until you've achieved an adequate level of competence. I can see how true that is. In the past three weeks I keep thinking about how Brother Dennis Miller, the Benedictine Monk from Conception Abbey who assists Brother Blaise taking care of the grounds, wouldn't have to worry about budgets, litigation, weddings, and excessive civic parochialism. He'd just pray and work all day. After a couple of minutes of this kind of day dreaming, I remind myself that, if I was supposed to be at Conception Abbey, I'd be at Conception Abbey. For some reason, the Archbishop wants me to be here. If he has this much confidence in me, I should probably stop day dreaming and get to work.
