WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T TELL ANYBODY ABOUT THIS POST!
This has been the type of therapy most of us have always secretly wanted to use on occasion!
Yes, you have to be able to handle a lot of controversy - a lot of it!
Can too much examination of conscience drive one to drink?
It is both life giving and life draining. You have to pace yourself.
Often, you just have to fake it till you make it!
This is actually what many parishioners think.
The Saint Paul Syndrome?
Does so many books published mean I had one hell of of bad childhood?
A typical rectory living room with a pastor and his associate.
When it comes to weddings, sometimes it is just better not to ask too many questions.
As I said, sometimes it's just better to wait to get back to the rectory to start screaming.
Don't think the fun stops at weddings either!
SOME OF MY MORE INSANE HAPPENINGS
- I called the bride by the old girl friend's name at the wedding vows!
- I had a bride to fall on me, push me into an altar, which sent me, altar and bride crashing down one step! The ushers had to untangle us.
- I visited the wrong family at a funeral home and carried on a five minute conversation with some people who did not know who the hell I was or why I was there! I didn't even realize anything was wrong until I was leaving the funeral home and saw the right name on another room.
- In praying for the Adams family sitting right in front of me in church, I said, "Let us pray for all the families of the parish except the Adams family, when I meant to say especially. I did not know till Mass was over.
- I dragged a screaming woman with a Bible in her hands down the isle of the Cathedral during Mass when she took over the altar platform reading from the Book of Revelations during the middle of Mass.
- While making the case during a homily for the need to renovate the Cathedral, a huge chunk of the plaster ceiling fell on the floor right in front of me barely missing my head.
- I got to my first anointing at the hospital only to find out that someone had put ashes in the oil stock last Lent and did not remove them. Ashes went all over the poor woman's face and pillow. No Catholics were present and I had no oil, so to cover my mistake I concluded the prayers with "Remember, man, you are dust and to dust you shall return." None of the good Baptist nurses standing around noticed anything wrong.
- I couldn't remember what someone asked me to pray for as I was going up the isle. When I started the prayer, I prayed "... for Mr. Jones who died." The family started shaking their heads, so I prayed "... for Mr. Jones who is sick." Again the family shook their heads. I prayed on ".... for Mr. Jones who is unemployed." Again the family shook their heads. I finally called them up for a head to head meeting. It was Mrs. Jones who had died!
- One of the students at Somerset Community College where I volunteered as a campus minister back in the seventies came to the door of the rectory. Father Buren answered the door. The kid panicked and could not remember that my name was Father Knott. After stammering a few minutes I heard him ask, "Is ... uh ... uh ... uh, Father Bump at home?"
- One day the phone rang in my basement apartment in St. Peter Church in Monticello. We were one of the only churches in town offering social service help to people needing help. Someone even called one day and asked, "Is this the church that helps people?" That day, however, the man on the phone asked if he could borrow some money. I answered that, yes, we tried to help people when we could. When I asked him what he needed, he answered that he wanted to build a car port. I answered quite shocked, "A carport? We only have about seventy dollars in our account!" He answered back quite shocked, "Seventy dollars? Who is this?" When I said, "Father Knott, pastor of St. Peter Church." He yelled back, "Hell, I thought I was talking to the Monticello Bank!"
- Many times we were broken into at the Cathedral rectory by a man we could not catch. One day, he broke into my room, took a few things and left a note that read "Cleanliness is next to godliness!"
- When we had to move out of the Cathedral rectory to begin its renovation, I lived at my house on Eastern Parkway and the archbishop lived at the Galt House. Well, I was robbed at my house. When I told the archbishop that I had been robbed, but they had only taken a little change, he responded, "Now isn't that pathetic? They broke into your house and didn't see a thing they wanted!"
Sometimes I just go home and shake my head in amazement that no one got hurt that day!
