Since the very moment a F word is involved in preparations for any parochial feast or important event, people get carried away and simply dysfunctional. The meaning of F word is: FOOD... Ah, what a wonderful word for so many! Food, food, food! Once you include food for everybody in any celebration, you simply unleash mayhem and people automatically get focused on one agenda - cooking and eating. This is so important that all other things are pushed to the back burner - I've seen this so many times...
I just came back from a quick tour of the church and areas where tomorrow's feast will be celebrated and inevitably I am disappointed a bit. The church has been cleaned and decorated very well due to efforts of Sister Jennifer and her army of little soldiers - vocational group, Holy Childhood and a few people who came to help.
The open altar and its vicinity to the contrary has been completely neglected and no one bothered to clean it, decorate and get ready for tomorrow's artistic program, speeches and gifts presentation ceremony which will follow the Confirmation Mass before everybody goes to its predestined place to share food... There was a special team assigned with the task of cleaning the whole Divine Mercy Hill and preparation of the open altar, but, sadly, they got disturbed by the prospect of tomorrow's fiesta and eating frenzy, so they simply forgot to come to do the cleaning...
But in the mission premises there were swarms of people. The reason? Food... We had those two convicts on our rural death row finally put to death and there was a huge excitement in preparing the carcasses to be divided in portions for every locality on the list of recipients of goodies... People forgot to do their work and instead came over to watch slaughtering of the cows and dividing meat, discussing vehemently, commenting, advising, you name it!
Ladies from the cooking team were busy since early hours of the day with initial preparations of foodstuffs, washing plates and utensils, pre-cooking the meat etc...
Boys from secondary schools and our carpenters were busy putting up a tent covering the whole courtyard of the mission where tomorrow confirmants will have their lunch with the bishop and invited guests. There will be around 500 people around the house to share the meal. Another 500 will have food in various places around the Hill in their communities. They received money and meat according to the list we drawn the day before yesterday when we knew roughly what was our budget for this feast...
My electrician, Yusufu, checked the whole PA system in the church. I had to send him to Musoma to buy those 9 Volts square batteries for wireless microphones and the portable speaker with mike too.
Charles, our sacristan, was busy with Sister Jennifer in the church and also fetching water by car from the creek for the construction of the tank and floors in the school.
Sister Winfrida, commanding other sisters, was busy baking cakes, muffins, doughnuts and 'rogaliki' for tomorrow. Aurelia, my housekeeper was in charge of the army of cooking ladies over there in the outside kitchen...
Josiah and his assistant busy painting St. Martha's House ready to receive new inhabitants, be it for short term like Justyna and Mateusz coming for a day or two in a few weeks time, or for a long term as Zosia, coming to work as a medical volunteer nurse in our health center, for six months or so... I want the house to be ready for them. And for future volunteers getting ready to come next year, like Agata...
On my part I was busy with confessions. First session lasted three hours and ended with a Holy Mass for those who came in the morning so they would not go home without reciving Holy Communion, especially today, of the First Friday of the month. After a short break where I was involved with other preparations and construction of the tank and laying cement floor in classrooms, I came back to hear confessions - this time alone, as priests who did come in the morning, had to leave after lunch. They were only three who responded positively to my request for help. Talk about reluctance of too many to help with confessions... I was a bit disappointed, to be honest, with such a mediocre response from my fellow priests...
The second session lasted two hours and I finished around dusk time. Tired, but happy that everybody had opportunity to renconcile him/herself with God, I went to the pit to see how the works on the tank were going. I was pleased with what I saw...
So, here I am now, right after finishing writing a welcoming speech which I will say at the beginning of the Holy Mass. I will print it in a moment and will call the day...
The only remaining thing, apart from night prayer, will be my mental therapy after such a hectic day of an organized chaos... I reckon, a classical music, maybe a concert on DVD, will soothe my nerves and relieve my tension, so I can get a bit of sleep before the feast commences tomorrow. It won't be a long night as I wil have to wake up early and say Holy Mass for my sisters in the house chapel as they will be busy overseeing the kitchen activities tomorrow, setting up a high table in the parking shack in the courtyard and making sure the parish priest does not collapse with high BP when an organized chaos stress finally gets him down, amazed how we tricked ourselves out of a total failure - yet another time - considering the organized chaos reigning supreme in the last day of our preparations!
What a day you have had - hope you fell asleep listening to nice music. I get the sense that the whole of Kiabakari is in motion for the big feast.Confirmation is such a major event there unlike Ireland where the emphasis now is on style and money but the Holy Spirit isn't bothered and empowers the children with greater gifts. Glad you have helpers - the sisters are such a support to you ; I am so glad you have them now.Tom said to tell you he will never, ever complain about weddings after reading your blog- it surpasses anything imaginable. I guess he won't complain about hearing confessions either when he reads to-day's blog. In Ireland confessions have largely died out except for Christmas and Easter preparations and visits to Knock, Lough Derg etc. I think the field of counsellng and therapy has been made a substitute - how misguided people can become. Anyhow I have no doubt that the Holy Spirit will shower you with all his gifts and graces to-morrow -you seem to have a good lot of them already but you draw on them plenty so getting 'refills' is good . Don't worry about it - it will go fine and as Julien of Norwich says ' all will be well ; all manner of things will be well'. Veni Sancte Spiritus.
ReplyDeleteLena and Tom, thank you for your support. I was surprised I fell asleep like a fallen tree, just woke up, it was a good rest, thank God. I should be ok today. Just hoping for a clement weather, no scorching us as people coming from afar without proper breakfast may feel weak and suffer...
ReplyDeleteThe Holy Spirit is present in my ordination card, as I drew upon the words of the Prophet Isaiah from the chapter 61, verse 1 and the following... I have been amazed as He was leading us in the fulfillment of the vision of Divine Mercy here in Kiabakari, in spite of all things thrown at me, sometimes in bulk! We have been through some pretty horrible times, and if I am still able to joke and smile, I guess I owe Him this one :)
With our new bishop I feel less stressed as he is not that pricky and moody as the previous one, so we feel relaxed and look forward to this feast. I'm not caring much about food arrangements, this things sort themselves out rather well, people know how to shake and stir themselves and settle for compromises. Sisters who are invaluable to me - will take care for the high table and help to have a watchful eye on other things than protocol, liturgy, order of the day.
I will have 7am Mass for them in our house chapel as they want to be free during Confirmation Mass to take care of the table and the kitchen. For me it will be also a good opportunity to recharge and refocus and be ready for whatever comes today.