We had many people show up for the Blessing of Pets last Saturday in remembrance of St. Francis of Assisi whose feast was October 4th. Pictures of the event can be found on our Instagram, Twitter, Facebook & website. Everyone took a great picture...even the humans who held them. We had dogs, cats, a rabbit & even a 35 year old turtle! How is it that a turtle, who lives such a “sheltered” life, can outlive our more active & affectionate pets buy so many years? I remember having a turtle when I was young. All it did was sit underneath this plastic green palm tree. Of course you can’t teach a turtle how to sit or fetch, but they learn “stay” & “play dead” pretty quickly.
At the doors of the church and in the Rectory Office you will find little booklets that describe in more detail the “Reflections of Italy” trip that I will be taking with some parishioners next October. Some were asking me questions I wasn’t able to answer yet but you can join us on Tuesday, October 24th, for a little presentation on the trip (the time will be in next week’s bulletin). We will be going to Rome, Assisi, Florence, Venice, & Milan. Please let me know if I can plan on seeing you at the meeting. No commitment is required yet. We just want to provide information & answer any questions you may have.
A couple weeks ago, the people attending the 8am Mass were greeted by an usher at the door who had to unlock the door of the church for them. We’ve had this strange thing happen on occasion where there is some kind of vacuum created in the church which causes all the doors of the church to stay open when someone comes in & the doors do not close on their own as expected. Well the mystery has finally been solved after I inquired with the people working on our church heating system. When the temperature outside is cooler than inside, but the inside temperature is too warm to be comfortable, the blowers in the system turn on, bringing the air in from the outside instead of using the air conditioning which would be less economical. But that extra air has to escape somehow & so when a door opens the inside pressure keeps it from closing. The original doors of the church were made of a much heavier material than the ones they were replaced with a few years ago which I suspect are aluminum, so these light doors don’t have the right tension to close on their own. Hence, the problem with them staying open under these conditions. The solution is either to turn off this economical feature or to keep a door open so that the air has a place to escape. Now how many of you thought you would learn about such things by coming to church here today?