{"id":413,"date":"2008-01-29T23:29:43","date_gmt":"2008-01-29T23:29:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/01\/irrelevant.html"},"modified":"2008-01-29T23:29:43","modified_gmt":"2008-01-29T23:29:43","slug":"irrelevant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/01\/irrelevant.html","title":{"rendered":"Irrelevant"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a chilly Sunday morning, an ancient priest fills in for the pastor.
\nHe speaks softly, almost inaudibly at times.
\nHe is careful when he moves and must even take a seat while the Gloria <\/em>is sung.
\nThose of us in the back\u00a0amid wriggling, restless\u00a0masses must lean forward and focus our entire attention on him during the homily, so we can\u00a0catch\u00a0what he is saying above the low rumble that surrounds us.
\nHe speaks of Peter. He pulls stories from here and there, across eight decades, I would guess, \u00a0including a tale of his own trip to the Sea of Galilee with some other priests. They tried to get a fisherman to take them out in his boat, but he demurred, saying that he only went out at about 5:30 and fished all night – like Peter.
\nThey convinced him, though, and so he took them out. Of course, he did not catch a thing.
\nThe priest skips ahead a\u00a0bit in the\u00a0liturgical year\u00a0and mentions Peter being recognized by his accent at the fire, in the dark, the night before Jesus was crucified.
\nHe\u00a0tells us that like Peter, all\u00a0Christians are recognized by how they speak.
\nAnd he talks of brother apostles. How at one time in this diocese, there were six sets of priestly brothers. He names them all. He and his own older brother make up one of the sets.
\n“And now, ” he says softly, almost in wry, resigned wonderment, \u00a0“I’m the only one left.”
\nThe slightest pause, and we think about that.
\nIt\u00a0is not happening or rocking\u00a0or relevant. No one’s creativity\u00a0is up for evaluation this day. No one has brought home amazing ideas from a workshop or an awesome brainstorming session at Starbucks.
\nNo. it\u00a0is just an gathering on a cold morning. There\u00a0is an altar, a couple of books, bread and wine. There\u00a0is the lot of us from everywhere, bringing everything in this world with us. An elderly man reminds us that giving ourselves over to Christ was all that really matters in life.
\nHe talks to us about that – a little disjointedly – but that’s what he\u00a0is talking about.
\nHe\u00a0is talking about it and in his soft words and careful motions, he\u00a0is showing us. Living it.
\nAnd then he brings \u00a0Him to us.
\nFrom his\u00a0cool, trembling mortal flesh, he shares Him – the One who had called him and his brothers – shares Him with us, one at a time, one of thousands, of millions more across time and space.
\nTwo thousand years pass, but\u00a0still, brothers listen, say yes, <\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0 cast their nets.
\nAnd they\u00a0come back\u00a0full.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a chilly Sunday morning, an ancient priest fills in for the pastor. He speaks softly, almost inaudibly at times. He is careful when he moves and must even take a seat while the Gloria is sung. Those of us in the back\u00a0amid wriggling, restless\u00a0masses must lean forward and focus our entire attention on him…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nIrrelevant - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/01\/irrelevant.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Irrelevant - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On a chilly Sunday morning, an ancient priest fills in for the pastor. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}