Week Sixty - Saint Joseph (North Bend)
4:30 Saturday afternoon mass, St. Joseph. I enjoyed my drive to North Bend this weekend. A quiet, curving road leading down to the river on a beautiful, sunny day put me in a good mood. Even a wrong turn at the last minute didn't throw me. What did throw me, however, was St. Joseph's church. I have to be honest - I have never seen the interior of a church like this one . . . and I'm not saying that as a good thing. I'm completely, completely, baffled. I had to come home and research the history of the church just to try to make sense of it all. Was this, at some time, a gymnasium? A multi-purpose room? No, no, it was the "new" church (for a parish now 150 years old) built in 1961. Honestly, I don't even know how to describe it. I don't want to describe it. Let's just move on.
It was a full house at St. Joseph's Saturday afternoon mass, and a fairly sizable crowd it was. I have to believe these were the "Aston" people, as in Aston Lake, Aston Woods, Aston Oaks, Aston View, the empty-nesters in their landominiums and the young couples living the good life on the edge of a golf course. My suspicions were confirmed after mass when I followed several cars straight from the parking lot of the church to one of the many "Aston" streets where they, sure enough, turned off.
I don't know who Aston is (or was), but he or she and his or her heirs have to be sitting pretty right about now. One would expect St. Joseph's to be sitting pretty as well with the influx of so many new residents in the area. Apparently, however, that part hasn't quite panned out. Again, I was lucky enough to catch another "stewardship" homily this week which included this fun fact: out of St. Joe's roughly 900 registered families, only a little over 200 use their weekly envelopes. I'm not sure what that really means in terms of dollars received, but if the 700 families not using their envelopes aren't dropping their loose change in the basket, Houston, we've got a problem. Thus, this week, all registered parishioners will receive a letter asking for a "commitment." If no reply is received, they will be sent "a series of follow-up letters" and their house will be foreclosed on. Just kidding about that last part, but it looks like someone's going to be making some hard decisions over the next few days. Hmmm, jacuzzi in the master bath . . . or God? I liked the byline on a printed "guideline for giving" that was placed on the chairs in the church (yes, they had chairs, not pews), "Not equal gifts, but equal sacrifice." That's good.
The mass itself was standard and unremarkable. The music group sounded great, loud and clear, probably a result of those gymnasium acoustics. There was one woman in the group who had a truly beautiful voice that stood out from the others. I'm embarrassed to report that I found a considerable amount of humor in observing the people around me. Two rows up sat a young family, including a little girl around four, "Big Sister Maria 09," according to her t-shirt, and the incriminating one-year old sister, a real-life Cindy Lou Who, aka "Little Princess," according to her own t-shirt. I have to give it to Maria - this kid must have the patience of a saint because you know that somewhere in the back of her mind is the footnote to her graphic tee, "My mom and dad had another baby, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt." She was a well-behaved little girl, arranging and re-arranging the hymnals and missals, only breaking down into silent tears once for some unknown reason. On the flip side, Little Princess was non-stop wiggles and gigggles that kept mom and dad non-stop busy. It was as exhausting to watch as it was entertaining. At one point, I had a bizarre thought that the parents could have made it easy on themselves and slipped Little Princess into the purse of the woman in front of me. I swear it was the biggest purse I have ever seen in my life, and it was made of - get this - snakeskin. Oh, it probably was fake, but had it been real, it would have taken a python or two to make a purse that size. Some of the Aston folks, no doubt. She with her snakeskin duffel bag and he in his Ralph Lauren jeans . . . in North Bend, Ohio.
I don't see myself returning to St. Joseph's anytime soon. Yeah, it was a nice drive to get there, but next time, I think I'll just keep going.
It was a full house at St. Joseph's Saturday afternoon mass, and a fairly sizable crowd it was. I have to believe these were the "Aston" people, as in Aston Lake, Aston Woods, Aston Oaks, Aston View, the empty-nesters in their landominiums and the young couples living the good life on the edge of a golf course. My suspicions were confirmed after mass when I followed several cars straight from the parking lot of the church to one of the many "Aston" streets where they, sure enough, turned off.
I don't know who Aston is (or was), but he or she and his or her heirs have to be sitting pretty right about now. One would expect St. Joseph's to be sitting pretty as well with the influx of so many new residents in the area. Apparently, however, that part hasn't quite panned out. Again, I was lucky enough to catch another "stewardship" homily this week which included this fun fact: out of St. Joe's roughly 900 registered families, only a little over 200 use their weekly envelopes. I'm not sure what that really means in terms of dollars received, but if the 700 families not using their envelopes aren't dropping their loose change in the basket, Houston, we've got a problem. Thus, this week, all registered parishioners will receive a letter asking for a "commitment." If no reply is received, they will be sent "a series of follow-up letters" and their house will be foreclosed on. Just kidding about that last part, but it looks like someone's going to be making some hard decisions over the next few days. Hmmm, jacuzzi in the master bath . . . or God? I liked the byline on a printed "guideline for giving" that was placed on the chairs in the church (yes, they had chairs, not pews), "Not equal gifts, but equal sacrifice." That's good.
The mass itself was standard and unremarkable. The music group sounded great, loud and clear, probably a result of those gymnasium acoustics. There was one woman in the group who had a truly beautiful voice that stood out from the others. I'm embarrassed to report that I found a considerable amount of humor in observing the people around me. Two rows up sat a young family, including a little girl around four, "Big Sister Maria 09," according to her t-shirt, and the incriminating one-year old sister, a real-life Cindy Lou Who, aka "Little Princess," according to her own t-shirt. I have to give it to Maria - this kid must have the patience of a saint because you know that somewhere in the back of her mind is the footnote to her graphic tee, "My mom and dad had another baby, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt." She was a well-behaved little girl, arranging and re-arranging the hymnals and missals, only breaking down into silent tears once for some unknown reason. On the flip side, Little Princess was non-stop wiggles and gigggles that kept mom and dad non-stop busy. It was as exhausting to watch as it was entertaining. At one point, I had a bizarre thought that the parents could have made it easy on themselves and slipped Little Princess into the purse of the woman in front of me. I swear it was the biggest purse I have ever seen in my life, and it was made of - get this - snakeskin. Oh, it probably was fake, but had it been real, it would have taken a python or two to make a purse that size. Some of the Aston folks, no doubt. She with her snakeskin duffel bag and he in his Ralph Lauren jeans . . . in North Bend, Ohio.
I don't see myself returning to St. Joseph's anytime soon. Yeah, it was a nice drive to get there, but next time, I think I'll just keep going.
ATTENDANCE: Comfortably full
DURATION: One hour
DURATION: One hour
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