And, we're back, ladies and gentlemen! When the cable guy arrived this morning, he took one look at what the TV was doing and declared this was a problem with the wiring outside. So he got up on his ladder and opened the cable box. He almost fell over backwards when the squirrel leaped out at him and scurried down the wall. Then, amazed, he extracted an enormous nest comprising twigs, moss, leaves, plastic bags, a half bag of rotted wonderbread, and various other unique items. When he removed the damaged wire, it had been chewed clean through to the copper core by said squirrel. You would think this would shock the squirrel, but I guess not. With the wire replaced, everything worked as normal and I went about my day - a very long, but blessed Ash Wednesday.

The Lady Chapel was far fuller this Wednesday than normal Wednesdays at the 10 am service, and it was great to see so many people. I assisted with the imposition of ashes and the Mass, which was a blessing. There is something incredibly human, incredibly personal about imposing ashes and saying those time honored words (which will forever resound in my head in Fr. Miller's bass voice). Then we traveled to the home of a man who cannot make it to church and did the service with him. From there we went to a rehab home and met a parishoner who lives there. We did the service in the Cafeteria and after we finished, a friend of the parishoner came over and asked if we could do her. Happily, we agreed. Soon, there was a small line of other patients and staff. Then, more and more staff came over to have ashes imposed on thier foreheads. We probably imposed ashes on over twenty foreheads. Of course, we thought later, the lower tier workers of these places are usually all Hispanic or Filipino Roman Catholic women who will not be able to get to a service that day because of work. We thought for next year, what a ministry it would be to go to hotel kitchen, restaurant kitchens, nursing home staff, custodial staff everywhere and impose ashes right there in their workplace. The ones today were truly blessed and a blessing.

-R