Pastor's Viewpoint

My cousin Maurice is a Monseigneur at a Catholic church, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Even though I fell away from the church decades ago, I still enjoy his viewpoint column in the parish bulletin every month.

Cousins: Helen and Maurice

PASTOR’S VIEWPOINT 

I sit looking at the computer screen and wonder. The sun is preparing its descent in the far West. Reminds me of a slow baseball curve, just hanging in there till it suddenly drops out of sight. My memory tricks me back to my pitching days. The only lefty on the team. That trademark caused to be identified as a ‘pitcher’. As I remember it, I was not even able to throw the ball. The team believed in me, so pitch I did. 

Now that my pitching days are over, I can think about my best curveball. It seems much better the way I remember it than the day I managed to twist my wrist quick enough to have an effect of some kind. The motion was always professional, the delivery unexpected and the result a mystery. Now that I am a priest and have toiled in the vineyard many a season I remember another pitcher who’s pitching days are not near ending and the curves, plenty of them, are superb and yet meant to be caught rather than to be slammed over the left field. 

I am pleasantly reflecting on how God chooses to drop in my existence on a daily basis. Every day seemed like it could never be repeated, and it never has been. I wake up in the wee morning hour and sure enough, it is a new day. I can expect another curve, different than yesterday. How fascinating to have an ‘aha’ moment when God whispers love, friendship and just is there, whether you walk, skip and hop or just listen to another story. I am sure every day must have brought its nasty moments. Mostly my fault. But somehow, the setting sun seems to carry them over the edge and my memory fades, just letting the good surface, with a few regrets and those mostly residues of misguided selfishness. 

God forgives for the asking; seventy-seven times is but a number. The joy of being aware of God’s love and conscious of His presence surpasses the delight of having managed a curveball. It replaces, or maybe just adds on to it, another memory that turns out in gratitude for another day taken as a gift and ready to see and experience what a restful night might create. 

Sometimes I wonder what good I could have accomplished with God at my side, if only I had given Him my time and space to be the God He wanted to be with me at His side. When I dare consult the child within this aging body, I try not to spend too much time on yesterday, yesteryears but concentrate on the wonderment of the moment of what has been a new day. Love, that is God’s love for us, has to be the best way to experience this moment that does not seem to end, but disappears in the West to show up leisurely at will, the same time I do on any given day. What a life! — Msgr. Maurice Comeault—