What Happened This Week at St Anthony Parish: Marching Towards November
A look at the past week at St. Anthony Parish in Allston, MA
I remember when Garrison Keeler used to host A Prairie Home Companion on public radio, he would always begin his stories with, “It was a quiet week in Lake Wobegon,” Well, it was a quiet week at St. Anthony Parish in Allston.
In the Archdiocese, we are already preparing for the installation of our new archbishop, His Excellency Richard Henning on October 31. I am sure you notice that means he is being installed on Hallowe’en. Well, that is by definition the eve of All Saints Day. The Mass will be carried as usual on CatholicTV.
We received an invitation indicating that only the first 450 priests may attend the installation at the Cathedral, therefore, I will not be attending. I will give other priests a chance to go. Of course, that also means, I never attended an installation Mass for a diocesan bishop including my own. When then Archbishop O’Malley was installed, I was in Denver, Colorado on vacation.
We are preparing for our 125th Anniversary Dinner on November 3rd. Mass will be at 10:30 am in both English and Portuguese and then the dinner will be in Newton.
This week the Brazilian community celebrated (Nossa Senhora) Our Lady Aparecida. This is a great time for them and they even did a procession around the property. They decorated the image of Our Lady in a boat which is how she originally appeared in the form of an image (statue). You can see the original one in Aparecida, Sao Paulo, Brazil. It is a beautiful Shrine.
Fr. Francisco always does a great job in leading the community in such events as well.
Sunday one of the parishioners told me he just returned from Lebanon and was there when the bombs dropped. He explained that civilians were killed but the media was not reporting this. He added that Lebanon does not want this war. The people are essentially forced to accept Hezbollah and suffer the consequences but there is little they can do.
This reminds me of when I was producing the local broadcast of Vatican Radio on WEZE back in the 1990’s, Sean Patrick Lovett who produced The English Programme explained that he really had a huge resource in the local clergy and laity who were actually at some place they were covering. Therefore, this gives us an opportunity to learn what is actually happening instead of relying on the media which may not be forthcoming.
I know that may sound like something out of a political campaign but know that Noam Chomsky has been warning about less than objective accurate news since the 1960’s. I first met him in the 1980’s at a Catholic Worker House where he explained his position on the media, and I have to say it is accurate.
Remember, both Jesse Ventura and Chris Hedges claim to have been fired from their major news organizations—Ventura from NBC and Hedges from the New York Times for their positions against war.
Photo: Sidney de Almeida via Bigstockphoto.com
Fr. Robert J Carr is pastor of St. Anthony Parish in Allston, MA
The parish podcast is at https://catholicaudiomedia.com