Ice did it, not disability on your’s truly’s part, no sirree. People flocked to help, two men and a woman. Treacherous curb area. Balance not an issue, no sirree.
Yet and still . . .
A look at a Sunday mass few years ago, sermon started 9:48, ended 10:10!
Considered writing organizer of liturgy about it. Instead decided to love this preacher and forget about it.
It’s my strategy these days. When irritated, think good of the irritator, whom God loves, and so should I!
Thing is, am I on speaking terms with God? Therein lies a tale. It’s crucial. Ask when did you last speak to Him? He’s at your beck and call, you know.
He is our friend. Talk to Him, He’s listening.
Egad, get on it, you fool.
Egad?
English has a raft of ‘minced oaths’ to take the place of swear words for the sake of politeness. We still use words like darn, ruddy, and flippin’ ‘eck.
Egad, as well as zounds, ‘sblood, struth, gadzooks, etc. are from Elizabethan times, when plays contained plenty of swearing, but in 1606 all oaths on stage were banned. [!]
You want to go further on this? Be my guest.
A minced oath is a euphemistic expression formed by deliberately changing the spelling of, or replacing, part of a profane, blasphemous, or taboo word or phrase to remove the original term’s objectionable characteristics.
Also, a new term can be created from scratch. The goal is to create a new term that expresses the same emotions but does not carry the same offensive denotative meaning. An example is “gosh” for “God“,[1] or fudge for fuck.[2]
Many languages have such expressions. In the English language, nearly all profanities have minced variants.[3]
I did not know that.
Back to mass. I asked myself, did I not, do we want a special way of reading Scripture aloud at mass?
Yes and no, for starters. Yes because the mass is a prayer, for one thing — much more than that, of course — and the reader instinctively adopts a tone that reflects this.
So it is that readers at mass, people who volunteer for that role, adopt the tone.
Or seem to.
Me, faced with a long passage from Old Testament greats, I am tempted to announce to my audience, buckle up, everybody.
Or faced with Epistle passages whose translator did the best he or she could but still the audience is faced with complicated, complex passages which as an English teacher ages ago I might have asked the class to paraphrase and see what they came up with and discuss it.
That is to say, if they took a shot at solving the problem presented by the passage, they would be ready to talk about it.
Well for lots of reasons, none of that’s gonna happen. My audience at a weekday mass will be entirely on the receiving end, which is why I read the passage as if it’s a hot story. Not too hot, of course.
Not going to dramatize it but to spit it out as a good story, something engaging, you know, emphasizing all that needs it, spelling it out as if listeners were not a captive audience, but people who will stop what they are doing and listen.
Let the religious element speak for itself. If the prophet is reading the riot act to his audiences, deliver it to your audience with the vigour it deserves, delivering it with gusto, driving it home as something they are likely to remember.
As for you readers, assuming there are at least two of you, see you at church — and not “if the windows are clean,” as we Catholic wise guys and gals would put it in the 40’s in old Oak Park.
Blithe Spirit 