April 5, Easter Monday
April 7, Easter Wednesday No internet all these days. Frustrating.
The mood to put something in the blog, I am afraid will soon pass is the
internet doesn’t get connected soon. Happy delayed Easter.
April 11, 2021
Today is Divine Mercy Sunday—when Jesus came into the
room without going through the door on the Sunday after Easter, the first thing
he said is uxolo alube kini---peace be with you. How could he be at peace with this bunch of
cowards…..they all ran away when the police came to get Jesus and Peter, the
leader of he gang even swore that he didn’t know the man, when the girl near
the fire said, out loud, …you too are one of them. When he said, peace be with you, what was implied is that
he had forgiven them for abandoning him and for Peter even denying him, his
best friends, he thought. So forgiveness was one of the topics today. You won’t
ever be able to be at peace with yourself, if you still have ugly feelings for
those who hurt you. It may take some time (I found that forgiveness is a process),
even years, depending how badly one has been hurt, but inner peace won’t come
until you resolve that ugly feeling. Enough preaching.
I had asked Fr. Tom Szura, our keeper of my J&P
socio-pastoral account, to send $2000 to help the people here who have been
pretty much wiped out by the lockdown that came with corona. Jobs lost (mostly
too, very low paying jobs that people just managed to survive on), kicked out
of where they were staying because they couldn’t pay the rent, no money to buy food or pay for electricity,
or water or even for some data to be able to use their cell phones. No money
for transport, to the doctor, to the hospital, to the pharmacy, to the
supermarket, etc. etc. etc. So that $2000 turned into about R30,000.00 I could help about 20 people with that. That
was one thing that kept me busy.
Then I helped
Mpume with money to go to the hospital to get copies of all the interactions
that she had with the doctors regarding the problem she was having with her
eyes, having gone blind already in one eye and now the other slowly going blind
too. She had to take someone with her to guide her so I had to pay for
transport for 2, there and back. I had given her R1000 to be used for whatever
expenses she might find and I thought that that should cover the transport and
whatever else. Ha. She had 75 pages of reports that had to be copied. They
wanted to charge her R24 per page. Holy moses. That’s R1800. She didn’t have
that much so they let her go with whatever she had left after paying for the
transport. That is all so that she can apply for disability grant so that she
can survive. I don’t’ know how she is surviving now. I just try to help when I
can.
I have decided to take some things like vitamin pills and
other things to help my ageing body and also because we don’t always have a
balanced diet. That has to come out of my pension money that is in the coffers
of Mariannhill. It goes straight there so that I don’t even see it but I have
an idea how much it is when I ask Tom Szura. What do I need at my age. No more
night clubs, etc. Ha.
I give the occasional haircut. (my motto is, the only
difference between a good haircut and a bad one is about 3 weeks.) I have been
doing a good bit of reading and I scan the internet, when it works, for good
articles that I can share with others. I send out, as I am sure that some of
you know, reflections on the scripture readings for the coming Sunday . I think
it goes to about 200 people. If you don’t get it and would like to get it send
me your email address and I will put it on the list. And if you feel that you
don’t really need it, let me know and I will take you off the list.
Our Parish leader’s about 2 was broken into 3 times in about 2 weeks,
once when we were at church. We had aluminum windows put in when some repairs
were done to the house, and we discovered that they were very vulnerable for
any clever thief who can put a thin blade up the inside of the window and push
the handle up without having to break the glass, and with minimal damage to the
window. We had to extend the ADT security coverage where the new window was put
in and I had to ask my brother for $1000 to help pay for that. We thought that
they would be able to sleep now but the third time they broke in it was though
another of those aluminum windodws that we hadn’t thought of. Burglar bars are
the only answer.
I was kept pretty busy preparing the Holy week services
In English and Zulu. Lots of fun. Thursday, Mike Pillay, the leader, did the
foot washing for me after I blessed the water since I am not supposed to kneel
on my knee replacement (I think). And even if I could, I could surely get down,
but I know that I wouldn’t be able to get up without a lot of help, and it
would be a serious distraction. Friday, we had to adjust the service so that no
one was going to kiss the foot of the cross as was the custom, so I just asked
people to bow and say a short prayer to keep the protocol for the virus. (Of
course, we all wear masks and use the sanitizer at the door (I think that
sanitizer is going to become the new holy water….maybe I should bless it.) I
knew about the two children but I was only told on Wednesday of Holy Week about
the others. I like to prepare well (this was, again, in English and Zulu…..I
need time to prepare) I never confirmed before because we were taught this was
the Bishop’s job. However, I did remember that the Bishops’ Conference said
that adult baptisms should include Eucharist (communion) and confirmation, as
in the early days of the church. So many dioceses gave permission to priests to
do that and it seems that Mariannhill was one of those dioceses. So I did it.
The service is a long one (I won’t explain why here) and it lasted from shortly
after 6 pm when we blessed the Easter fire and candle, and continued to bless
the baptismal water and renew our baptism promises (when you see the ugly stuff
that is happening in our world today….beheadings in our neighboring Mozambique,
raping every time a traffic light changes, including even a 4 month old child,
eeeeevil. Satan, personified evil is making this world a very dark place to
live.) We finished with the baptisms and confirmations around 9pm. My spasm leg
was killing me, paining like mad so that I really wanted leave and go home but
I couldn’t abandon them in the middle of the service. I think my leg felt that
it was being abused because it was standing for most of those almost 3 hours. I
want to see the doctor if he or do
something to make the pain of the spasms be reduced or something.
I forgot about
Palm Sunday, which included the procession, but I stayed in church because I
wouldn’t be able to keep up with them and would just slow them down.
I still go to the hospital for a very informal kind of
prayer service and a blessing on Tuesday morning at 6:30am (changed from 6am to
get more people) and Friday at noon. Even if no one comes I figure that this is
my contribution to the heailng team at the hospital ….to pray that God protects
them from the man virus , and their families and the patients. I even came to a
non virus ward to anoint a sick patient and took the opportunity to remind the
patients in that ward that there was no discrimination, I pray for everyone,
not just catholics.
(Hey it is time for me to brush my teeth,, put in my
eyedrops (glaucoma) and hit the sack.) see you tomorrow, I hope.)
April, 12, 2021
“Beijing won the right to host the 2022
Olympics in 2015, the same year it cracked down on lawyers and activists across China,” Chinese human rights lawyer Teng Biao wrote earlier this year. “Since then, it has
detained journalists; harassed and attacked activists and dissidents even outside China’s borders; shut down nongovernmental organizations; demolished
Christian churches, Tibetan temples and Muslim mosques; persecuted, sometimes to death, believers in Falun Gong; and sharply increased
its control of media, the Internet, universities and publishers.”
Should we boycott their presence at the
Olympics this year because or their disrespect for human rights? This just came in this morning.
A big event… I took Retired bishop Lobinger, 92
yrs. old, to buy a pair of suspenders (braces in UK English). I found the store
that sold a whole variety of them on the internet. When we got there, they said
they only sell them on line. Bad luck. We went to several other stores with no
luck. Finally a young man from one of the stores we had approached told us that
there was a little store just around that corner that had them. We went and,
sure enough, there she had a variety The store was about 15 feet by 15 feet but
they had all kinds of things. So he now happily sports his suspenders.
I also became his doctor’s assistant. I saw a
blood stain on the back of his sweater and thought that there must be something
that he can’t see that is bleeding there. So I persuaded him to take off his
shirt and sure enough there was a deep sore, like a bed sore, but about a half
inch across and about of a quarter of an inch deep thee. How it got there is
anyone’s guess but I suspect that when he once fell down, he banged his back
against his backbone and that got it started. The doctor checks it out every week
and I change the bandaid every morning with
a bit of anti something on it to speed up the healing. I am now an
unofficially qualified doctor’s assistant.
Time to put this in the blog now. See you all. Easter
means hope. When it seemed impossible, God came on the scene and look. Ha. Surprise
surprise. They thought it was the end of the story but it was really just the
end of an episode, and the story continues.
Take care. LOTs of love and his peace. Cas.
