WHAT DECEMBER DAYS BRING TO PARISH MINISTRY..........

The crush and rush of preparations for Christmas are taking hold as these Advent Days of the first week of Dember rolls forward.  Calls, requests, and hoped for help, continue to stream into the Parish Office, as regular daily activities proceed.  So I was very much looking forward to chillaxing today on my day off, when on a moment's the day changed completely.  As we were concelebrating the 8 am Mass Father Traynor became listless, pale, and weak.  The parishioners and I helped him to a chair, called the paramedics, and I quickly finished the celebration of Mass.  He was taken to Mercy San Juan Hospital, and I followed him there, where we spent the next six hours in the Emergency Room having him checked, monitored, and tested.  Dr. Jeff Hardin and his colleagues after a bllod test, CAT scan and pacemaker check  and diagnosed the problem as dehydration and perhaps a touch of  pneumonia.  At Fr. Tony's insistent request the Doctor released him at 3:30 pm and he came back to the OLOL rectory to stay with me overnight.  We ate a combined Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, at Applebee's on Truxel Road, came back and watched the evening's network and cable news shows, topped off by the Hallmark Channel movie, "The Christmas Card".  A full day, yet a different day, than  I had planned, yet the fraternal, and necessary day it needed to be, with plenty of parish ministry awaiting me tomorrow..........Fr.  Troy