Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time - October 1, 2017

I think it was two years ago that I was walking around our parish festival when I met a group of our high school girls. They invited me to join them in their challenge. They were going to eat something from every single food booth at our festival. I told them that, at my age, my stomach couldn’t take it if I ate that much at one time. I’m not sure, but I think they accomplished their goal. I don’t know, but I suspect that they won’t try it again this year.

As our festival begins this week, we have a lot of fun ahead of us, and we may want to try to enjoy all of it. First and foremost, we have a lot of wonderful food. I can’t tell you everything that I’m going to eat, but I do know that I will sample the German booth, and I’m looking forward to having a gyro. Beyond that, I know that anything else I eat will be good. As I like to say, if you leave our festival hungry, it’s your own fault. There will be plenty of good food, and you can’t go wrong with any of it.

The food is the primary draw of our festival, but there will be other enjoyable things as well. For me, I’m particularly eager for the entertainment. Our St. Malachy School cheerleaders always put on a good show at the festival (as they do anywhere), some of Fr. Russell’s friends from his barbershop singing group will be with us again, and there even are rumors that Elvis will make an appearance. What I’m eager for, however, is the first act of the festival, at 5:00 on Thursday. I have thought of the festival as a time to try something new, but in the past I meant that I would try different food. This year I have been working on a new skill that can be used to entertain people, and I’m going to do it in public for the first time at 5:00 Thursday. I’ve always enjoyed entertaining, whether acting, singing, or playing guitar (as you may have heard at the Christmas Masses last year). So now I’m going to try something new at the festival. I hope that I will be entertaining, but it would also be interesting to watch and to talk about if I fall on my face. So come on out and see what will happen. (And even if I flop, the cheerleaders are performing after me.)

In addition to the food and the entertainment, there are games to be played. Many of the games will be for children, but the adults can have fun with such things as the wheel of money. And don’t forget the various raffles. There will be a number of prizes that you can take a chance on, especially the main raffle. We have already given away two “early bird” prizes of $200 each, with a prize of $250 going this weekend. The main prizes, of course, will be drawn each night at the festival: $1,000 on Thursday, $2,500 on Friday and $5,000 on Saturday.

So I hope that I get to see all of you at the festival this week. It will be a wonderful time for all of us. I suppose it will be a particularly good time for whoever wins the $5,000, and I hope it will be a good time for whoever watches my act on Thursday. Finally, if the girls again decide to eat something from every single booth on one night, then we will consider opening an antacid booth at next year’s festival.

                                                                      Father H