Bulletins

February 2, 2014

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With tremendous gratitude for your kindness and prayers and with sincere regret for not having used my better judgment while using my smoker last, I can say with all my heart that opposable thumbs are a wonderful thing. Is there any doubt that God designed them with an endless list of glorious things in mind? We can shake hands and rub backs. We can grab cool objects like bottles and be able to untwist their tops. We can hit the space bar without lifting our hands from the keyboard. On black and white keys there would be no arpeggios without those odd - shaped digits. An octave would be too far a stretch. And I would have a hard time imagining Fr. Thompson playing his guitar without them.

With his thumb a priest brings to bear the Holy Oils for the sick, for catechumens and at those sacraments that can happen only once and whose indelibility is marked by Sacred Chrism. Because of their role during Holy Mass in holding the Sacred Host, thumbs were once considered absolutely necessary equipment on a man hoping to become a priest. Depriving him of his thumbs in a most gruesome manner was a two-fold torture that some Mohawk Indians wreaked upon St. Isaac Jogues. They only succeeded in proving the saint's love for the Blessed Sacrament and the clemency of Pope Urban VIII.

Some people are born with thumbs. Some people have lost them later in life. Some fools like me just temporarily lose full use of the perpendicularly perched partners to the other four fingers on the average hand. If your thumbs are at your disposal do more than count your blessings, bless your Creator. And take care of your fat little friends. Like the rest of your body they belong to God. If our lives are consecrated to a godly purpose then your spouse and children and my parishioners have a right to expect that we will be good stewards of what is supposed to be in good working order and at their service.

I look forward to employing mine at the altar as soon as possible. In the meantime please accept my thanks for your patience and my apologies for inadvertently taking myself out of commission.

God bless you.

Fr. Christopher J. Pollard