Life and liturgies in north west Quebec!

Fr. Michael Smith, a brother priest of the Diocese of Pembroke and my 'next door neighbor', even though he is an hours drive away on the other side of the Ottawa River. He posted this morning that there was a commotion during one of his masses. When the mass came to an end and he inquired about the source of agitation, he was told that a groundhog had wondered in the door and decided to partake in the liturgy, much to the consternation of the denizen's of those precious pews closest to the exit. He mused that there was probably a joke in there someplace and someone on Facebook gave it a shot.

A groundhog walks into a church on Ash Wednesday. "How long until Easter, Father?" he asks the Priest. "After six weeks of Lent," says the Priest. "And if you had seen your shadow?" asks the groundhog.

It reminded me of the last mass I celebrated as the assistant at our Diocesan cathedral. A bat had awoken in the dead of winter and made his way into the church during the last mass of the weekend. After a number of shrieks and swings, somebody finally connected with the poor bat, knocking him to the ground. With an obviously broken wing, he tried to drag himself along the central aisle deeper and deeper into the Church. As a usher moved to corral the poor critter and give it a quick end outside, I exclaimed in an attempt to bring calm to the situation (and to keep this one particular lady from trying to stomp on the bat so hard that its form would have been imprinted on the rug forever)...

"Be kind and leave the poor bat alone! He's only trying to get into Church because here he believes can he fly again on a wing and a prayer!"