SEPTEMBER 24, 2006

At some point without my knowing it (and quite definately without asking my permission), somebody snuck Autumn in on me. The almanac claims that it was done on September 23 at 12:03 AM, the official autumnal equinox; but I really didn't notice it until last night when I awoke in the dark to see my breath escaping from my lips in clouds of steam and feeling my body shivering under the covers. I had to admit that it was Fall as I trundled downstairs to turn the furance on.

Summer is over, fun and recreation are hereby to be irrevocably abandoned, and it is time to get to work. Of course, nobody notified me that summer had begun, and that it was time for me to have fun and recreate, so I have been working straight through. But that's alright, when I turn 75 and am allowed to retire, I'll just take off a couple of weeks early as compensation time. Remember, it's owed to me!

An important order of Fall business is a thing called the "October Count". Each year, the diocese requires that we count every person at every Sunday Mass during this month and submit to them our average attendance. (As you know from the bulletin, we do this all year round anyhow.) This becomes the official basic statistic that goes on record when decisions are made in regards to parishes. It is important in determining the number of week-end Masses a parish may schedule, how many priests are assigned to the parish, what the status of the parish is in terms of clustering, how many Pittsburgh Catholic newpapers we have to pay for, what we are assessed for diocesan contributions, etc. It is not a figure taken lightly, since it is seen as an indicator of the health of a parish.

Now, I know that all of our St. John of God people attend every Sunday (when they aren't on vacation), since they are good Catholics and well aware of the people of the Church to publicly praise God in the community weekly. However, if even "more all" people came even "more every" Sunday next month, it wouldn't hurt our claim to be cooperating and progressing in our revitalization and renewal of the parish.

Just for comparison sake, the count for 2005 was 1022. Let's see if we can beat that! (It wouldn't hurt to drag a few friends in as well!)