APRIL 22, 2007

By the last week of June, I will be either in:
a) Rome, teaching my canon law class, or
b) A Federal penitentiary, doing time for non-payment of income-taxes.

It is not a matter of conscience or criminality or poverty that made me miss the deadline of April 17 (and we were given a two day extension this year!) for filing. Rather, it is my endemic procrastination. As inevitable as death, tax paying is just about as pleasant; and, therefore, something that is to be avoided until the last possible moment. And this has been my habit with taxes. The problem is, the last possible moment happens to always coincide with a bunch of other stuff. Like running two parishes, two cemeteries and a school. Not to mention Lent, Holy Week and Easter and teaching at Duquesne University.

When I finally did sit down on Monday evening to do my computations, I found that I did not have all the forms and schedules necessary to do the work. Without these implements or the opportunity to obtain them (the time being well past closing hours for everything except taverns), it became impossible for me to file on time. This would not have been so bad, except that this is the third time in my life I have done the exact same thing - put off until too late starting the task and then finding that I did not have the materials to do it at all.

If I would look for excuses, I could say that since, as a Pastor, I deal with hundreds of thousands of dollars in administering the Parishes, Cemeteries and School, my few hundred bucks seem insignificant in comparison. Or I could claim that I am so meticulous about the responsibilities of stewarding other people's money that I tend to ignore my own personal concerns. But the truth is simply that I am an inveterate procrastinator, especially when the duty is unpleasant. I have no valid reasons, just excuses and consequences of my own failings.

Of course, in the eternal scheme of things, being unprepared for taxes is nowhere near as important as being unprepared for that other inevitability: death. But bad habits can be hard to break, and the Lord God is much more intimidating to me than the tax man.

P.S. Should this document fall into the hands of an IRS agent: I hereby claim that this is a hypothetical illustration offered solely as a spiritual meditation for the private use of my parishioners, and so inadmissible in a court of law as evidence.