Consistent with New England, we got heavy snow on the first day of spring. Considering how many days we were hitting 60's in February and March, the irony abounds! In the end Nashua got about 4 inches of heavy, dense snow. Of course this morning when I went to clear the driveway and sidewalks, it was sunny and hovering just above the freezing mark. Today they think Nashua will hit 50 degrees so needless to say things will be very wet from the meltdown.
The intensity of the storm last night caused a cancellation of the usual Wednesday night RCIA meeting, so I didn't speak last night on the Passion of Christ. The staff is currently trying to see if the topic can be rescheduled some time before Easter. Since I was going to be home due to the storm, I lit a fire and we roasted marshmallows. Shortly after putting the girls down to bed for the night, I laid down on the couch and watched an episode of the Red Green Show. If you have not seen it before, you should see at least one episode for a good laugh, especially if you're male! Unfortunately I fell asleep toward the end. This was bad because, like Abby, once I wake up and head to bed I can't fall asleep again easily.
Since I couldn't fall asleep I listened to a tape from a conference. The speaker was commenting on Church teachings regarding marriage and family life. In commenting on the heavy responsibilities of our priests in conveying the Christian view, he quoted Pope Pius XI in his encyclical Casti Connubii (On Christian Marriage):
We admonish, therefore, priests who hear confessions and others who have the care of souls, in virtue of Our supreme authority and in Our solicitude for the salvation of souls, not to allow the faithful entrusted to them to err regarding this most grave law of God; much more, that they keep themselves immune from such false opinions, in no way conniving in them. If any confessor or pastor of souls, which may God forbid, lead the faithful entrusted to him into these errors or should at least confirm them by approval or by guilty silence, let him be mindful of the fact that he must render a strict account to God, the Supreme Judge, for the betrayal of his sacred trust, and let him take to himself the words of Christ: "They are blind and leaders of the blind: and if the blind lead the blind, both fall into the pit."Wow! What a responsibility they have in light of all the cultural pressure they have from society to not talk about those things. We need to pray for our priests that they may have the heroic virtue to fulfill the vocation they are called to.