A ritual disrupted

Most every Saturday night since my assignment as the Parochial Vicar of St. Anthony of Padua parish, the evenings have remained much the same.

At 5:30 p.m. I celebrate Mass in either Effingham or in Shumway, depending upon the weekend.

At 6:45 p.m. I join Msgr. Enlow for dinner.

At 8:00 the great pleasure of the evening begins with the British comedies on the local PBS stations, most notably the shows As Time Goes By and Keeping Up Appearances.

At 9:00 I then do some light reading while watching additional British comedies that are good, but nearly as good as others.

At 10:00 I watch The Red Green Show, a bizarre, but enjoyable, show from our Canadian friends.

Since I am at the Liturgical Institute this weekend I began thinking back to my days in the seminary and I remembered that my Saturday night ritual was much the same then as it is now. As such, I have spent the greater part of the day looking forward to watching these shows, which I have not seen in some weeks because of travels and weddings.

But more than this, I remembered that there was comedy in particular that I very much loved: The Vicar of Dibley. And so my hopes grew that this show might also be on this evening.

I must admit my extreme displeasure to learn that none of these shows are on either of the two PBS channels we receive here.

Now I am not sure what I will do tonight; I suppose I will have to research a couple of papers.