St. Mark's News & Events for June 24, 2007

In my last column I wrote chapter one of the my first real competitive tournament in over 25 years and how I sank a five foot downhill curling putt to win our flight. This week comes chapter two. After winning our flight, we now had to play the winners of the other 5 flights to determine what 3 teams would compete in the final shootout. This particular round consisted of three holes with every stroke of the team counting toward a total score and the lowest three scores would advance to the final. As luck would have it, I ended up having to be the first one to tee off in front of thousands of spectators! (Ok, there were around 10 but who’s counting). Anyway, just off the tee was a large gully of weeds and very high grass that would just swallow any golf ball hit into it. As the golf gods would have it, I pumped three balls right into that gully and they wouldn’t let me off the tee until I got one finally in the fairway. Well, on my fourth drive, I smacked the ball far to the left heading to the out of bound markers. An angel who took pity on me made the ball hit a tree and popped it back into the fairway. Thus, I’m now laying seven a long way away from the green. I eventually got onto the green and dropped a twenty foot putt for a horrendous ten! I apologized profusely to my partner and realized I may have just knocked our team out of the tournament. He reassured me that we still had two holes to play and “anything can happen.” It turned out prophetic because in the next chapter, I will let you know just what happened that will make you understand the Resurrection in a whole new light. Stay tuned!

Also, last week I attended the Confirmation of my youngest niece in Ocala. It was a long but beautiful ceremony and I was a proud uncle seeing her get anointed by the Bishop to go out into the world proclaiming the love of Jesus Christ. Now if I can only convince her to stay out of the Malls shopping as she moves onto this most important work!

Well, that is all for now. Continue to enjoy the gift that God has given us in each other.

Peace, Fr. David

St. Mark's News & Events for June 17, 2007

Greetings as we begin another week!

I’m sorry for the lack of an article these past two weeks since I was playing in my first real golf tournament in over 25 years. One week I missed because I was at the tournament and the next week I missed writing because I was still in shock over the outcome! It is a long exciting story of sin and redemption, death to life, hopelessness to joy. I guess I didn’t realize that the elements of ordinary life plays out even on a golf course. Starting out the first day was not that exciting since we split our matches and headed into Sunday trying to just stay alive. On the second day though, it seems the Angels were smiling down upon us (it must have been that prayer for victory at dinner on Saturday night) when we begin to knock off all the teams that we played leading to a showdown with the first place team in our flight. On the last hole I missed a 15 foot putt and ran it past the cup another 5 feet and was faced with a down hill curler. If I missed that putt coming back, we would have lost; sinking it would give us victory. Well, after saying an Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be, I closed my eyes and drained it for victory! My partner, Dr. Tom Frankforth was jumping in the air pumping his fists and just about tackled me to the ground. Thus we were 4th flight winners but the story gets even more miraculous as we then had to move on to the next round. I will save that one for next week, so stay tuned!

I would like to give you some information regarding the efforts of our Steering Committee as we get more educated regarding guidelines for Churches as we plan for our new Church. On a side note, we have also accepted a proposal from a new Fundraising Company called Community Counseling Service (CCS) that will help us to raise funds as we get closer to our start date. After some prayer and discussion, we have decided to kick-off the new Capital Campaign in the fall of 2008. This will give us some extra time to get a schematic done of our new church after input from our congregation. In the next few weeks Alberto Portela, our design consultant, will be offering workshops after the Masses to help us make informed decisions. So lots of exciting things are happening and we look forward to sharing more news with you as we proceed.

Well, that is all for now. Continue to enjoy the gift that God has given us in each other.

Peace, Fr. David