Rick Prashaw > Quotes

“Rosemary Klein, Winchester, England: Always keep your knees together, ladies; they are best friends. Sister Rosemary Carroll, R.I.P. Katy Kidd Wright, a friend who described herself as a “non-RC heathen raising RC kids going to Catholic schools” confirmed that ashes on foreheads was still in vogue. “The modern curriculum even has a robotics lesson in Grade 2 where my eldest learned to mechanize Mary and Joseph's walk to Bethlehem.” In my school days, we wrote JMJ on the top of scribbler pages for a Holy Family Jesus, Mary, and Joseph blessing. Other times, we wrote BVM for the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was an alphabet acronym heaven. Whenever Dad felt no one was listening to him, he spoke to the Blessed Virgin Mary statue on the living room mantle. They talked a lot.”
― Rick Prashaw, Father Rick Roamin' Catholic

“In my adult years, fighting hearing-impaired loss, I went to an audiologist who, it turns out, was Irish Catholic. On his graph, when he identified a loss so severe that it looked like a stock market crash—and knowing my northern roots—he asked if I had ever been in a mining accident. A dramatic hearing drop, trouble with high-pitch p, f, t, s consonants starting so many words, suggested that an accident had damaged my hearing. “No, a loud Catholic family,” was my best guess. The audiologist laughed. He had a club membership.”
― Rick Prashaw, Father Rick Roamin' Catholic

“Protestant buddies caught a big break confessing directly to their God! We were taught an examination of conscience to review one’s day over and against the Ten Commandments of God or the precepts of the church. This review was not a bad idea. Heady, though, for a school kid who had not robbed a bank nor kissed a girl yet. Nevertheless, to this day, I practice a simpler examination of conscience most nights, identifying on the pillow one blessing and one struggle from the day.”
― Rick Prashaw, Father Rick Roamin' Catholic

“It was all so God-smacking normal, the norm for Catholic families. If it was not your childhood, it was your parents’ or grandparents’ universe. If you were a Protestant with Catholic friends, you know these stories. I have been hooked on faith’s love story, personal and community, the hard mission to chase after love, justice, peace, and inclusion. Help one another. Be kind. Be true to ourselves. God’s mercy was oxygen to live another day.”
― Rick Prashaw, Father Rick Roamin' Catholic

“I never heard any not-so-subtle commercial for the priesthood. No, my dad’s lifelong sermon was simple, powerful, and at the end of pre-Internet letters he wrote us when we were away later at university. Choose life. Be not afraid. This was his gospel. As I grew older, I appreciated how, no doubt, he needed to say those lines first to himself. He had to be scared in that orphanage, then surviving grim Depression years, and in the trenches in Italy. One day, I would corral Dad’s “choose life,” “be not afraid,” inspiration when love vanished, and a son died.”
― Rick Prashaw, Father Rick Roamin' Catholic

“There were hints of how different it might be for a girl in the Catholic Church. Religious sisters and other women friends would one day become my teachers on this gender schizophrenia. Nuns told girls they better leave room for the Holy Spirit when they danced with a boy. If you had trouble measuring the Holy Spirit, girls heard the instruction to leave room for a telephone book, presumably a Toronto or Montréal-size phone book. Good God, telephone books have all but disappeared. Is it any wonder the sexual revolution happened?”
― Rick Prashaw, Father Rick Roamin' Catholic

“The family who prays together, stays together,” they taught. The Prashaws also fought when we prayed. We learned our catechism at Catholic schools. The stories of saints inspired us. St. Francis, a lover of the poor and animals, was an early favourite of mine. A nun might whack the back of our heads when we slouched while kneeling. Marty endured a rap on the knuckles for writing with his left hand. Lefties were deemed “children of the devil;” in classical Latin, the word left is “sinister.” Still, all in all, it was not a bad thing to be taught one’s life had meaning, a purpose. Being good mattered. Life was about treating one another well.”
― Rick Prashaw, Father Rick Roamin' Catholic