By Father Timothy Gollob
Special to The Texas Catholic
What thoughts go through one’s mind as one endures the trials of the dentist chair?
From recent experiences I know that it is a time of deep reflection. My primary emotion was that of hopelessness as the conversation between the dentist and the nurse could be heard, but no response was possible.
Their dialogue was filled with code words and numbers. It reminded me of the barking out of signals from the quarterback of a football team to his line and backs. Then the question arose in my mind which I expressed to Dr. Dentist at the first opportunity. “What do you think about the Notre Dame football team?”
He replied that since Notre Dame was Jesus’ team, it was only right and just that the Fighting Irish should be in the championship game in Miami this year.
My take on this answer was that it was also fitting that during this Year of Faith we should be rewarded with a renewed spirit and a renewed identity. For me this is a sign that the triumph of the church is going to be present to our modern world at least for one season.
Back in the olden days of the Roman Catholic faith, the great symbol of unity was projected to the world by the presence of the Catholic nuns who ran our schools and our hospitals and our social outreach. They were the pillars of Catholic things.
Millions of prayers were poured forth in support of Notre Dame and other Catholic college sports pro¬grams. Those prayers seemed to be answered.
Now we are reminded, in this Year of Faith, that we owe a great debt of gratitude for the prayers and love and spirituality and knowledge of the nuns who influenced our lives. Then and continue to do today.
We can do nothing more appropriate than to support the collection for retired religious on Dec. 15-16.
Father Timothy Gollob is the pastor of Holy Cross Catholic Church in Oak Cliff.
