Lots of luck. A few days ago I ran across something in the Bible or elsewhere that the sin of pride is the greatest sin.
I’m 90% certain that you must have done something to alienate this priest. I suspect that from personal experience.
I put myself in a similar situation with a priest whose vanity and the ethnicity that he claimed (he was half this and half that, but “all” the first) simply could not deal with someone like me who does not pander to priests, to begin with. And, I don’t pander to people with pride and arrogance.
When the African missionaries came in on mission sunday, he would comment that he could never go to Africa, unless he had the option of staying in a four-star Holiday Inn.
He would joke about his preparations for his own funeral. He had discovered that he would expend the entire diocesan allotment on the orchestra, alone.
One Sunday I was one of two lectors scheduled for morning Mass. As Father was vesting, the other lector mentioned to me that the only reason he was there was for his reading. Otherwise, he was attending another Mass with his family. I suggested that he might leave church discretely after his reading. The priest scowled and snapped at me that I was “arguing”.
This pastor routinely wore eyeglasses. But, the parish wastefully (in my opinion) produced a video to publicize the start of a building fund campaign. This priest did not appear in one scene with eyeglasses. Never before or after did I see that priest without eyeglasses. I think it was his vanity.
After the Church had set up the Sunday scripture readings in three cycles, and, after he had gone through the cycles a couple times, he (with his Ph.D. in theology) said that he couldn’t think of anything else to talk about in his homilies.
He would come into Wednesday night scripture study and kill 20 minutes of the hour talking in a monologue about the stresses of the high school classes he taught.
He had quite a cultic following, as evidenced by the fact that when he was absent from the scripture study, most of the group would not show up for the scripture discussion, alone.
And, he would cut the scripture study short to ensure that he wouldn’t miss a moment of “E.R.” which was his favorite show.
But, too cheap to rent a locker at the local gym, he folded and stored his street trousers on the floor in the corner of the gym. He discovered later that someone had stolen them. Odd to me that someone so smart could be so…
I hope I have not blasphemed to conclude that it was the hand of God humbling him.
A lot of priests I know “fill the room” when they enter. No one can say a word while they are there.
