Who said the priest is bored and inattentive and was just going through the motions? I seem to have missed that post.
The original post was about a priest, who is retired, who came to celebrate Mass and became confused when he extended the dialogue before the Gospel to be the dialogue of the Preface.
I am fortunate that I have not had a cognitive lapse that extreme – yet. At the end, before I retired, I picked the classes I would teach carefully, aware that I had not the mental sharpness I had at an earlier age…and that was before subsequent health issues. My senior moments are steadily increasing.
The reality is that people will see more and not less of this as the priest shortage intensifies. The choice is between older priests still lending a hand beyond their prime to fill a critical gap – or Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest. When I take a substitution at this point, for example, it is because there is no other priest available.
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