The LuLac Edition #95, Nov 19, 2006

PHOTO INDEX: DEDICATION FLYER FOR ST. MARY'S CEMETERY NEW ADDITION, FOREVER YOUNG, MARY ANN AND ME, (I HAD HAIR BACK THEN!) BISHOP JOHN DOUGHERTY WHO BLESSED AND DEDICATED OUR NEW DIGS, UH FINAL DIGS, STAINED GLASS REPRESENTATION OF ST. JOACHIM AND THIS BLOGGER POINTING TO THE CONSTRUCTION SIGN WHEN WORK BEGAN.

WHAT I DID

THIS WEEKEND

While most area residents were watching the Pebn State game and then the all important Ohio State/Michigan game, my Saturday was spent at a dedication of a mausoleum chapel. Earlier last year, the woman I married decided to take some of our hard earned money and invest it in a long term strategy. Since trusting any financial decisions to me is out of the question, the best I could do was speculate. I thought perhaps there would be a worldwide vacation or even a beach house in Ocean City Maryland where I spent a few summers when I worked for the now defunct call center on South Main Street in Wilkes Barre. Her investment was in a sense one of real estate. Long term real estate.
She bought a double berth, side by side crypt set up at the diocese cemetery, St. Mary’s in Hanover Township. When I found out, I was at first shocked, then dumfounded, then annoyed and finally resigned to the purchase. When I’d drive to work, I would pass the construction site of the prposed home for us. Peering to the right as the convertible wound its way to the Hanover Industrial Park, I’d turn up the radio full blast and put it out of my head. I confess I did follow its progress with a passing interest.
About two weeks ago, she told me we were going to the dedication of the structure. Asking what to wear, I got one of those looks that instantly told me it was not a valid question. We arrived 35 minutes early because of my physical limitation and walked around the facility. I noticed there were people already entombed there. We walked around the area and she told me we were in the St. Joachim section on the ground floor level. “Good”, I said, “when my old girlfriends come to see me, they can rub their legs up against my crypt”. The woman I married then said, “Yes they can. Then their skin will burn off!”
We went into the facility, took a seat and waited for the dedication to begin. When I read that the Bishop was coming, I began to realize this was indeed a big deal. More than 150 people crammed into the chapel. The Bishop talked about the scriptural reading that said, “In my father’s house there are many mansions”. That phrase is on my father’s tombstone. I began to think about him and my own mortality. After the dedication, we went to check out our “area” but didn’t stay too long because near us there was a grieving family shedding tears for some of the first occupants.
I must say the dedication experience was both dignified and a spiritually good experience, but I was mildly freaked out. When we were leaving the cemetery, I began to read the tombstones. These were from people in the first part of the grounds. Born 1806, died 1899, born 1804, died 1890. The full freak out began to return because I realized these people missed over one hundred years of happenings. Calming down, I remembered the times I lived through and didn't dwell on what I was going to miss.
We then went to church where the priest’s homily definitely freaked me out. He said that within the next week, one of us in the church or someone one of us knew would die. He said it was the natural way of things. Looking at the barren tree branches outside, I knew this was the way of nature. It was just something for myself personally and my loved ones, I wanted to put off for a while. And with an upcoming holiday, and NFL games starting on Thursday night, well that was something I just didn't want to hear.
After church, being less freaked out, we went to a fundraising event. The fine Mountaintop firm of Rundle Real Estate/Century 21 sponsored the party. It was a night at the races gathering where I ate too much, drank too much and uncharacteristically bet too much. Maybe it was letting off some steam, or the fact that I had skipped lunch. Anyway, we had a great time and the money we spent was for a good cause. The fundraiser was for “Habitat For Humanity”, that’s the organization that provides homes for the economically distressed. If you ask me, it was the least I could do, abusing my body, senses and wallet to provide the Christian corporal work of providing homes for those without one. What an ironic end to a day where all of my little family’s future housing needs were eternally met.


Now, a little history on St. Joachim, which is the name of the section of units Mary Ann and I will be in.

JOACHIM
Also known as
Heli
Memorial
26 July
Profile
Husband of Saint Anne, elderly father of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Grandfather of Jesus Christ. Probably well off. Tradition says that while he was away from home, he and Anne each received a message from an angel that she was pregnant. Believed to have given Mary to the service of the Temple when the girl was three years old. Joachim is mentioned in neither historial or canonical writings. The information we have on Joachim derives mainly from the apocryphal Protoevangelium of James.
Born
Galilean
Died
the traditional tomb of Saint Anne and Saint Joachim was rediscovered in Jerusalem in 1889
Name Meaning
Yawhew prepares.