One of the best moments of my day is my mailroom encounter with some of the old..er, more experienced Paulist Fathers in the house at 59th Street. In particular, Fr. Joe Mahon is one of the guys who always has a joke or a kind word for me each day. Our running joke is when he comes to me with his hand out and then yells at me when I refuse to give him some change. He’s been a priest for over 50 years and has really been blessed by the men who he has lived with and served with for all these years. More importantly to me, he always seems to be a happy priest–someone who is at ease with himself and others. I really enjoy his company each day even if just for a fleeting moment.
Today was a unique day. He saw me fiddling with my blackberry and said that I should just ignore whomever was calling me. I replied that I had just received a text message from a friend who was tweeting. He asked me if I was a “twitterer” and I replied that I do, but mostly just push content from this blog on it and that I couldn’t remember my most recent tweet.
Fr Joe: “What’re you getting old? You can’t even remember what was the last thing you put on your blog? Well…this makes me feel good because I’m getting old and forgetting things from time to time too!”
Mike: “You’re not GETTING old, c’mon! (Long pause…wait for it….)
You ARE Old!
I think Fr Mahon’s next line was something along the lines of “Why don’t you go feed that dog of yours?”
Good guy–keep him and all of our retired priests in your prayers today.