OCTOBER’S CALL
Last time we were left on pins and needles (a funny phrase) wondering what would be the outcome of the Pawnee-Briggsdale game. We will get to that soon – the plot has definitely thickened — I checked out four websites to get more of the story. But today is the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary and October is the month of the Rosary, so football has to take a back seat, or perhaps a lower spot on the bleachers.
October as a month is often times the Eve of Elections, and we are urged to take our Christianity into the public square. So we tea-party, rally, protest, debate, petition, campaign, go door-to-door, be good neighbors and in general stand for truth, justice and the Christian-American way while opposing the dictatorship of relativism in its numerous guises of terrorism, socialism, and so many other forms that would depress me to try to list.
The beginning of the month of October has a definite message for us before we step too boldly into the public square where we will be assaulted with every sort of ideology opposed to the goodness that Our Lord has shown us.
October 7th and October 13th are days of Blessed Mother, but they are also days that bring to mind two ideologies that are radically opposed to Christianity: Islam and Communism. Both of these dates also show the principle action that we need to do before we enter the public square lest all our activity makes us nothing more than noisy gongs and clanging cymbals.
October’s call is to fall in love. And the means we are given to do this is through meditation on the life of Jesus and the life of His Mother.
When Pope Pius V called on Christendom to pray for victory at Lepanto, his call, I am sure, was not one to pray feverishly in desperation for victory. I imagine his call to the faithful was to pray in quiet hope, by entering into that sanctuary that lies within each of us where we can experience the rush of the thrill of a first love and the peace of the deepening of a long-standing love. It is a sanctuary to which Blessed Mother takes us to be with her Son ever the same and ever new.
The public square needs the articulate, the activist, the organizer, but above all she needs saints.
Let us heed October’s call.
CONTROVERSIAL SOLUTION
Here is how the football controversy has played out so far. Pawnee, the scoreboard winner, did host the game. The phantom six points were added shortly before halftime. The Briggsdale coaches noticed and informed the referees. The referees decided not to do anything because it is not their job to keep score. The official score is in the hands of the homebook scorekeeper.
The Colorado High School Athletic Association officials originally told the two school to sort out the situation themselves. Later it said that Pawnee would be banned from postseason play if the right decision wasn’t made. (This seems to suggest that the CHSAA thinks that Briggsdale should be the winner.) The Pawnee athletic director says that Pawnee won the game. The Pawnee coach said that he feels sick over it.
The Briggsdale coach said it is not our school’s call. He said that they have to live with the situation and move on. He added that the two communities are neighbors. (Grover and Briggsdale are 25 miles apart, but are the nearest towns to each other.) And that that won’t change, and they need to be there for each other and help each other. [I like this coach.]
Now here is the most unusual thing about this whole situation. Years after graduating from high school, I remembered seeing on the Wiggins basketball schedule a game against Crow Valley. I asked several people where Crow Valley was, but they did not know. Well, in the 1990’s Pawnee and Briggsdale combined to play sports and were known as Crow Valley. (I assume they did this because of lower than usual enrollments.) It seems that they played their games at Briggsdale and they were known as the Falcons. (Perhaps Crows might have been a better bird of choice.) This combined team of Crow Valley won back-to-back state football championships
. I am guessing that Pawnee changed its mascot when they separated into individual teams again and Briggsdale decided to keep the name Falcons instead of returning to the Rams.
As it stands right now, Pawnee is the winner. I have a solution to the problem, but no one has asked me yet, so I am keeping it to myself.
Jezu, ufam Tobie.