My Starbucks day . . .

A fly-by-night rendition

Starbucks a mixed bag, all kinds here, I like it.

Pairs not couples; earthy, Muzak low, acoustics good.

Man comes in with dog to pick up order.

Whole family had sat in one of the few roomy seats.

Longer I'm here, the more I like it. We are sort of thrown together, it’s a less orderly place you might say, just sort of allowed to happen.

Odd pairs, I say, not couples! Staff rough-hewn to a degree. Not collegiate. Not a study hall! I should make this a regular.

On way out a late-comer, on phone maybe to friend telling him he's here. 50-ish, weathered, a sort of nervousness about him.

Our eyes met as I left, he said something I didn't catch, he repeated it, having brief hard time getting it out. I know the feeling.

Was saying have a nice day or something like it. You too, I said, the two of us smiling in friendly fashion.

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At mass some weeks back, the Cana miracle story, where wine runs out. Mother Mary, typical woman, housewife used to getting things in order, finds son Jesus in the crowd, knowing him for someone special, tells him. He puts her off, she goes to the host and says do what he says. He tells them what to do, and wine flows.

It’s a homely story, which we have everything to believe none to disbelieve. It tells us of His humanity in way nothing else does, rather in a unique way.

Pray to her more fervently than ever as one closer to her son than anybody else who ever lived in this world of things that go wrong all the time. She has His ear.

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The mass of our day, defended to the death or at least so far, by the reigning pontiff, “lacks solemnity and beauty,” which is why “many young people adhere to the Tradition of the ‘Traditional Mass,’ where it is not arbitrarily forbidden.”

Thus Archbishop emeritus Héctor Rubén Aguer of LaPlata Buenos Aires, Argentina, explaining in an Aug. 23 article on the Traditional Latin Mass how restrictions by Pope Francis “involve a regrettable step backwards.”

Francis says he’s in pursuit of “ecclesial communion,” (church unity) as he says in the prologue to Traditionis custodes, and to achieve this unity, he eliminates the work of his predecessors by placing arbitrary limits and obstacles to what they, with the same goal in mind, established!

A shame, we must say. More to come about what this Argentinian has to say about what his fellow Argentinian is doing.