Ohhhhh-kaaaay. It’s the end of the year and bloggers are making predictions for 2010. I am a blogger now, so I must make predictions.
Vroom-vroom. Warming up the crystal ball. Vrooooom. I'm feeling it now (left).Prediction: Katie and I will stay married (twenty-five years and counting). We will not buy a pet (don’t ask). Each of our daughters will continue along an exciting new career path (each has already taken the first step). We will not have grandchildren (unless someone has taken a step I don’t know about).
Prediction: Father Barnes will give stellar homilies, daily. Ferde will not. Nor will Ferde join the choir. But he will continue to set me straight on just about everything else Catholic. He will almost always be right.
Prediction: I will attend the funeral of at least one dear friend. Five years ago, I would not have made this prediction. Why today? (a) I’m five years older. (b) So are my friends. (c) I am a Catholic now, I have many more friends, and some are quite a bit older than me. This funeral will be profoundly moving, whether of my closest friend or the most anonymous lady at morning Mass. I will begin feeling like Ruth Gordon in the film Harold and Maude. Or Bud Cort, who befriended her.
Prediction: The Yankees will outspend every other Major League team, and still Elizabeth will continue to pray (and Tweet insanely at all hours) for them. If the Yankees lose, it will be because of the intercession of my father, who is in heaven. Dad hated the Yankees, loved the Mets.
Prediction: Through our prayers and much additional higher help, both the absolute number and the rate of abortions will continue to drop in this country. Meanwhile, our president and most members of Congress will continue to do the wrong thing, proving again that prayer is more effective than politics.
Prediction: My Pope will continue to be the most significant, erudite, and compassionate leader in the world. The Catholic Church will continue to grow, nationwide and worldwide, despite all the worst intentions and acts of men and women, lay and ordained. Meanwhile, some bishop somewhere will do something really stupid. Maybe two bishops.
Prediction: YIM Catholic will have more readers by year-end than it does today. Frank will continue to develop his singular voice as the mad-dog Marine convert and indispensable wing-man. And each of us, Frank and I, will write something really stupid, further infuriating and befuddling the women in our lives—mothers, wives, daughters, hairdressers . . .
Prediction: The Second Coming won’t come. Unless it does. My First Going is more likely. . . . When was my last Confession?
