When I was an elementary school and attending CCD (Sunday school) Father Wilson coined the phrase A & P Catholics when referring to the parishioners who come to mass only when they are getting something, i.e. palms or ashes. I did not go to mass often as a child but I attend regularly now. And this Sunday, Palm Sunday, I immediately thought of Father Wilson when we pulled up to church. There were cars parked on the street for several blocks around the church. Everyone came out of the woodwork for their palms. The A & P’s took all the good parking!

Mass was packed. There were about double the usual amount of people there. I spent most of the mass avoiding being hit in the eye by the rambunctious little girl in front of me who made a game of hitting people with her palm. The more annoyed her mother got, the greater her effort to hit others. Think she is going to be a handful as a teenager?

Anyway…back to Father Wilson’s catchphrase. I don’t think there is anything wrong with the A & P’s. At least they are attending at all. But it still makes me smile to think of a priest creating nicknames for the holiday parishioners. As a kid we were the Christmas and Easter people. I don’t remember getting palms though. We didn’t even make it into the A & P category!

Regardless of if you attend mass, or when or what you celebrate….happy Lent, happy Passover and happy anything else. Spring is here and before long this cold winter will be little more than a memory!

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