Catholic News Agency Takes a Vacation, Sort of

Celebrating Mass every Sunday is important. So is spending time with family, earning a living, and scooping snow out from the workings of a garage door.

Those are all important tasks.

They're not equally important, though. In my opinion.

Here's something that caught my eye this evening:

"CNA news service to resume in 2011"
Catholic News Agency (CNA) (December 22, 2010)

"In celebration of Christmas and the New Year, CNA will suspend its regular news service on Thursday, December 23 and will resume on January 3, 2011.

"During this time, members of the CNA staff will be working to improve services for the upcoming year. We will also provide coverage of the Pope's Christmas homily and his Urbi et Orbi address.

"We ask that you keep CNA in your prayers this Christmas season as the Universal Church commemorates the birth of Christ. We would like to take this time to graciously thank all of our donors, who...."

Reading the first paragraph, my reaction was that closing the doors for more than a week was something most outfits wouldn't do.

And that's not what CNA is doing. Looks like they may be assuming that folks are somewhat distracted during the Christmas-New Year's holiday season - and taking advantage of the situation, to get work done that isn't practical while in full 'news service' mode.

Smart move, I think.

Low Priority, High Urgency, and Getting a Grip

Of that list of tasks in the first paragraph, scooping snow out of the rail of a garage door is probably the lowest-priority item.

It was also something that needed to get done this afternoon, which made it the most urgent item on my list.

We've had snow here: quite a bit. Good news, we'll have a white Christmas. Bad news, we're not quite finished shoveling out from the recent storm: and there's more in tomorrow's forecast.

The snow came with lots of wind, so there's a lovely spackling of snow on walls and trees. Snow also got blown under the bottom of my garage door, and into part of the mechanism. Which meant that the door wouldn't close all the way.

I love animals: but prefer that they stay out of my garage. Which wasn't going to happen, with that snow in the way.

So: shifting snow around isn't one of the things I build my life around, but sometimes it has to be done: now. It's just one more minor practical detail which, if ignored, will make taking care of 'high priority' items difficult.

Time for Being Spiritual, Being Practical

I don't see taking care of practical details as being 'worldly.' As long as I keep my life in balance.

Some folks are able to spend all their time with 'spiritual' matters. That's a good thing. Me? I wash dishes just about every evening, clean the toilet as needed: and celebrate Mass regularly.

Like it says in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

"There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant...."

Not-completely-unrelated posts:

• "Millions of Dollars in Decorations on a Tree: And a Tale of Two Camels"
  (December 19, 2010)
• "Work, 'Giving Back,' and a Saint"
  (July 7, 2010)
• Money isn't Everything: But it Helps"
  (April 10, 2010)
• "Working on Sunday: At Growing the Christian Interior Life"
  (January 2, 2010)
• "Christmas? Yeah, it's a Pretty Big Deal"
  (December 24, 2009)