To celebrate the first official day of the season yesterday we decided to take in a parish festival. Not just any parish festival...the festival of our very first parish as husband, wife and later as new parents. Wow, what a lot of history there. So many blessings.
I'm jumping ahead. We went to the vigil Mass, pre-festival, to see the church and hopefully some of our old friends and pastor. Our pastor did not have Mass, the parochial vicar did, but he did not disappoint. What an amazing homily about the importance of us revisiting our attitude toward receiving the Eucharist. He talked about some history, the time of the Apostles and more recently, to gently remind us how easy we have it now. No one trying to kill us for worshiping and fasting for only an hour? How blessed we are these days! He even touched upon the proper stature of receiving - he's an "on the tongue" guy (yay!) but also spoke of proper reverence when taking it in the hand. This may all sound sleep-inducing but I'm pretty sure it's the kind of reminders that are lacking from the pulpit. We have gotten lazy as a faith community. Time to wake up.
After Mass (Mr. two-year-old was FRIGHTFUL) we headed outside and immediately saw "Miss Betty". She was such a wonderful gift to us while we were at St. Patrick's. Part of a community that welcomed us so warmly, despite not having roots in the area. Ahhh, I get so wistful when I go back. It was such a blessed time full of great formation to prepare us for the present day. Here are some shots of our fun...Mr. G wanted no part of "frownie" and Blondie couldn't get enough. Go figure.
Extra blessings - a memorial garden for #2's namesake, the priest who married us.
Nope, not going.
Besides, there were free E&P cookies outside.
Vigil Mass is nice if you want to sleep in. Alas, no such luck. It was a good reason...more Bach, Beethoven and Brunch with friends (if you haven't gone and you live in the area, you should go...) we even had an in-group hand and face-painter this week!
Music done, home to change and on to church. Today being the feast of Corpus Christi, our parish had the Second Annual Eucharistic Procession. One of our close family friends equipped most of the procession, from the father of the family serving as banner-carrier, to three children as altar servers and even #1 son, a seminarian on break from Rome, carrying the Crucifix. What an incredible journey of a few blocks. Even with all the moral confusion in our nation, we are still free to participate in something as amazing as this. We are so blessed.
"Bach Beethoven and Brunch" always sounds so nice to me, but I have to admit, I get pretty irritated about the timing, and tend to mutter things about how it's designed for "atheists, who don't care about going to church anyways...". St. Boniface doesn't offer a vigil Mass (since that was not done before1962)...sigh.
ReplyDeleteWell I can assure you that none of the families with which we attend are Atheists. ; 0) Don't they have early morning Mass?
Delete