Aurora Borealis

Since I know I’ve been quiet of late, let me just hit a few highlights now, some of which I may expound upon later.

Tired is the basic state of existence right now.  And busy.  I’m calling our insurance company seemingly every day, so add frustrated to that.  Will be glad of the day when the mail doesn’t routinely contain a medical bill or statement of some sort.

Agent Murphy has had a veritable explosion in verbalizing, which is very good and lots of fun for us.  But he still has lots of work to do.

I have thus far managed to get Cardinal Cadette’s contact lenses in and out as needed.  Initially she had extended wear lenses so I was only dealing with them once a week, for which I was greatly relieved.  But that size wasn’t working for her and the size she needed to move to isn’t available in extended wear.  So as of Friday afternoon we’re dealing with them daily.  I guess at least we’ll get used to it more quickly this way.  Right now, we’re still at she cries, I cry…  Also on Friday afternoon we learned the Cardinal will have to have another surgery on her left eye — which means another overnight in the hospital for the two of us.  If her doctor has his druthers, the surgery will be this Thursday.  I guess if that doesn’t work, it’ll be next Thursday.  I have to talk to the surgical coordinator on Monday, and then we have to figure out what to do with Agent Murphy during the times I’m at the hospital and Mr. Tldz has to be at work.

Yesterday we had the complete baptismal rite for Cardinal Cadette, to round out the basic sacrament she received on July 4.  It was a nice afternoon visiting with a few friends.  Some were unable to join us due to other commitments, and some we never heard back from — including people who always respond one way or the other — so we’re hoping our e-mail invitations actually reached everyone we sent them to.  We are very glad Grandma and Aunt Katherine (the Cadette’s godmother) were able to be here from Chicago.

This afternoon our pastor baptized Cardinal Cadette, with just Mr. Tldz, Agent Murphy, and me in attendance.  (He squeezed us into his schedule before leaving town tomorrow.) We will still have the formal, complete rite on August 21st as originally scheduled, so we can have godparents, family and friends there.  But we wanted her to have the sacrament since she’ll be undergoing cataract surgery with general anesthesia both this week and next week.  Like her brother at his baptism, she slept through the whole thing.  Monsignor even commented that it’s unusual to have a baby behave that well.

We ate outside tonight and it was lovely.  Sunny with a nice breeze.  Good to be out of what feels like my hermetically sealed bubble.  Agent Murphy enjoyed tooling around on the deck in his Cozy Coupe.  There was some rainwater in the car’s storage compartment (which Daddy later dumped out), and the Agent had found the end of a branch that still had a few leaves attached to it.  He was dipping the leaves in the water and sprinkling it around the deck.  Could be good practice for a future priest for doing the renewal of Baptismal promises.  Hmm…

Got to watch our resident cardinal flitting around in the woods at the back of our yard tonight, too.  I like our cardinal.  We had a resident cardinal at our old house, and I’d been missing him.  We lived here for a while before I saw this one.

Since I was in the hospital, I’ve been having Communion brought to me every week.  The first week at home it was a staff member from the parish who happens to live a street over from us.  It sounded like she would be the regular one coming, except for the second week, when she was going to be out of town.  The woman who filled in that week, MC as opposed to the original MM, has come now the following 2 weeks.  It’s good.  She is able to come earlier.  I think she goes to the 8:45 Mass like we do, so she typically gets here shortly after Mr. Tldz and Agent Murphy get home from church.  (MM apparently has a rather large and more distant route, so she came in the afternoon, as her last stop on the way home.)  MC is a bit younger, and last week she brought her 2 younger daughters.  This week all 3 girls came.  They do the readings.  It’s nice.  As they were getting ready to leave, MC casually asked if Agent Murphy would be starting preschool at All Saints this year.  I said probably not because we’re considering homeschooling.  She said they homeschool and have from the beginning.  I said this was good to know.  And she volunteered that if we go that route, she has a lot of stuff she could give us.  Hooray — it’s good to start lining up some potential resources for that adventure!

On Saturday afternoon we went to an Easter Egg Hunt block party hosted by our across the street neighbors.  Agent Murphy had a blast and we got to meet some more of our neighbors, including the folks who live right next door to us.  Mr. Tldz had met the dad in passing, and we’d both seen the son out playing.  The dad had said there was a wife, but we never saw anyone else.  Well, it turns out their son has an older sister (who babysits!) and a younger sister.  Who knew!  And the wife does exist. 

Then the Agent took a little nap (so did we!), we had a quick dinner, and went to the Easter Vigil Mass.  All Saints does the abbreviated version — only 2 hours instead of 3 –  because they don’t do the full complement of readings and psalm responses.  They also cheat and start the vigil at 7:00 p.m., though it really isn’t supposed to start until dark has fallen (like 9:00 p.m.).  I guess it’s because we have 3 octagenarian priests in residence, including the retired archbishop.  In any case, it made it more doable for us to attend.  (Last year the Agent only made it through half the vigil Mass at IHM.)  He was really very good, and he got lots of compliments on his shirt and tie.  And then we stopped by the reception afterwards and he got some chocolate cake.

At the reception, we met another of our neighbors.  I’d seen her name and address on the MOMS Club roster (she lives on the cul-de-sac street that runs directly up from our driveway) and then I’d seen one of their son’s names on the PSR poster at church.  I kept thinking that we really need to meet them.  Well, she came into full communion with the church on Saturday night, so we were hopeful that they’d be at the reception.  They were, and interestingly, as we were making our way toward them to introduce ourselves, they were making their way over to us to do the same.  Somehow they’d make the connection too.  Apparently he joined the Knights at the same time Mr. Tldz did.  Anyway, it was pretty neat.

We had a lazy Easter Sunday morning and a really nice breakfast.  Then we went over to Uncle R.’s for lunch.  Agent Murphy played outside with Miss L. and collected a bucket full of leaves and generally had a good time.  We came home and had our own Easter fixings (most of which had been made earlier in the week) out on the deck for dinner.

He is risen!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

We picked up the Elijah Cup at Mass this morning.  This chalice goes home with a different family in the parish every week to serve as a focal point for prayer for vocations.  It comes with a video on the priesthood which hopefully we’ll be able to watch today.  When Deacon Bill gave us the chalice box, he instructed Agent Murphy in particular to “pray real good.”

The cup is now up on our mantle.  Hopefully it will be a productive prayer week for us.

So on Saturday night Mr. Tldz and I had a big night out — or at least what passes for a big night out around here.  A Catholic parish about 30 miles from here brought in Joy and Jim Pinto of EWTN fame (so we’d never heard of them!) to do a mission evening talking about marriage.  He was raised Catholic, became an Episcopal minister, and then in 2003 he and his wife came into communion with the Catholic Church.  He’s now a pastoral associate with Priests for Life and she is the executive director of a CPC in Alabama, in addition to their radio show, television appearances, and various speaking engagements.

They had lots of interesting things to say, and clearly they typically do longer missions of 2 or 3 days.  They condensed that into about 2 hours, so it was really something of a highlight reel.  I bet they’d be worth seeing in a lengthier format.

Anyway, the parish provided childcare in the church nursery and dinner (heavy hors d’oeuvres, really, but it sufficed) for the mission attendees.  So it was a full service evening for the bargain price of some gasoline.  Good times.

Agent Murphy was the youngest kiddo in the nursery and apparently had a great time.  (He always seems to like the nursery of whatever parish.)  Fortunately for him, unlike the other parents, his parents thought to pack him a dinner so he wasn’t starving.  It was a late bedtime for him, but he’s back to his normal sleeping now.

So the parish mission wrapped up last night.  We only had time to get through the Book of Acts and didn’t touch any of the epistles.  They had been saying there would be a penance service last night, with 30 priests available for confession after Walk Thru ended.  Well, indeed, there were a bunch of priests available to hear confessions, but no penance service as such.  That’s too bad, but it’s fine.  The sacrament is the point, after all.

We hadn’t been in quite a while.  Don’t remember exactly when the last time was.  I know it was before Agent Murphy was born.  Mr. Tldz thinks it may have been before we were married.  Yeah, a long time in either case.  It was helpful to have the nursery available for the Agent to make getting to confession a little easier.

It’s funny.  I always dread going to confession.  And then I go and it’s really not a big ordeal and I feel better afterwards.  You’d think I’d learn…  I’ve done my prescribed penance, and hopefully I can turn over a new leaf for Lent.  Whenever I receive penance at confession, I’m reminded of the story of St. John Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests.  He gained a reputation as a wonderful confessor and was known to hear confessions for 12+ hours per day.  He received some criticism for being too lenient in the penances he gave.  He is said to have said, “I give them what I think they can handle, and I do the rest myself.”  I’ve often wondered, when I’m given what little penance I receive, if the priest is taking something on himself on my behalf.  In persona Christi and all that.

Mr. Tldz had an honest to goodness Irish priest, with full brogue.  I had a priest of some African extraction.  Indeed, this Catholic church is catholic.

The first night of our parish mission was tonight.  We’re doing an abbreviated version of Walk Thru the New Testament.  It looks like it will be good.  The hand signs and such are a little hokey — I think I’m not primarily a visual learner that way and would rather just take notes — but the concepts are good, and I think the program will help some of these ideas be more memorable than they have been when I’ve learned them in other contexts.  So I think it will be a good use of our time.  And Agent Murphy gets to spend three nights in a row at the parish nursery and stay up past his bedtime!  He likes it there — they have good toys, including a little puppet show stage and a play kitchen.  He was playing at the kitchen when we came to pick him up tonight.

One comment the presenter made this evening was in reference to the believing Christian’s appropriate focus being on eternity, as opposed to the past, present, or future.  He suggested as a Lenten exercise to try to make a habit of making decisions/choices in light of how they will impact eternity.  That’s a good reminder.  I’m often very bad about that, especially lately.  Get caught up in too much trivial stuff and lose sight of the ultimate goal and outlook.  I guess I will have to work on that during Lent.

Yesterday we went to the funeral of the first Grand Knight of the All Saints K of C council and a founding member of the parish, Frank Welter.  Mr. Tldz would have liked to have been there, but he’s just too busy at work right now to get away; so Agent Murphy and I went on his behalf.  The Agent was really pretty well-behaved. But All Saints is in general a very quiet church, and for a funeral, with a smaller crowd than a normal Mass, it was even more so; so every little noise he made seemed to me to be very loud.  The Knights Honor Guard (of 18, 19, or 20 — I got a different number every time I tried to count) was quite impressive.

Today we went to IHM for the funeral of a long-time usher, Eli “Joe” Giaquinto, who was a very nice man.  When I and then we were regulars at the 11:30 Mass, we usually sat near his wife, her twin sister, and the sister’s husband, son, and daughter-in-law.  I was on my own with the Agent again today, as Mr. Tldz had his Third Degree exemplification ceremony for the Knights.  (He’s now a full-fledged knight — can hold an office and whatever.)  At least IHM is a noisier church (the Baptismal font babbles, it’s just louder and more echo-y with tile floor and wood pews instead of carpet and upholstery, etc.) because Agent Murphy, while still quite good, really was a bit more active today; and we did have to go out to the narthex near the end.  I fear that he will freak when we go to church tomorrow — “What?!? Not three days in a row!”  At least I will have Mr. Tldz to help ride herd.

I’ll tell you, one thing I miss about IHM is that it’s a singing parish, by which I mean the congregation really participates in singing.  That’s atypical of Catholic parishes in my experience, and one thing I always liked about IHM.  And at IHM, they pretty much sing all the verses of the hymns, even if there’s 6 or 7.  At All Saints, the processional typically makes it to the altar in one verse, so we’re done.  Maybe on Christmas or something we might sing 2 whole verses.

Both gentlemen were WWII veterans of the Navy. Sir Knight Welter remained stateside, as by the time he enlisted, one brother had been killed in the Atlantic theater and one in the Pacific.  Joe was in the submarine service and apparently had a “submerged tenure” of 9 months, 4 days.  Whew!  Joe’s funeral included military honors with four uniformed representatives of the Navy to do a flag folding ceremony and a live playing of taps.

Both also had long marriages.  Mr. and Mrs. Welter were married 62 years, I believe, and the Giaquintos 59 years. That’s hard for me to believe, because I was at the 11:30 Mass when Joe surprised Helen for their 50th anniversary by renewing their wedding vows. Father Fred was our pastor then, and he wasn’t saying the 11:30 Mass that day.  There was a visiting priest.  And then in the middle of Mass, Father Fred came out, fully vested, and announced that the Giaquintos were celebrating their 50th and Joe had requested a renewal of their vows.  Helen looked completely surprised.  It was very sweet.  Can that really have been 9 years ago?!?  Both wives are still living.  Helen is doing quite well.  Mrs. Welter, apparently, is pretty frail.  She was unable to attend the funeral.

Oddly, funerals always make me weepy, even if I don’t know the person very well. (Or in the case of Sir Knight Welter, not at all.)  I guess they just help recall the funerals of loved ones, and even bring some thoughts of funerals yet to come.  Both of these funerals used as the first reading the reading from Wisdom that I read at my aunt’s funeral.

Larger crowd today — I suppose the advantage of having one’s funeral on a Saturday rather than a weekday.

Both men were cremated, which had the benefit of allowing a rather lengthy delay between their deaths and their funerals.  Sir Knight Welter died December 19, and Joe died January 4.  While I have nothing against cremation per se, having been to two of these in a row, I have to say that a funeral without a casket really does feel like it’s missing something.  There’s not the ceremony of placing the pall (which is really a beautiful and meaningful ritual that hearkens back to Baptism) and processing the casket in and recessing the casket out.  The urn is still incensed at the end of Mass during the final commendation, but it just doesn’t seem the same.  And there really seems to be something to having the casket there during the Communion procession. At every casket funeral I’ve been to, pretty much everybody lays a hand on the casket as they walk by.  Somehow it makes the farewell more real.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon them.  And may the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.  Amen.