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.
We’ve been to Mass this morning for the Feast of Mary, Mother of God. It’s nice that All Saints offers a normal Sunday Mass schedule for today, so we went to our usual 8:45. We were asked to bring the gifts up to the altar. Mr. Tldz carried the cruet of wine, I took the water, and Agent Murphy carried the sacramentary. Once we got him pointed the right direction, he did pretty well. When we got about half way up the aisle, Father Jude (the visiting Franciscan scholastic who teaches theology at a college outside of Philadelphia and who also said Christmas Eve Mass) knelt down to be at the Agent’s level. Then he really seemed to get it, and he raced the rest of the way up the aisle with the book. Father Jude told him he did perfectly.
Now that we’re home, we’re back in our PJs and set for a lazy day. Diapers have been folded, the beginnings of a pot of soup is on the stove for dinner (lunch will just be Christmas leftovers), and now we’re ready to watch movies or something.
Last night we ordered in a couple of pizzas for dinner. We were going to watch a movie after the Agent went to bed, but I’d been fighting a migraine all day, so we were curled up in bed with cups of spiced cider listening to the radio by 8:30. Fell asleep sometime after that, and then woke up around 10:30 to go to bed for the night. A couple of old fuddy duddies, we. But I can’t really think of a nicer way to celebrate the new year. This morning we had cold pizza and egg nog for breakfast – what a way to start 2010! (Okay, we were responsible parents and the Agent Murphy had his usual breakfast: oatmeal mixed with apple sauce and yogurt, a banana, a vitamin, milk.)
So now on with our lazy day. Nowhere to go until church on Sunday morning. If only we could keep the Agent from pestering attacking The Dog…
Mr. Tldz was inducted into the Knights of Columbus last night. I’ve been telling him this means he’ll really be my knight in shining armor. He came home last night to inform me there is a Shining Armor Award available to Knights who accomplish certain things in their first year of membership. So if he wins that, he’ll really really be my knight in shining armor!
I think this will be a very good thing. Apparently our parish has one of the more active Knights councils in the state. And since he was inducted on Agent Murphy’s second birthday, we’ll always have a way to remember how long he’s been a Knight.
So since it looks like our move is actually going to happen, we went to our new parish this morning for 8:45 Mass, which we think will be our normal. Oh my gosh, we really like it! As far as physical appearances, the new IHM is much prettier and more traditionally Catholic in appearance; but All Saints has the flavor of an authentically, orthodox Catholic community. And the church is pretty in its own way. It’s very simple, with lots of windows (plain glass, not stained) through which you see mainly lots of trees on the property. There is no fixed crucifix. There are large windows behind the altar looking out on a large wooden cross.
It appears their pro-life group has their own permanent bulletin board in the narthex. There is an actual cry room (though the sign calls it the “Little Saints Room). We made use of it for a while this morning because the Agent was being a bit unruly. At All Saints, they actually keep pens in the penholders in the pews, and he kept wanting to play with those and would pitch a fit when we took them away; but we really didn’t need him scribbling on the pew upholstery.
Their faith formation offerings all seem to be very worthwhile, and they had a handy brochure out on everything lined up for the fall and winter. Last week we already signed Mr. Tldz up for a small group study called “Fathers for Good” which starts next week. After Mass this morning a man came up and said, “Hi, I’m Jerry.” (He’s leading the group, and I’d indicated we’d planned to start coming to Mass there this weekend, so he must have been on the lookout for us.) He invited us out to breakfast with some other folks (to whom he introduced us — and said they were the ones who introduced him to the parish). We said we’d love to in the future but declined today given that we’re swamped with packing, etc. to get done. This is all very promising.
EDIT: Only when I sat down to put all the dates of this small group study on the calendar did I realize that the man teaching the class is Jeff, not Jerry. When Jerry introduced himself to us on Sunday, I guess my mind just tried to fill in the blanks to make it make sense. Apparently Jerry is just a friendly guy who considers himself the welcome wagon. Still very promising.
Oh please. But our pastor seemingly tried to canonize Ted Kennedy from the ambo on Sunday. I was so disgusted. We’d hoped to go to our new parish this past weekend, but since things were still so up in the air on the house deal, we held off on it. What a stunning example we got of why we’re looking forward to switching parishes!
He stood up there and kept saying, “This is not political.” Oh come on! You’re talking about one of the most viciously partisan politicians in Washington. I could have gone along with noting that a man who had the means to live a life of leisure devoted himself to years of public service. (I’d push aside my opinion that his public service wreaked havoc on our society; I’d give him credit for being a public servant.) He apparently had intentions to help the poor, and those are good intentions. And if Father had gone on to say that today we hope Senator Kennedy is meeting his Maker, who is recognizing the good he’s done and extending mercy to him for any ways in which his goals and the agenda he pushed were errant, I would have been fine with that. But instead we got, “I hope today he is meeting his Maker, who is saying, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’”
Yes, well done leaving a young woman at the bottom of a lake. Well done putting poison pills in all sorts of legislation to promote a radical abortion agenda, leading to the slaughter of so many unborn babies. He once held pro-life views but sold his soul for power in the Democrat party. Maybe he thought he could do more good that way than the harm he caused. (I wonder what Mary Jo and all the babies have to say about that?) Apparently concern for the poor doesn’t extend to the poor unborn, or born people who become inconvenient to a Kennedy. Maybe he was simply misguided. We know he had his demons. So sure, I pray he receives the mercy for his sins that all of us hope for for ours. But “Well done, good and faithful servant”? And I’m supposed to believe that wasn’t a political homily?
I hope our new parish will be more Catholic. Our current parish’s website is pretty reflective of its culture, so if that holds true for the new parish’s website, then I’m pretty hopeful about the culture there.
My Mothers Day celebration started Saturday evening, when for date night Mr. Tldz made a lovely dinner — moussaka and lemon oven potatoes, neither of which we’ve had in a while; and then he made baklava! Yummy! (Holy cow – do all those items actually go together?!? We’re usually famous for weird combinations of ethnic foods.) It was fabulous — especially when followed by a nice back massage!
For breakfast Sunday we had freshly made blueberry scones and steel cut oatmeal. Agent Murphy was good during Mass. (We didn’t have to make a break for the narthex at any point during Mass, so that counts as good.) I got my presents when we got home — God and the World, a written interview with Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict), a John Michael Talbot CD, and from Agent Murphy Dr. Laura’s new book, In Praise of Stay-at-Home Moms. Looks like both books will be good reads. As Mr. Tldz said, the interview format with Ratzinger is probably the best way for me to read his stuff these days since it can easily been done in tiny chunks.
During Agent Murphy’s nap, I went out and picked up an umbrella stroller for our upcoming trip to Chicago. We’re looking forward to that! We actually really like our full-size stroller. It’s nicely light weight, but we were looking for something with a smaller profile when folded so it doesn’t take up so much room in the trunk, and we found an umbrella one that doesn’t seem to be built for midgets to push. After Agent Murphy’s nap, we called the grandmothers. I had a nice chat with my mom, and Mr. Tldz left a message for his.
We got all of our cooking (including a couple of pies) and laundry done for the week. (Ours, anyway. Agent Murphy always has more!) And we still managed to retire at a normal hour. A very good weekend. I hope all my mom friends out there had good Mothers Days, too.
Now my boy is clamoring for help with his puzzles and for story time, so I must go be Mommy.