Today is a holy day in the Catholic Church. We honor the Saints in Heaven today. All of us should really be striving to get to Heaven. I know yesterday I wrote about my disenchantment with my Catholic peeps. Today, I hope they attended Mass and heard the readings and hopefully listened to a great homily.... I went to www.mycatholic.com and the craziest thing happened! I went to listen to the reflection on today's readings, just to refresh my brain before I wrote, and lo and behold, the priest doing the reflection? IS FROM BUFFALO!!!!
Fr. David Baker?
Click on Fr. David's name!!!! INSANE!! But what he says sums up today!!! Truly- a beautiful summary of the readings from Revelation, 1 John, and Matthew!!! What we all should be striving for! ALL OF US!!!!!!
So, I took five of the minions to Church this morning. It was at 8:00 am, at a parish in the town I live in, which to give an idea of the number of parishes I live "near," I could probably go to around 20 different churches within a 10 mile radius of my house. I have Catholic surrounding me. Or so I thought when I moved here.....the truth is in the pudding so to speak. City-data lists Catholics at 77% here..... 13% where I moved from. I was sad to discover that most of the 77% who identity as "Catholic" do so in name only........most do not attend Mass regularly, and sadly, most do not attend Holy Days of obligation.
But I digress again....if only I could convince them of the healing power of the Eucharist. They'd never miss Mass....
So it was 8:00am. A "new" church. Literally 2-3 miles from my house.....We go in and sit towards the front. I felt like not doing the front row today, because despite my children behaving better sitting up front, having to walk out of a new church with a screaming toddler yelling, "no mommy" wasn't exactly on my fun radar today.
Mass was great. Priest gave a great homily. Told us we should all be striving for Heaven. And if we follow God's commandments, all of them (he added that last part in a serious voice), we should get to Heaven. It's our hope. It's our prayer. It's our goal.
During the course of Mass, several exciting things happened. I'll just make some bullet points...
1. #6 loves singing. Loves "following along" with the book. She was singing and using the book and when it was over, tried to lower the book, and in the process, ripped the page right.out.of.the.book. Perfectly ripped it out. I looked over at my 8th grader and mouthed the words, 'perfect...' The 8th grader giggled and took the book and tried her best to make it look like that page never came out..... it sorta worked....
2. Collection today. Nothing like a collection basket coming down your row and feeling like a cheap skate. "oops." I say to my 8th grader. Perfect #2. She giggled some more....
3. To keep terrorist 1 & 2 occupied, the 8th grader gave them a few envelopes and pencils. Unfortunately, the tinier of the two terrorists, started doing this insane scribbling thing and preceded to stab herself with the tiny little sharpened weapon, er, I mean pencil in the process. This produced a rather loud cry, the intitial, 'crap, momma, that hurt....' and led into the full blown, 'I think my arm needs to be amputated now,' cry. It was amazing. Once again, I look over at the 8th grader and mouthed, 'perfect.'
4. Was the only one once again wearing a veil. I keep hoping to one day 'run into' a kindred spiritual sister wearing her veil, wrestling with her kids....but I don't. Pretty sure I'm the only weirdo crazycatholicmomma in the universe. Some days I'm ok with that, but others, it gets kinda lonely. Just keep telling myself, "Mary wears a veil. Want to be like Mary. The Eucharist is my focus. My veil allows me to humble myself (in more ways than one) before my Lord and Savior.....'
5. Mass ended with relatively little debacle after that and I even managed to get my 3rd grader to her school before it even started! Score one positive for crazycatholicmomma today!
6. 8th grader begged that I 'take my time' getting to the middle school. She didn't want to come back right before the bell rang and wonder where she should go. So I obliged her by driving through Tim Horton's to get myself a coffee, some donuts, and water for all of them. She seemed extremely grateful and when we dropped her off, she informed me that she missed a test today!
Explains her compliance with missing class this morning...................
So that was my All Saints morning. My oldest attended Mass last night because her volleyball team has it's semi-final playoffs tonight and my son has to work at our parish as the sacristan during the evening Mass. Hopefully the super hero hubs remembered to attend Mass at noon today downtown so we can watch the oldest play volleyball.....
It was chaos. It was exhausting. But I hope that I'm setting that example for my children to see, that even in the chaos, the busy, the overwhelmed, that it is so important to stop. Examine what it's important. And celebrate those who have gone before us and have "won the fight!"
God bless you today.
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