Elijah and I go to church at 7:30am every Sunday morning. It is a beautiful, peaceful walk from home to St Theresa's. Today we left the stroller at home and walked hand in hand. This resulted in his being more awake during the service - but he was still well behaved. He is always so good for me. We whisper a lttle bit, not much, about the color of the paraments and vestments. Elijah likes it when we sing, and even makes me sing parts of the Mass to him at home.
I think my favorite part of the service is the reading of the scripture. There are always four readings, and they aren't just a verse or two, but a full thought. First, there is a reading from the old testament. Then, a responsorial Psalm. A cantor (sing) sings one line, and we all repeat it. Then she sings the Psalm, with us repeat the response ever few lines. It's nice. Then, there is a reading from one of the Epistles. After that, there is a fanfare of sorts, and the priest comes over to the podium and reads a portion of one of the gospels. Everybody stands and listens to the gospel out of respect. I love this deep respect for Scripture, with a little pageantry in honor of it. Then the priest gives him homily, the "breaking open of the Bread". A homily is like a sermon, only it's short - it's not the focus of the service, communion is.
After the service, we always go to the church library. The library is small, but it is home to C. S. Lewis, Joseph Girzone, Brennan Manning, the writings of many saints, the officials writings of Vatican Council II, and even one of the novels written by our priest-in-residence, Fr. Haney. So we stuff our pockets with books before we head home.
2 comments:
Rachel, be careful about what you read by Joseph Girzone. He definitely has an agenda.
We have friends who go to St. Theresa's too. They're a homeschooling family with 8 birth children.
We like Fr. Weiss. He's a "baby" priest but he's good.
Thanks for the advice, Michelle. I read all of Joseph Girzone's books when I was in my early teens and I loved them - except for Joshua and the Shepherd, which just seemed badly written. I picked Joshua and the Shepherd up again the ther day, and I literally could not finish it. I didn't see the agenda with Protestant eyes, but reading it with Catholic eyes, I really was offended. I don't know if the other books would bother me now or not, but I probably won't try anytime soon.
Fr. Weiss is my favorite :) You can tell he really loves Jesus.
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