bus stations, train stations, Stations of the Cross part deux

So I am slacking in my saying the Stations of the Cross, daily but it's still early in this Lenten season.

I decided to walk to daily Mass and today was no different except it was snowing but I don't mind walking in the snow, I rather enjoy it.  I decided to walk "the back roads" aka the not main road that runs through town as I figured if I have to walk out in the street it's better to do it on a street where there's not at much traffic.  So I walked along my way, using mainly sidewalks as they were clear despite the dusting of snow on the ground.  I was listening to Jars of Clay's version of I Need You when all of a sudden my ass was on the cold ground and thought, ouch.  I have enough padding to just be slightly bruised if I am at all.  I bounced up as quickly as I went down.  I was thinking about a friend who had basically posted her goodbye to us on Facebook, as she's entering the final stages of her battle with cancer, so my mind was not on watching where I was walking.

The ice I slipped on was hidden by the dusting of snow and dare I say my ego was bruised more than my body.  I do have a nice little "cut" on my hand from where I placed it to break my fall, but again the whole thing happened in about 5 seconds.  I got up thinking, well grumbling, I should have just walked in the street and then I noticed that my hand hurt.  I took off my glove and looked at my left hand and said, oh that hurts, but it's barely skinned, I wonder if my ass will bruise.  As I kept walking I started to think about Stations of the Cross and I of course thought of the Jesus falls ones.  I looked at my hand and said, this tiny cut hurts more than anything, I can only imagine what type of pain Jesus was in when He carried the cross.

Here's my tiny little flesh wound that still hurts hours later.  Something that 

small shouldn't hurt as much as it does.  I have always been one who realized that the traditional beatings Jesus got in the movies was nothing like what really happened.  Call it God's grace or my vivid imagination.  So of course I think of The Passion of the Christ when ever I think of Jesus's Passion and death.  I chose a not so graphic image from the movie.  I have in the past looked to Our Lady of Sorrows for consolation and for some reason she came to mind this Lent.  Maybe it's because of the death of one of the parish's young adults and watching the family she left behind suffer and not knowing what to do for them or watching my friends suffer and not knowing what to do for them either but suffering has come back as a topic.  

Yesterday I learned that a priest I knew and has as a professor at Seton Hall died suddenly.  Not an Ash Wednesday goes by that I don't think of him and the giant crosses he would place on our heads.  Anyway, I started to think of all the memories from Seton Hall and I thought where's the book we used in class. I remember he commented that it was such a small book despite the class being on Christian Spirituality.  The book is 144 pages long and covers some of the classics of Catholic Spirituality actually that's it's name too.  I went searching for it just because and found it and thought, oh I need to get a bunch of these classics.  While searching for the book, I found books that I used for my senior thesis.  One of those books is called At the Foot of the Cross The Seven Lessons of Mary for the Sorrowing Heart, the other one I found is Archbishop Sheen's Seven Words of Jesus and Mary Lessons on Cana and Calvary.  I don't want to take any of my proposed books out of my book a week challenge  but I might have to add these two in.  Again I see a theme appearing or should I say reappearing as I have read these books before.  

I had originally planned on this particular blog to be about Stations of the Cross again, but when I fell today it got me thinking about how we can daily live out the stations of the cross.  I have an all day retreat with our high school freshman in our confirmation program on Sunday, and I know that right about now is when the spiritual, physical and mental battles come to a front.  I'm reminded of a quote I saw on Facebook, of course it happens to be from Mark Hart. "Don't be surprised when attacks come - if you're living for Christ they'll come constantly. It probably means you're doing it right... 'When you seek to do good, evil will be at hand.' - Rom 7:21" 

Who would have thought that a tiny cut on my hand would make me think about how to daily live out the Stations of the Cross and to look back into our Lady of Sorrows.  We are not suffering along, Jesus knows what we are going through as does God the Father, and our Blessed Mother. 

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.  

SCC the digital version or my "homily" for the 1st Sunday of Lent.

J.M.J. 

I decided to start my Lenten book challenge off easy, I was already reading Mark Hart's Behold the Mystery and have most of Cardinal Dolan's Doers of the Word read so I decided that they counted as one book and would be read on Ash Wednesday and the days that followed.  I did finish both of them, but they were easy reads.  In Behold the Mystery Mark Hart suggests spending time with all four readings for Sunday's Mass.  I always think of Small Christian Communities (SCC) at Seton Hall when I think of this, because that's exactly what we did.  A bunch of us met each week with Fr. Bill to discuss the readings for the upcoming Sunday.  I know we inspired a bunch of homilies for him and it was fun and interesting to discuss the readings for Sunday.  We typically came up with about 4 or five questions to go over, and by we I really mean me. No, it was mainly Fr. Bill until one day I heard "hey, Mar, my newest, bestest, best bud, do you want to write the questions for SCC tonight."  I know I had some sort of smart ass response but I can't remember it, but I do remember him saying, "but your's are good and better than mine" or something along those lines to me.

I've decided to do a digital version of SCC though it's more of a Lectio, which now that I think about it is what SCC was, but we never treated it that way.  Now, I know why Fr. Bill suggested Lectio Divina years later, and that's what makes him one of the best priests I know.  This also makes me laugh at how God works.

Any way I figured I might as well spend time with the readings and what better place to "talk" about it but the almighty inter-webs.  I know that a lot of people don't read this and it's mostly for me, but hey you never know who might find it and learn something.  Here's the link to Sunday, February 22, 2015 Mass readings  .  The USCCB page was giving me issues before, so I'm not sure if it will load correctly or not, but they should have an interactive calendar on the home page if the link doesn't work.

So the first reading comes from the Book of Genesis and it involves Noah and we can assume that the ark was involved too.  The daily readings link doesn't give you the footnotes like the actual Bible pages do; the New American Bible Revised Edition aka the NABRE is on the site. I have to give credit to said Bible as my bishop, Bishop Arthur Serratelli, spent "7 years of his life" working on it. It's also the Bible we hear at Mass.  I was going to look for the footnotes, but the website is not loading on Chrome anyway, not sure about other browsers.

Anyway, back to the first reading. Most of us know the story of Noah, the ark and the flood.  In the first reading we get the promise from God to Noah that the world will not be destroyed by water again.  God saved the world because of one righteous person, Noah, well eight people if we count Noah's wife, sons and daughters-in-law. God promised that He wouldn't use water to destroy the Earth again.  I'm currently sitting through a Biblical Call Narratives class for my Masters and Certificate program, so we've been discussing the Old Testament far more than the New Testament and I'm fine with that because we so often skip over the Old Testament that we don't look to it for wisdom, even though it is one of the books of the Old Testament.  God made a covenant with Noah and his family and the sign He gave them was a rainbow, or so we traditionally say it is.  Even today we are always in awe when we see a rainbow in the sky.  I remember a few times when my family was in Ireland that I was told, "get you're camera, there's a rainbow; oh it's a double rainbow; quick before it goes away."  I happily oblige as there is something special about rainbows precisely because we don't see them that often.  I usually think of pots of gold at the end of a rainbow long before I think of God's promise to Noah.  I don't think oh that's a reminder that God will take care of His family, I think oh that's pretty.

We have a glorified idea of Noah and the Ark, that thing had to stink to high holy hell with all those animals on it; yeah think about that, gross isn't it.  The stench didn't stop Noah or his family from doing what God told him and that ark wasn't small, it did have to fit two of each animal and 8 humans on it; so the hard work didn't stop Noah either.  Noah trusted God and was rewarded for it; God saved the world because of Noah's faith and actions.  One person saved the world, that sounds familiar doesn't it.  As my pastor reminded us at his Lenten Friday Night Lights aka his seasonal sessions on Catholic things, we, the younger generation often look at the Old Testament as some nice stories that we hear but don't really pay attention too. It's true we look at a rainbow and think, oh that's pretty, we don't think oh God's reminding us about how He saved us all those years ago with Noah.


I was about to jump to the second reading when I read the psalm. So often the psalm is forgotten or not preached on.  A few weeks ago Fr. Ray spoke of the psalm because it happened to be his favorite and the music ministry happened to play his favorite setting of it.  I don't remember what psalm it was but it reminds me that as Mark Hart said in Behold the Mystery we so often forget about the psalm.

The refrain of the psalm is "Your ways, O Lord, are love and truth to those who keep your covenant." My initial thought as I read it in church was, how the heck are we doing to sing this one.  It's interesting that the psalm uses the work covenant.  Today we don't think of covenants, we think of contracts which is sort of what a covenant with God is.  I try to say Liturgy of the Hours every day, there are plenty of days where I don't say one or any of the hours, but it has allowed me to get to know the psalms better or least notice which ones they use all the time.  The first verse of the psalm has us asking God to teach us His ways.  The second verse has us asking God to be kind to us and to remember us in His compassion.  The third and final verse reminds that God guides us, teaches us and shows us the way.  When we pay attention to the readings we see how they are linked together. Noah followed God's ways and kept the covenant and therefore passed on the faith to the generations that followed him.

The second reading is from St. Peter's letter.  It's rare that the second reading is not from one of St. Paul's readings just because he takes up the majority of the New Testament.  When I went to type the blog at first I kept thinking where did I hear "prefigured baptism" it must have been in one of the books I read, no it was from the second reading as I realized as I sat in Church. I think my mind had wondered during this reading, and I laughed to myself as I thought of Mark Hart's comment of well, at least you will have gone over the readings in case you start to not pay attention at Mass.  In this reading we are reminded that Jesus suffered for sins once, that righteous one suffered for the unrighteous.  Here we have that righteous man saving the world again.  Yes, that righteous man from the first reading is in essence a prefiguring of Jesus for one man saved the world.  Rarely do we have the readings so connected, or at least it seems that it's rarely that the first and second readings connect; let alone mention the other.  Noah was a prefiguring for our baptism, though the water of Baptism we are saved, but we can't forget about Jesus and how His saving act is what truly saved us. St. Peter reminds of that at the end of the reading.  Our salvation is not about being physically clean but about having a clean and clear conscience.

The Gospel is one of the shortest ones I can remember. It's literally three verses long. It's five sentences from the looks of it.  Of course on the first Sunday of Lent we are reminded that Jesus was in the desert fasting and was tempted by Satan.  This reminds that Jesus knows exactly what we go through each Lenten season.  Jesus knows that we are going to be tempted to eat what we gave up or tempted to not pray because I'm tired or some other excuse. In this short Gospel we get the idea that Lent will not be easy and that we will be tempted.  In the second portion of the Gospel we hear the words that we also hear on Ash Wednesday, depending on what saying the person who is placing ashes on your forehead uses.  "Repent and believe in the Gospel."  The gospel is the good news that Jesus came to save us all but we are so far removed from it that we often forget it.

I always try to get one thing out of the homily and while Fr. Ray actually preached on the first reading, using a great example of the Benedictine Abbey in Newark and how they because the ark for young men in Newark it was his preaching on the Gospel that stuck with me.  Fr. Ray mentioned the idea that we are obsessed with survival shows.  It got me thinking of Naked and Afraid, Bear Grylls' shows, the one with the military guy and the hippie guy and of course Survivor.   The line that got everyone to laugh was, "Survivor: they send people out to a remote island for 40 days and have all these tests and rituals they have to go through; we've been doing that for 2,000 years it's called Lent."

It's so true we are throwing ourselves out into the dessert to hopefully be drawn closer to God by giving something up or whatever we planned on doing for Lent.  It won't be easy as we will be tempted, but at least we've not voted off the island.



In cause you were wondering why the J.M.J. (Jesus, Mary and Joseph) randomly appeared; I've been writing it on my handwritten notes since college and after seeing another blog with it and Cardinal Dolan post a homily with the letters at the top I figured if they can do it so can I.

Why I have a love/hate relationship with Ash Wednesday

I love being Catholic, there is no denying that.  It is who I am, I am Catholic and damn proud of it.

I love the Church so much that is actually pains me that people only show up on certain days and well today is one of them.  So many people think that Ash Wednesday is a Holy Day of Obligation but it's not, we don't need to go and get dirt placed on our foreheads but we choose to. It makes me wonder why people show up today but not on a Sunday.

As I am currently unemployed it makes my schedule for Ash Wednesday different from years past. For the past five years the only Masses I could go to where the 7am (oh dear God that's early) or the 7:30pm (much nicer of a time, and it has music) Mass, so I usually went to the evening Mass. Today I decided to go the 12:05pm Mass, as that's the time of the daily Mass I'll be going to and honestly I didn't expect it to be as packed at it was and I figured I could sacrifice the music part.  By chance my Pastor was saying Mass and I could tell that he was just as cranky as I was by some of the little things he did.

Side note of sorts: I got a Fitbit charge for Christmas from my brother and sister-in-law so I make more of an effort to walk to church every Sunday and my parents don't question it anymore as it's healthy vs me just being crazy.  It's only about half a mile to the church, so it's really not that big of a deal.  I try to listen to Christian music, most of the time it's Matt Maher, because he's my favorite Catholic- Christian artist, but I do it so I don't have a song along the lines of I'm Sexy and I Know It stuck in my head for Mass.  Today's songs were Jeremy Camp's Christ In Me and by chance Matt Maher's Because of You and both songs were perfect looking back on it.

The refrain of Christ In Me is "So come and empty me, So that it's you I breathe, I want my life to be, Only Christ in me, So I will fix my eyes, 'Cause you're my source of life , I need the world to see, That it's Christ in me, That it's Christ in me" As I walked along I kept thinking, Christ in me, that's an interesting concept.  A few other songs came on but I didn't really want to hear them, so I stopped it on Because of You. The refrain of Because of You is "If I shine it's because of You, if I love it's because of You, if I'm strong it's because of you, if I'm right it's because of You, it's all because of You."  I love this song as it reminds that I am nothing without God, which is a decent thought on Ash Wednesday when you hear, "remember you are dust and to dust you shall return" or remember, man, you are dust and to dust you shall return" if you went to our pastor. As Because of You ended I saw people walking from the parking lot towards the church and I said to myself, "oh yeah the public schools are off this week", then I saw a car illegally park by the yellow don't park here line and it went down hill from there.  It really didn't, but my immediate thought when I entered church was, where the heck did you all come from.

I am a regular Mass goer meaning I have my set area to sit in, I even have what I deem my daily Mass spot and all of those spots were taken, granted it was 5 minutes before Mass was supposed to start, but I was expecting the normal middle of the week daily Mass group and then remembered it was get something for free at Church day.  So I went to one of my normal pews but sat in the middle of the pew as those were open. Usually I sit on the end because I almost always end up having to serve in some sort of capacity, oddly today I didn't but I was very close.

I decided to start veiling at Mass as I have felt called to do it for awhile now and figured what better time to start than Lent.  So I probably spent most of my time thinking, I wonder who's thinking why is this thing is on her head; then I remembered that the older generation would know the custom  and my generation and younger would have no idea what it was that was on my head.  So with that thought out of my head, I started to notice the little things.

This Mass had no music, so that throws people off and to aid in the washing ashes off, we take the collection up before the prayers of the faithful, which is completely different from Sunday so it confuses the hell out of people.  From the beginning of the Mass, I noticed things that just showed how annoyed our pastor was.  Let me set the record straight, he's a wonderful man and priest, but let's just say some of the ways he says things don't go so well with those in the parish who don't know him well. I think I approached this Mass slightly differently, I wasn't expecting the usual annoyances of Ash Wednesday, but they slowly appeared.  By chance one of our youth ministry teens found me and sat with me, so let's just say we shared our annoyances.  So in my normal spot where families with little noisy children, which I kept thinking each time I head a noise, at least they are here and kids will be kids.  See, I'm not always judgemental, but usually I am.

Fr. Ray's homily was decent, I remember thinking, what is he doing to talk about this year.  The homily reminded us that Lent come about as a way for people to finish the walk/race with those preparing for baptism and to receive their sacraments at Easter.  I do remember him commenting on how fasting and giving something up isn't so that we can fit into our bathing suit in the summer or to loose a few pounds.  That's the added benefit of giving something up or so I think.  He went on to comment on how he knows we've all been complaining about the snow and how it's messy, a pain, packed down and just annoying and likened it to one of the best images of Lent we have because by the time Easter gets here, the snow will have melted, and like wise hopefully a hardened part of us has softened and melted at well.  Those are not his exact words, but the basic idea.

Mass continued as normal, with the blessing and distribution of ashes following the homily, and here's where the small little things started to appear.  We had five people distributing the ashes, so Fr. Ray happened to be smack in the middle as they were all up in the front of the church.  I know how he gets, so when I saw one of the two lay people free up, I jumped the line and went to them, as I knew those in front of me wouldn't, of course the young lady sitting next to me did the same.  Many times during the distribution we heard "move to your right, there are ministers over there."  Now I know why he said it and he was right, all of  a sudden there was a line for just the priest and in all honestly it doesn't matter who places the ashes on your forehead, and they are certainly not better if you happen to get them from a priest.  I sat there thinking "this is why they don't like you." as I head, "use the other side" repeated, but I also see his point and understand his frustration with the parish.  The rest of the Mass went on normally, there was no music so the responses were said.  People forget to sit after the prayers of the faithful until there was a motion to sit down.  I had already sat down, as well I do pride myself on knowing what to do.  I know how prideful that sounds, but it's true, I do know what to do and when to do it.  It was time to receive Communion and one of the kids in front of me seemed to not know how to place his hands to receive Communion so I thought "if you don't know how your hands are supposed to go, why are you receiving" and then I thought, "I offer this reception of Communion for all these who are here just because and that the graces they need are poured out on them."  I'm trying to do better with the whole judging people thing.

Mass ends, and before Fr. Ray could even kiss the altar and leave the sanctuary people started to bolt out the doors. So from the pastor we hear "You know usually we wait for the priest to leave before you do... it's kind of a Catholic thing."  I nearly said out loud, "this is why they don't like you," but instead I turned to the teen who was next to me and the two of us started laughing because we completely understood why he said it.  I get the whole lunch hour thing, but at least have the decency to wait until he's off the sanctuary. The thirty seconds it takes him to walk to the back of the Church won't make much of a difference.  

I love Ash Wednesday because it's when Lent begins and allows to stop and think about what I need to improve in my life, but I hate it because the judgemental bitch in me appears.  I take the time to go to Mass each week, to know the responses and to participate at Mass so yes it does annoy me when I have to deal with little annoyances.  I honestly don't mind kids making noise at Mass, they are allowed to talk to God as they can and I know from personal experience that you can't always get a kid to stay quiet no matter how hard you try; sometimes they sing "Mary had a baby boy and she named him Jesus" when the entire church is quiet and you just have to let it happen.  Worse things could have happened.  I'm trying to be more aware of how mean I can seem at Mass in the idea that I think, you should know what to do and if you actually came to Mass, you would know what to do.

In reading books on the Mass, I am aware that I have more insight into what the Mass is and I wish I had more than 4 Sundays a year to be able to pass that on to the majority of people who call themselves Catholic, but that's where grace and God come in.  God works in ways I obviously can't all I can do is pray for those that cause me have the hate portion of the relationship with Ash Wednesday.

I heart my Pastor

I realize that I jumped from we're getting new priests to my pastor's homily from Ash Wednesday.

Fr. Ray is my favorite pastor, mainly for his I don't give a damn attitude.  I know he cares he just seems able to let the annoyances roll of his back the way water rolls off a duck's back.  I love that he says Mass and does liturgy correctly as in from the Roman Missal and doesn't care what others think about that.

Let me start from the beginning as that is a good place to start. When Fr. Ray first came I was torn because the man has a very thick exterior and I couldn't actually tell if he liked me or not and I couldn't tell if I liked him or not. I was leaning towards liking him, but I wasn't a hundred percent sure. I try to always look for the bright side and aspects of the new guys who come to the parish. I was constantly fighting the majority of the parish in liking the poor man and I still am. I finally got the chance to sit and talk with him on our youth ministry  retreat.

I was starting to see myself join the ranks of those it liking him, but I understand the man is busy running a parish, working as the archivist for the diocese and also as a professor at the seminary at Seton Hall.  So as someone who has had a church job and also multiple jobs at once, I know it is not easy to focus on one job all the time, so I was desperately looking for that one on one time and got it in the form of the Sacrament of Confession at our retreat.  I had finally seen the personal side of the pastor and loved it.

I was tasked with promoting my pastor when he first came to the parish by a priest in the diocese whom I love dearly.  So I took on that task and continue to do so today.  I will defend my pastor and his "lack of being at everything the parish does" because I know deep down he actually likes what he does and that he likes me. 


This was the first year I was able to partake in the Triduum fully at the parish and it was amazing.  Everything was done out of the Roman Missal and it was the first time in quite a while that I enjoyed being at the parish for said events.  At the Triduum and after our Lenten Tuesday night Catechism meetings I realized that all it took to get to know the pastor was to go to the events he was running.  He much like our dear Bishop is a teacher and full of knowledge, a knowledge that I one day would love to have.  I'm on the parish Liturgy Committee and I took those minutes I had in the "confessional" to finally get my say out about how annoyed I was with some of the things the committee was saying and how I felt about the state of the Confirmation program and about evangelization at the parish.  I laid it all out including the story of how I came to be on the Liturgy Committee and how I was the only one who would sit next to the pastor, and oddly at the next meeting Fr. Ray sat next to me and I know he wanted to sit next to me at the last meeting too, but the Committee is much like Church, your seat doesn't change and no one moves from their said spot.  So when Fr. George left and Fr. Martin came in Fr. Martin sat in the corner which is now Fr. Ray's spot whether he wants it or not.  


I'm tired of hearing people bitch and moan about the pastor, I keep wanted to say have you asked him to come over, he's not a mind reader.  He can't know what you're thinking of that you want him at everything.  We can't expect him to be at everything, it's just not possible. 


I know where I stand as at the end of Easter Vigil I make a point of saying hello and Happy Easter to the priests and deacons. I had talked to both vicars, and seen my top two deacons so I decided I should go say hi to the pastor as I probably won't see him tomorrow. I walked out and as he was talking to two of the Sisters who teach in the school, he turns and says, "Happy Easter Mary" and leaned in for the classic greeting/kiss.  It had taken 9 months but he finally used my name and despite all my joking of "oh no he actually knows my name" it was great.  The conversation then followed about the light that was on me as lector during the Vigil, it was a touch blinding as no other lights were on.  


The next day, other wise known as Easter Sunday meant that I was lector and EM at our gym Mass.  I got there early and no one, other than the choir, was in the gym which was weird but I went with it.  I was going over the prayers of the faithful as there was no deacon at the Mass and I would have to read them.  I apparently forgot how to read and just skimmed them as I didn't notice that one was repeated, I just noticed that it was crossed out, I asked our vicar if he knew why it was crossed out and he said no, maybe Msgr. knows.  Fr. Ray, in cassock and surplice, looked at me and said "it's repeated" I said, oh guess I should have read the whole page.  He followed up with she changed what I had written, I said I'm not surprised and went to but the binder back.  Fr. Ray was over to greet the people who were at Mass, a first for a pastor of our parish to actually do.  


A few weeks later we had Confirmation,  I as a catechist in the program was there to support my teens from youth ministry and those I actually taught.  I had gotten a random email asking me if I would serve as a "cup bearer" at Mass.  I said I'm around to serve as EM if necessary.  I walked into the sacristy and Fr. Ray greets me with "Miss Woolley, what can we do for you?"  I was thinking oh no he knows the last name too.  All kidding aside, I knew he knew my name, he just never called me by it.  The conversation continued with me asking about the set up for EMs and we discussed what would happen.  


I've found that since the youth ministry retreat Fr. Ray and I are both more friendly to one another, maybe it's the I understand your issues with the parish Father, I have the same ones or it's that I said but I like your ideas.  


His homilies are excellent, I haven't blogged about a homily since Fr. Brian was here.  For me it's just nice to have a pastor I feel comfortable being a smart ass around, I certainly couldn't do that with the last pastor, and Fr. George and I was friendly but we didn't see eye to eye on everything, I have a feeling that Fr. Ray and I would and do see eye to eye on everything.  


At the Triduum it just dawned on me that he had very quickly become my favorite pastor and that was a spot long held by Fr. George, who do a lot for me and to keep me in the parish.  I nearly walked away from the parish while it was under the last pastor, but I kept at it and because of Fr Ray I stayed.  When Fr. Ray came I had heard you're going to love him, he's great for your parish, and all of that good stuff from people who knew him.  I tried and keep an open mind and heart about it and sure enough I got to know the man slightly and lo and behold he is great for our parish and I do love him, now I hope he stays. He's not afraid to come and say and teach Church teaching.  He'll call out the New York Times on an ad, he'll tell you why abortion is wrong.  Maybe that's why I like him, he's authentic Catholic and not afraid to teach and defend Holy Mother Church.  


Hear that Bishop Serratelli, no moving my pastor, you can take one of the vicars, just not the one I like and send us the awesome deacon we had over the summer.  ;)  

Corpus Christi

Fr. Brian's homily was wicked awesome on the feast of "The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ" which sounds so much nicer in Latin Corpus Christi. Father started his homily off by giving us stories from his childhood that evoked summer, as it was the "unofficial" beginning of summer this past weekend. The first story told how Fr. Brian had heard the Good Humor truck going by signing it's usual song, he continued with how it brought back memories of when he was a child and he would tell his brother "you stop the truck, I'll get the money." Now to get the money that his father had up high so the kids wouldn't get it, Fr. Brian as a child would have to climb up on a chair and then stand on the arm of the chair to actually reach the money on top of the dresser. The congeration gave it's approval of the story by laughing when necessary.

The next story was about how when driving one day, he smelt the familiar smell of a BBQ, which officially meant summer was here or at the very least warm weather was here. Fr. Brian went on to say, these things bring good thoughts and memories to us. The next example he gave was simply, "Sunday Mass" and he was greeted with what he expected the "no Mass doesn't bring warm happy fuzzy feelings to me." Fr. Brian must have missed my ear to ear grin, because I love Sunday Mass, anyway, Father said point blank, "well it should bring happy thoughts to you."

Fr. Brian continued by saying that, "Mass, Eucharist, is the single most important thing we do each week." Again many just stared at him, and I sat there with an even bigger grin than before, because here was a priest ordained literally 5 years and 1 day telling people point blank this is why we're Catholic, this is the most important thing you do each week.

I don't remember all of his homily, but I do remember the passion that was in the homily, the fire that was in his words, to the point where he was chastising the congregation but not really. Fr. Brian reminded us to not be a spectator, and it reminded me of the shirt that says Catholicism: not a spectator sport. Since Easter Fr. Brian has been asking us to bring a friend to church, if possible bring someone who's away from the Church back home. He reminded us that Mass does not change from week to week simply because it doesn't need to. As Fr. Brian put it Jesus just may be perfect and doesn't need to change, maybe it's us that needs to change. We need to be open to what happens at the Eucharistic table.

Fr. Brian finished with "some day Christians will unite," and then he quoted from John's Gospel which also was the Gospel of the day, "Jesus said, 'Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you shall not have life within you." As I heard the Gospel proclaimed I thought, Man I should have worn my Top 10 reasons shirt. I know I don't need a shirt to remind me why I'm Catholic I just like the looks I get when I wear my crazy Catholic shirts.

Fr. Brian told us to come back each week to feed our souls, the beginning of his homily dealt with death and souls, and he beautifully moved into the Eucharist being food, nourishment for our souls. We were told to mess with our friends or someone who asks us what our favorite food was by answering "I'm Catholic, my favorite food is the supernatural bread and wine for my soul, oh yeah and hamburgers too." Of course he got the chuckle from the pews, but it's true, Jesus should be our favorite food.

I knew from once I met Fr. Brian that I liked him, I change that now to I love him. He has yet to give me a crappy homily, and he's personable, you can talk to him, he'll ask you questions, and he takes such care of his sacred vessels and the Communion particles after he receives that it makes me tear up with tears of joy.

I've always been a Eucharistic-ly orientated person, this was brought to my attention during my time as SHU when I would sit weekly at Adoration. However, Adoration is not what made me appreciated being Catholic. One Easter I let my friend Matt, a Protestant, join my family for the celebration as SHU was quite picky about closing and when one had to be back, so Matt decided that going home to New Hampshire wasn't an option, so I said come to my place, as residents had to be off campus. Since I had taken Matt to Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday services for the Tridium and again on Easter Sunday, I decided I would return the favor by attending a service with him when we returned to SHU. So one Sunday morning we walked down the street to the church he went to while at school. Matt pointed out to me all the Catholic things I wanted to do, like bless myself, genuflect, and whatnot. I never questioned leaving the Catholic Church, I did question why I went to Mass, but I would never just stop going to Mass. The service that I went to with Matt was missing something, they sang songs, read from the Bible and prayed, but something was missing. I went to Mass that night and as soon as I walked into the Chapel I thought, that's what was missing, JESUS, Jesus was missing from that church. Literally, He was missing, there was no True Presence in that Church. I went to Mass that night so grateful to be Catholic.

We are doing as Jesus told us in John's Gospel and yes it seems weird that Jesus basically told us, "eat me", but that's what makes it a mystery, we won't understand it, and as Fr. Geoff said on the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, if I can explain the mystery of the Trinity to you, I'm doing you a great disservice. The same can be said for the Eucharist, I can't explain how it happens, I can tell you "in persona Christi" until I'm blue in the face, but we'll never understand it until we are in Heaven celebrating the best Mass ever!

I am proud to be Catholic and to believe in the Eucharist, and by the grace of God may that never change!

Oh my Sweet Jesus, how wonderful You are.

*update* Like I said nothing was/is official, the lady who was getting the ticket told them no, that she didn't need the ticket, so now it's all up in the air, but if God wants me there He'll get me there. *update*

I can't even put into words what just happened. My parish had it's liturgy committee meeting tonight and at the end we sit and have cake and talk about life. Fr. George, our pastor, went upstairs to check his messages before retiring the for evening. I'm standing downstairs where the meeting was and I hear Fr. George saying "blah blah, Mary Woolley... Mary you still here?" Yes I am was my response. The following "conversation: takes place on"I have a woman on the phone who has a ticket for Mass on Sunday, you'd have to make your own way into the city, are you interested." Well my response was YES!

As Fr. George put it, "I guess the Good Lord wanted you there." I said I guess so. I was joking around in my twisted little head yesterday about being on 5th Avenue and having Cardinal Egan stop the motorcade so he could get out and hand pick me to go to Dunwoodie for the Youth Rally, and I'd get to meet the Pope. Nothing more than a nice little day dream that I had well thought out, little did I expect this.

The sheer happiness that is running through my body now is indescribable. I liken it to the time when we came out of the Scavi tour at St. Peter's in Rome and not one of us (college students) could figure out a way to thank the priest who ran the class, because we know that many English speaking tours were hard to come by. The more I think about the idea of being at Mass with the Pope, the bigger my smile is, the tears come to mind. Even Fr. George sounded excited for me, which is awesome, because I was beginning to think he and I were not on the same page on things.

It won't be official until I actually get my ticket, but the woman didn't want to let the opportunity pass by, so I have to call her in the morning to finalize everything. What I can make if it, is that her daughter who happens to be in the NYPD must have had the ticket or gotten the ticket and I think may have to work now, or she works around Yankee Stadium. They will need my drivers license and social security number to do my background check. Thank God I'm clean. ;)

Fr. Brian told us yesterday at Mass about how he felt like Charlie from Willie Wonka when he got his golden ticket to say Mass with the Pope. I had an ear to ear grin on my face because he "was like a little kid" when he opened the letter and literally saw a gold ticket for Mass with the Pope and he showed it. The joy on his face was enough to light up the whole Church let alone a room, I dare say my story will trump his.

So by the grace of God and the wonderfulness of the Holy Spirit I will be at Mass with the Holy Father on Sunday. He is the only person I would set foot inside Yankee Stadium for.