This Sunday, we made it to church with plenty of time to spare. Jacob asked if we'd see our friends Brian and Teresa there. Since we went to the Clarksville Picnic yesterday (held on the church grounds) and saw them there, he assumed they'd be there today. Alas, they don't go to the 8 a.m. Mass. Maybe after they have their first child, their Mass habits may change.
As usual, we were the first in the children's chapel and had to turn on the lights and TV. We didn't hear any sound, but once Mass started we could hear everything. Our friends with the two boys came in a little later. At one point, the younger boy was sobbing uncontrollably. The father took him to a corner (presumably for a time out or cool down). The corner treatment wasn't making a change. The dad took his son out to walk him around in the hall. I guess it has to be pretty bad if you're taken out of the cry room for crying. Personally, it wouldn't have bothered me if they'd stayed, since that's the main purpose of the room.
Another example of misbehaving came from Lucy. Crawling around wasn't so bad until she decided to crawl over and stick her finger in the socket. Luckily, it was an Ethernet socket. Considering it a bad precedent, I told her "no playing with the socket" and dragged her away. She cried. Then she crawled back and tried that socket and the electrical outlet. I wound up covering both with my hands, much to the chagrin of Lucy and the laughter of Angie.
Angie was also happy to see Jacob playing with the older boy, who had a little bucket of dinosaurs. They looked at the dinosaurs together and discussed anatomy and such. Boy: "This is triceratops." Jacob: "Triceptops." Boy (producing new dinosaur): "It's a triceratops." Boy's mom: "No, it's a unatop." (I'm guessing it had only one horn?) Boy: "Feel his spiky back." Jacob: "Spiky back!" Boy: "There's his tail." Jacob: "That's his foot." And so on.
When the sign of peace came, I got to shake the dinosaur's foot. Also, the younger boy shook hands with me; when Angie tried to shake his hand, he gave her a look like she was a dinosaur ready to stomp him into the ground. Maybe next week she'll get a handshake.
This week, I was able to hear most of the homily, in spite of monitoring Jacob's playing with the other boy. Father said this week's gospel always makes him nervous. Jesus seems to be short and/or bad tempered with people who are going to be his disciples. One asks to bury his father before he follows Jesus, to which Jesus replies, "Let the dead bury the dead." Another says he wants to go home and say goodbye to his family; Jesus basically says he's unworthy of the kingdom of God. Father asked in his homily, was Jesus just having a bad day? Was he more loving and kind (like the typical idea we have of Jesus) the next day? Or is this really consistent with the good news He proclaimed? After considering some possibilities, Father came up with an answer. A lot of people look at faith in Christ as one of many different things in their lives: job, family, leisure, religion, exercise. For a Christian, this attitude is completely wrong. God isn't just for an hour on Sunday. He's not one of a multitude of goods; He is goodness itself. Nothing should take priority over Him. Not even making sure two kids don't fight over dinosaurs. Father didn't say that from the pulpit, but I can hear it now.
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