Cry Room Chronicles XVII

We've been fighting a cold on and off for a couple of weeks now, so that's why the blog has been quiet. My apologies!

Today we went to the vigil Mass (4 p.m.) at St. Louis, since our good friend Brian was a lector. His lovely wife and super-cute new-born son joined us in the Children's Chapel. Boy, did she get an eyeful and and earful of our children's rambunctiousness. Jacob started out with the usual routine of "reading" out loud from a book, throwing in lines from the liturgy. Then he started moving a chair around the room. I mean that literally. He took it from the right side to the front, across to the left side and then to the back of the room, almost full circle. Lucy did a lot of running around, too. Her new found skill is climbing onto the chairs, for which she got a lot of practice. The practice was pretty harrowing for us parents to watch but she never hurt herself. Once she had herself perched on the seat, she'd look over at us with a beaming face. It's hard not to smile.

Another boy with his dad and older brother were in the room with us. The boy handed me a book which I held open for him, flipping pages occasionally. He seemed to enjoy it. At least it kept him quiet and occupied. He and Lucy also had a couple of friendly staring matches. No clear victor emerged. They also played the "take everything off the shelf" games, resulting in a pile of books and kneeling rugs. The other dad worked diligently to keep up with them, but re-shelving is a lot harder than de-shelving.

Jacob started his usual "it's time to go upstairs" appeals during the collection. He even went around and shook everyone's hands in order to convince us that the sign of peace was over and it was time to head up. Eventually, we did go upstairs. Jacob put another 50 cents in the book shelf box, while Lucy put her change in the poor box. I was intrigued by Biblical Sudoku Puzzles on the book shelf. We may have to get that once we've paid enough. So far, we've given $1.50. After communion, we did check out the organist. Jacob was pretty good at whispering till he noticed a CD player on one of the pews behind the organ. Then he said full volume, "There's a new CD player!" At least he didn't shout it. And I was able to keep him from playing with it. Luckily the second collection happened just in time to distract him.

The homily was more memorable this week since there was no homily. Two sisters from our sister parish in Haiti are here for the weekend, so they spoke a little bit and we saw a video of the past year's activities at St. John the Evangelist in Haiti. In addition to a parish, St. John's also has a large elementary school and an adult learning center for young women. The video focused on the recovery efforts after the January earthquake and was quite inspiring. See more about ongoing developments here.