Cry Room Chronicles XLVIII

We tried out another church, St. Joseph's, which was a very interesting place. They have a car park at what you think is the back of the church. Angie and Jacob went in the back door to find the potty. I noticed everyone else was going in the same door, so I followed suit.

Walking up stairs to the left brought us around to the main body of the church. It was very decorative but small. The ceiling seemed low and there was a combination of pews in the main body of the church and folding chairs in the wings of the sanctuary. Lucy and I wound up to the right of the altar since it was quite full already. She did a great job for the first part of the Mass. Before Angie and Jacob found us.

They had tried to walk around to the front of the church out by the street but no entrance was there. So they came back and found the right way up to Mass. They stayed in back till the Gospel, when they managed to sneak up the side aisle and join us. Lucy became more rambunctious while Jacob curiously and quietly looked around.

Eventually Lucy became too much for mommy to handle, so she was taken to the back of the church. Jacob was pretty well behaved, though he still kept asking when Mass would end. He said some of the Creed and all of the Our Father. He put a pound in the collection and shook many hands at the sign of peace. He is getting better and better. Except during Communion, when he thought that he had to go peepee and it was an emergency. I received and then we snuck down the side aisle for the potty. He didn't have any, which was pretty annoying to me. He asked to ride the elevator back up, which he persuaded me was okay. I'm not so big on using the elevator all the time at church. Hopefully we can break him of the habit if we keep going here.

We stayed in the back of the church where mommy and Lucy had wound up. Lucy was ready to go, which meant carrying her around the back. At one point I thought she said she wanted to take her shoes off and I told her not at church. When I turned around, I saw one of her shoes on the floor. So I redressed her. Mass ended and we filed back downstairs. All in all, things went well, even without a real cry room or vestibule.

The sermon was swallowed up by a speech about missions to seafarers. It is Sea Sunday here in the UK. One parishioner talked about his experiences at sea. Then the priest talked about a cruise back in January where he was chaplain for the ship. He talked about ministering to the passengers and to the crew and the great divide in their lifestyles. It was interesting but not exactly connected with the readings. I guess Jesus was by the sea when He gave the parable of the seeds.