Cry Room Chronicles L

I welcome all new readers who may be confused by the title of this posting. The L is a Roman numeral. Which means this posting is fiftieth of the series. I should do something to celebrate...but what?

At any rate, this week we went back to St. Joseph's, church without a cry room. The vestibule is off of the main church but no doors protect the congregation from any noise. We had a rough morning getting out of the house. Jacob has started to use the potty for pooping though he is inconsistent in using it. Sometimes he can't quite do it; sometimes he just asks for a diaper. Just as we were about to leave for church, he wanted to poop, but could not. So we wound up being late.

We walked in to church during the gospel reading. As the homily started, we found an empty pew toward the front of the church. Both Jacob and Lucy were very squirmy and talkative throughout the Mass. Angie and I were very frustrated. We could barely pay attention or pray.

The kids did like putting money in the collection basket but not giving the sign of peace. The other people gave us sympathetic looks as we wished them peace and they wished us peace. I hope we do have peace next week. We have been going to Sunday afternoon Masses for a while, so maybe the kids weren't ready for 8 a.m. Mass.

Even lighting candles at the end was tough. Neither a box for money nor a stick for lighting could be found. Jacob was uninterested in lighting a candle but Lucy was. So we took the tea light candle and tried to light it from another candle in the shelf of lit candles. The candle dropped out of the rim I was holding, extinguishing the one from which we hoped to light our candle. I picked up the wax (the wick had stayed with the rim/base, strangely), put it back in and tried more carefully to light it on another. That worked but I couldn't relight the extinguished candle because the wax was still melted, meaning it was both too hot to pick up and too messy to turn upside down to light from another candle. We prayed for a more peaceful Sunday next week.

The homily was pretty short and very good. The gospel was about Jesus and the disciples on the Sea of Galilee. The apostles were out on the boat at night and saw Jesus walking across the water. Peter asked to walk on the water too, which he did until he realized how strong the sea was. He began to sink and called out to Jesus, "Save me!" Jesus chided him for his little faith, saved him, and both got in the boat. Father said this story points out a big problem we have with prayer. We pray only when we are in danger, stress, or need. What we should do is pray always, in good times and in bad times. Prayer should not be our last recourse, like in the attitude, "All we can do now is pray." We need to pray without ceasing. That's how I should celebrate number fifty, by a prayer of thanksgiving.