Tell us about it…

(Whatever and where ever your place happens to be!)

My experience was, as always, filtered through the antsy-ness of two little boys. So..no choir, as per usual, only the very capable cantor and organ. She sang Asperges me, Domine during the sprinkling rite. Sequence was sung out of the missalette – it was supposed to be congregational, but she gave the wrong page at first, and no one could really catch up after that. Veni Creator Spiritus (solo) at Communion, followed by One Bread, One Body for the rest of us. A couple of verses of Holy God, We Praise They Name at the end. The usual succinct homily – on how we might tend to be suspicious of something when it is advertised as a "free gift," but that is exactly what the Spirit is…and perhaps that is why we are sometimes unwilling to embrace it?

Church highly decorated with red and a bit of gold bunting draped between the pillars down the center aisle, red altar frontal, even a red panel inserted behind the small crucifix on the altarpiece. Collecting tattered and worn flags for disposal by the VFW. Prayed, at the Intercessions, the "Prayer for Peace" we have praying regularly since 9/11. Reminder that next week, Germanfest starts, as it always does, with a Mass at this parish, in German, followed by brats and German beer in the parish hall, which is a change from the first year we were there, before the hall was built, when we spilled out of church to see big tubs of iced-down beer on the front steps!

From Rome: Pentecost at the Pantheon, showering those inside with rose petals.