Let’s get back in the blogging mode by doing a little reporting.
 
(BTW, I’m swamped. Not with writing work – that will probably start happening next week. But with physical labor related to homeownership. Bleh. But some stuff just has to be done….Put it off long enough!)
The first Sunday we were gone, we attended Mass at a monastery, which was very..monastic. A good thing! It was mostly chanted, in English, although the Gloria, Sanctus, etc were in Latin. The Mass was a little longer than we expected because the Abbot preached for a while. But that said, it was a relief to be spared aggressive and frantic community building all too typical of parish life since, of course, the monks are comfortably communal already and have faith in the essence of Eucharist – that in Christ, we are bound in  community – communion. Get it?

Pray, listen, step aside and let God do His work.
Yesterday, we stopped in Cincinnati on the way back and went to Mass at St. Rose parish. It was interesting – a very beautiful church right there on the river, complete with markings of the great floods that have indundated the place. It is a small church, and was packed. We got there right as Mass was starting, and there was not a seat to be found, so we hunkered down next to a very vivid Pieta , which helped in keeping the boys focused.  It was your basic solid Mass – an amazing 40 minutes, which includes a lot of singing, included a chanted Gloria in Latin. We still can’t figure out how that happened. The time, not the Gloria. Although I confess I found the chanting of the Gloria in Latin odd simply because nothing else was in Latin, and the music for the other Mass parts was all over the place. So kudos for the Gloria (which, I’m going to add, was chanted by a majority of the congregation – see this post at NLM for more chanted-Gloria-in-Latin reports, this time from the Deep South), but sort of wondering about the rest of it. The homily wasn’t much, and I really can’t stand whatever preaching tradition that demands “tell a random joke that has nothing to do with anything and has mild sexist overtones to boot” at the beginning of a homily.
More later, including a slew (I hope) of book reviews.