the early mornings
The idea came from Mike. He wants to avoid crowds of the "gathered faithful" on Sundays. And he wants to avoid priests with bad homilies who run a speech like a political rally.
But I laid down the rule that our family must get to church once a week. So as if inspired by an original intervention, he woke us up early one Saturday morning and we attended the Holy Mass in the Xavier University Chapel.
And thus began our very own family tradition. We all loved it. I love the idea of waking up and really seeing the morning and starting it with the family walking together to the chapel. The girls are also excited because Saturday mornings after the Mass mean a breakfast in any of the restaurants or hotels around the city that are awake to offer a meal.
And Mike gets his solemn Mass celebrated with a handful of people in a familiar chapel, in the campus of his boyhood, a priest who is from the not so young breed of beating-around-the-bush orators and also from the not so old breed of holier than thou clerics, and a quick straight-to-its-business liturgy since there are no out-of-tune choirs that disrupt the prayers with their songs.
Oh I've stopped being righteous about the reasons of the family and I've stopped being defensive about not really attending the Sunday Mass - but the schedule works for us - it brings us together - the time and the place give us the needed experience of the sacred and the holy - and we've actually looked forward to doing it every Saturday. I think those simple considerations matter most to me.
And I've started working on a little project to celebrate our Saturdays - with the permission of Fr. Nil Guillemette, the Jesuit presider of these Eucharistic celebrations, I am posting his homily reflections in a simple blog -
http://theearlymornings.blogspot.com/
