Weekly Mass and Its Torments

We did another Saturday vigil mass at the most beautiful Franciscan retreat center. Smiling, welcoming greeters somehow still had the smiles plastered on at the end. Maybe it's the natural beauty of the center, but my boy freaks the minute we enter the sanctuary. You know what else? There is something about the casual, cocktail-party-buzz, jeans-shorts informality of western-U.S. Catholicism. The warmth I love does not telegraph solemnity and order to toddlers. I noticed this on a visit to Delaware, where my boy entered a church in silence and sat most of the hour on a wooden pew playing with cars. And not the loud ones, either.

At least we had an angel today. A man who stood outside (at the hottest hour of our summer day, I do not understand why), held our hands at the Our Father, and asked if "mom" needed water. We spent the whole mass outside in 100 degree heat.

This morning, we were absorbed for half an hour petting the (de-stingered) sting rays, I mean, "rays" , at the zoo. God has shown up all day, I guess.