St. Brigid's

I went to the Jingle Bell Run in Canton this morning so going to St. Brigid's afterword seemed like a really good idea.  Mass is at 10:30, despite what the sign on the side of the church says.   We arrived in our sweats, Charlie Brown Christmas t-shirts, and as an extra surprise for me, with cream cheese in my hair.  I have a lot of nice things to say about St. Brigid's, but this is by far the longest Sunday mass I have ever been to.  We were approaching Easter Vigil territory here.  It was like mass in slow motion.  This is what I get for being annoyed on Thursday.

Before mass started, someone was reading announcements.   She continued 8 minutes past the 10:30 start.  I know this because sitting behind us was St. Brigid's very own Statler and Waldorf, who by the way, have the New Roman Missal down.  They sigh for the rest of us.  And she was kind of a downer.  The cost of heating the buildings has gone up.  Church calendar sales are dwindling.  When those announcements ended, the priest spoke about two parishioners who had died this week.   There was a lengthy presentation by a Mission Helper of the Sacred Heart.   Mass was also slowed down because they were offering anointing of sick.

But after that, it was like they were dreaming up ways to make church longer.  People actually left.  At communion, the priest gave communion to the altar servers and folk group by name.   There were more announcements.  I asked what they could possibly have left, and Lauren told me that a lot had happened in the world since we came in.  The laughter that caused was reminiscent of the Slagathor incident of 2009.

But as promised, there is good stuff.  St. Brigid's is a small brick church with stained glass and brown pews.  I used to go there sometimes with my grandparents.  There's an extremely folkly folk group.  There were pink vestments for the third Sunday of Advent.  Most of the crowd was older, but there were several young couples with babies.  They have a support group for people who have lost their pets.  They had a post church tailgate.

I'm planning something easy for next week, but I'm not sure what that is.