St Francis of Assisi and...

Palm Sunday was cold and gloomy.  I spent the morning at St. Francis of Assisi to go from one Jack Hooper field to another.  We parked in the parking lot.  For future reference, I'll know to park on Chesterfield Avenue.

Palm Sunday was kind of a big deal.  There was something with the religious ed classes and the school.  The kids had balloons.  They walked in and out with the procession and sang at communion.  I didn't take any palm.  I know it's expensive, I can't make those cool crosses, and  it's not as easy to burn as you would think.  Mass started late, but was just over an hour long.  Not bad for the longest mass of the year. There was an appropriately short Palm Sunday homily.  The people were nice and there was a kid sitting behind me who liked my fleece jacket.  Their version of "Were you There" was a little doo wop-y or barber shop-y, but all in all, it was a satisfying morning.

For those of you wondering, I skipped Easter this year.  I can't ever remember doing that.  Not even EWTN or a televised papal mass.   I died eggs with a Paas kit and that's about all.

That brings us to this past Sunday.  I thought about hitting up my Orthodox friends for a sort of Easter redux.  I thought about not going at all.  But as a last minute decision, I found my way to St. Pius on Sunday afternoon.  It's getting more crowded there.   I was wearing an old soccer shirt and jeans and that was seemingly okay.  You run into people when you look like crap.  There was a different homilist this time.  More butterflies than my earlier visit.   A man after my heart, he asked that his homily be cut off at ten minutes.  Mass was just over an hour long.  But there was a lot of singing.  More than the Greyhounds.  More than the Carmelites.

I'm hoping to be back in the swing of things this weekend.