Advent (continued)

I went back to Sunday evening mass with Father Fire and Brimstone for the second week of Advent.  There's been a big push to welcome people back to church when they turn up for Christmas.  I'm all for that.  In fact, send them my way.  Looking for church with organ music?  With an older crowd?  On a winding road?  I can get you there.  Oh, wait, you want them to come to this church...

The word being tossed about has been stodgy.   We were told for two weeks in a row that we were too cold and too uptight and that people like other nearby churches because they are all warm and fuzzy.  I've been to some stodgy churches, and I don't think this is one of them.  In fact, I don't think it's stodgy enough.  I wear jeans half the time I'm there for goodness sake.

But really, when I find myself searching, I could use a little more order in my mass and a little less open mike night.  So I took a break from Sunday evening mass and checked out Sunday morning.  The mass itself was a little more me, but I'm not so sure about the crowd.

In other news...

I went back to Nativity for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and it was lovely.

I have finally been to see Handel's Messiah.  It was amazing and of course left me with lots of questions.  The biggest  being why do we sing this at Christmas?  It was written for Easter tide.  Christmas last year, I commented that Rick "we can't change manger to feed box because that would be ridiculous" Hilgartner has a nice voice.  Turns out I was right.  He sang the Messiah with the rest of the Baltimore Symphonic Chorale.

I'm glad I included book club for one on my to do list for this year.  Rebuilt: The Story of Building a Catholic Mega Church (okay, that's not the real title) will be hitting an online bookseller near you in February.  I'm writing a book too.  It's called Demolished.  Or Already Built.  Well, it's a work in progress.

And lastly Theology on Tap has gotten off to a sputtering start.  If at first you don't succeed...

Here's to finding joy in the third week of Advent.  Until next week...

Year Two

Advent begins the liturgical year, and so I begin year two.  I was trying to roll things about by November 1, but you, loyal readers, know about my slothfulness.  So here I am. In this past year, I  wanted to establish the habit of going to church.  So far so good.  I've been every week since finishing up my tour at the Basilica.

I've been to two old standards and some how managed to get to stewardship Sunday at both.  At one, the pastor pointed out that the Sunday evening mass collects $2000 in one dollar bills.  "This isn't planned giving," he said.  I would argue.  I had some crumpled up dollar bills in my pocket.  That was pretty amazing, because cash is kind of a novelty item for me.  And more importantly, there are churches where $2000 in pennies would be welcome.

This first week of Advent, I made it to another old favorite.  Or at least a place I want to be a favorite.  But it was driving me a little crazy.  And Father Fire and Brimstone didn't leave me feeling all warm and Christmasy.  But I'm too stubborn to give this up.  (By the way, why do people say stubborn like it's a bad thing?)

I don't know that I can come up with an idea as great as this last one or even if the new year has to top the old one.  I tried getting ideas from my friends, who proved to be less than merciful.  I'm not, for example, attempting to start a prayer group for  pagan babies.

It's not much, but here's what I've got.  52 new things.  New churches.  Parish activities.  My own personal book club.  Acts of service.  The best part?  I make the rules, so I say what counts.

And then I got to thinking, if I can put this part of my life in order (well, sort of), can I launch another personal project?  More on that later.  For now, my gift has been placed under the sharing tree and I'm reading (very slowly) The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything.  Happy Advent.