Notes From Somewhere Else

Today, somehow, we got the day off. SO weird to be home on a Sunday, watching the Patriots like all the other people in the world. Sure, we probably would be watching, with the 6:30 start time, but we had all day to prepare! Weird.
We talked about what we wanted to do for Mass. Scott was in let's-just-do-this mode, happy to go to our neighborhood parish (we don't live near work), which would have been fine, but I wanted to do something wild and exotic. I suggested an early-ish morning Mass in a nearby city, followed by brunch. Brunch! People do that on Sunday, and they say it's awesome! But the early-ish morning was a non-starter (ha! literally! good one!) for Scott. He countered with an 11:30 at a country parish up the road. (I should give credit where credit's due, Scott got up wicked early and we had time to have breakfast before the fast, made it in plenty of time!)
I love to visit other churches for Mass, it's always a gamble. This one was a winna! Small parish, effervescent (but sincere) priest, who greeted us at the door when we came in. He had a voice and delivery that made me think, throughout the Mass, that he was about to say "let's get ready to RUMMMBLLLLLLLLLE!!!" (but he never did).
The music was nice (outside of some cheesy synth organ music), singable, and the cantor was great. There were lots of young people there, and we checked- they didn't have CCD right before or after. They all seemed to be there with their families. Such a good sign.
On a side note, the couple in front of us had 4 girls with them, and the youngest one came in MAD. She fake-cried into her sleeve for a full 30 minutes, and sat half off the end of the pew, to keep as much distance as possible between her and her family. I had to admire her dedication and stick-toitive-ness. By the end she was feeling better, but still holding an obvious grudge.
The homily was really nice- the pastor talked about the Wedding of Cana being the story where Mary is introduced as an intercessor, and talked about God's willingness to hear seemingly trivial requests. He invited us to pray for whatever we needed Mary's intercession for- actually gave us a minute to pray during the homily. How nice is that? Homilies are usually one-way communication, but he acknowledged our presence and invited us to take his word that Mary would intercede for us. He allowed for the possibility that the people there might have worries and things on our minds. It was really nice.
We left thinking how nice it would be to be part of this parish. It was definitely worth the trip!