I'm aggravated with myself. I was startled awake at 7:30am Sunday morning by an event in a dream, only to discover that my phone was not accepting a charge. I frantically ran around the house trying every charger we had, but to no avail. Finally I had to give up on it and get ready to go, and in the rush and concern over my phone, I forgot my camera. I got to the spot we were going to meet, there was no parking available, Brianne texted she was going to be late, and I had to take some deep breaths to calm myself down.
Naturally, people showed up, we car pooled over, we were on time, I took pictures after borrowing both Brianne's and Joe's cameras, and after leaving my phone off during Mass, it went back to normal operation. So ... I got upset about, well, exactly nothing. Knowledge is understanding that 98% of things work out just fine, God is in control, and the other 2%? God is in control. The wisdom on this subject is exactly the same as the knowledge, but it's putting it into practice. I have work to do. I remarked to Teri and Jen that all my worrying didn't extend my life by even one more day ... although it may have shortened it a bit.
Thanks for the blessing Saint Patrick! Here we are, Frank, Marcus, Teri, Brianne, Andy, Jennifer, Me, and Joe.
Location and Architecture
Note: In the interest of time, i.e. mine (to research), I'll not be including a history section per se.
Saint Patrick's, 508 Angus Street, Gretna. When I told my coworker Andy, who lives in Gretna, that I would be visiting here, he told me "It's a beautiful church."
Andy did not steer me wrong. One of the parishioners, Dale, gave us a short tour and described the updating the church from the original building. The combination of the old and the new is breathtaking.
Music:
Oh boy! A friend of mine from high school, Pat Smith, commented on my Facebook this week "They say singing is like praying twice." I love music, nothing seems to connect me to God like music can, so it does seem like praying twice. The meditation song was "Now is the Time" by Tom Kendzia (#507 in the Missal), which the band played very well, I was not familiar with the song, but the intro was played it so it sounded like People Get Ready (I've since heard the writers version, and that's what it sounds like to me there too). Andy picked it up too, and it turned out both of us were covering our mouths with our books and singing People Get Ready to Brianne. It sure seemed it would work as a descant.
I love singing, but really I am not skilled, I have some talent, but it's raw, and probably I only get by because I have a male voice and I like to sing at church ... too loudly, I might add. I love projects like this, I hope we actually do it and it works.
2nd Reading
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. Revlalation 22:13
My last two trips to church have resulted in me feeling small. Surrounded by all this space, these people, the world, the universe, all of creation. Sheesh, I'm virtually nothing. I've heard from two sources lately that half the cells that make up my 'body' do not even contain my DNA. I'm a couple hundred pounds of water and chemicals on a small planet in a virtually empty part of an average galaxy. That's just referring to this moment in time. The short line of my life is all too short in respect to the ages, even in human terms, my lifespan will not last even a few percentage of the whole of human existence. That's the kind of small I felt.
Here in the second reading, it is made clear, said three times in a row, who is the First, the Last, and quite the Quite-Frankly-Everything-In-Between too. Before I was born, God was; while I am alive, God is; when I cease to be, God will continue ... forever! Before the big bang, God was, and whatever fate awaits the universe ... the big crunch, the big cold, or something in between, it is by His hand, His hand alone.
Holy cow! I'm like a mosquito in the Yukon Territory living for a few August days ... only hopefully not as annoying. I did say that I'm small, what I didn't say is that I'm unimportant. The Creator of the universe has considered us to be so important that He desires us to be with Him. He sent His Son here to earth to remove everything that separates us from Him. It's more than just us, it's all of us, each of us, individually. It's me he loves ... me me me me MEEEE!. God loves me in a manner so personal that really, I can't find anything like it anywhere else in all of creation. Who can stop me from singing?
Prayers:
Please pray for:
Tom who is being deployed to Afghanistan, and his wife and two daughters.
My friend C., who is recovering.
My friend M., who is struggling with herself lately.
Heidi as she prepares for a mission trip to Haiti in July.
Peace, Eric
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