After a blustery Friday, the rest of the weekend was beautiful here in Nashua. Saturday we took Claire to her "SportsMania" class at the YMCA. This weekend they introduced the kids to fundamentals of soccer. The ages of the kids ranged from 4 to 6 1/2 with Claire being the oldest. Many of the boys in the class were funny--all energy and no comprehension. They would run with the ball just to run, often stealing the ball from their own teammates or running towards the wrong goal. After our boys' afternoon nap we went to take a look inside the "Grand Lady" Victorian house. For a 1903 house it was in very good condition. We don't have the motivation to finish the work that has yet to be done, mostly notably the third floor. Afterward we stopped by our parish briefly for Confession and then brought home some takeout food to eat on the back deck. With the mild temperatures, the greening conservation land, and running brook, it was hard to feel like moving. Sometimes we wish we could just add a third floor!
Today we went to our usual 10:30AM Sunday morning Mass. I volunteered to lector since the scheduled lector didn't show. Being that this was the first Sunday of the month it was also the birthday Mass. There were 21 kids listed. I'm sure I slaughtered the pronunciation of a few names. Afterwards we went downstairs for donuts and fellowship. This time our friends, Mary and John, joined us. I hadn't seen Mary in a while because she's been feeling the ill effects the first trimester of pregnancy has on some. There was also a little girl named Danyelle (sic) there. She's about a year older than Claire and she loves the twins. She is always so sad when it's time for us to go. Claire must wonder what the big deal is. I guess that's the difference between being the oldest of four kids and the younger of two.
Mary volunteered to watch Claire and Abby while we did more house hunting this afternoon. The girls would much rather play with John and Mary's son, Drew, than drive around the area looking over new potential houses. (On the other hand they did think the old Victorian was very cool...) The boys, though, had to be tortured with nearly two hours of house hunting. We were checking out an area that will be developed in Milford. It's a nice area and if we do decide to break down and just have a house built, that area would be a good choice. We also looked at a couple homes in Brookline. Everytime we look in Brookline I get the feeling residents there are really into privacy. The homes always seem so wooded and separated that they seem to lack that neighborhood/community feel. After househunting we bought some Chinese food to enjoy with John and Mary.
This weekend was pretty significant for the Chicago side of the family. My niece, Cassidy, celebrated her first Holy Communion. I'm very happy for Cassidy. I know Claire is excited about doing the same next year. I was really excited for my brother, Christopher, who graduated from college this weekend. It was a long road for him. He couldn't take the usual class load per semester because he also worked full time. He's now got his Bachelor's degree under his belt! Awesome! I know that when I was studying in undergraduate and graduate school, there were times I thought I'd never see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I'm jealous of the Tarpey family: they got to see Spiderman this weekend. The movie smashed the three day box office record, bringing in $114 million. The previous record holder was Harry Potter at $90 million. I'm amazed, yet glad, because it seemed like Harry Potter had much more hype. On a similar theme the trailor for next year's release of The Hulk is out now. At this point it's not really revealing all that much. Personally I'm waiting to take the girls next month to see the Scooby Doo movie. I think they've seen every Scooby Doo cartoon episode and cartoon movie.
This weekend I've been thinking about something I heard on a tape I received this past week. If your local Catholic Church was handing out checks for a billion dollars this weekend to anyone who showed up, people would turn out in droves. They'd make room in their schedules. Heck, they'd fly in! And yet according to Catholic teaching in the Eucharist, the creator of the universe is humbly present, body and blood, soul and divinity. A worth far beyond a billion dollars! It shows how weak our faith truly is, even among Catholics. How often we who are Catholics fail to recognize the extraordinary supernatural dimension when we receive the Eucharist in Holy Communion. It's so easy to get distracted by how our kids are behaving, a friend we see in the pews, how off key the choir is, what we're going to do after Mass. We so easily lose the bigger picture. I think that post Vatican II there was so much emphasis on the Mass as a family/community meal that we lost the reverence that existed earlier. In a strange way I almost miss the practice of kneeling at a communion rail. It reflected a reverence that seems lacking when I see someone in jeans and a concert t-shirt haphazardly receiving the host in their hand.
Enough ranting! It's late. Tomorrow morning starts another work week. "Work harder, not smarter! " ;-)