My husband and I were really bad about going to church for a few months. We didn’t like some of the changes and weren’t sure what to do about it. We figured out what to do about it – stop being big fat babies, and get our butts there. And, go to 11:00 mass instead of 9:00 
This is a big week in our church. The biggest, actually. Catholics kick off Holy Week with Palm Sunday by taking all of the 3-5 year olds out of their ”Wee Ones Worship” classes, giving them palm fronds (which A.P. got confused with another part of the story and thought they were the ’beating sticks’), and then sprinkling them with holy water. Our priest doesn’t mess around. We were soaked.
The children, along with the entire congregation then walk through the halls of the church, singing, and finally sit down (and stand up, and kneel, etc), and proceed with a pretty long mass. Quickly after settling into our pew yesterday, I noticed a stink. I sniffed both of my children as indiscreetly as possible, and determined the smell was coming from another source. Sniff to the left? Nope. To the right? All clear.
Oh dear. It’s that lady right in front of me. What is that? I missed the first reading entirely, trying to figure out what product (or body part?!) would emit such an odor. I stuck my nose in my turtleneck, all 12 year old girl style. What else could I do?
One of the many things I love about this time of year is a song we sing. I love what it translates to, and other times of the year we sing it in English, but it’s just so fun to sing in Latin.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.
Just say it out loud. I won’t tell. Fun, see? So I always belt this one out. I have a remarkably bad signing voice and the rest of the year just mumble along. For this one though, I really let it rip. It occurred to me that my voice probably rivaled the stinky-ness in front of me and felt a smidge sorry for everyone around us.
This is a long mass because we read the entire Passion of Christ. I am a big fan of the audience participation portion during regular Mass. It’s simultaneously humbling and encouraging, and the Palm Sunday one really goes all out. We get a program with our ‘parts’ highlighted in bold.
Unfortunately, the pages were stapled wrong or something, and somehow the audience ended up yelling out “Prophecy” right in the middle of Jesus’ prayer time in the garden. The (pleasant smelling) woman next to me and I looked at each other, noses in turtlenecks, very confused. My husband was picking up some crayons Maybelle had let roll under the pew ahead of us and missed the whole thing. We got back on track though.
Then, I snagged my pantyhose with the scratchy end of the palm. We met up with some friends after the service and all of the kids played palm frond-sword fight. I refrain from getting religious-y on this blog because that’s totally not the point. I just want to say that a day full of human error, palm swords, bad singing, and stinkiness is nothing new to God. He was just glad we stopped by.
Whatever this week brings for you, I wish you the best as you try and keep your kids entertained, yourself sane, and your soul where you need it to be.
Jen
This picture has nothing to do with spring break. I just think Jason Bateman is kind of hot.
