Monday, June 1, 2009

Monday, June 1, 2009

I woke up late today - I usually spend my mornings opening car doors for parents dropping their kids off at school (or at last for the past few days or so) and I had every intention of doing so today. Unfortunately, oversleeping left me up a creek without a paddle, so I had to delay breakfast and wash up quickly enough to go to the 8th grade graduation Mass at 8:30 AM (since, having overslept, I missed my usual 6:30AM Mass rendezvous!).

The Mass was actually pretty "standard" - a term which, as everyone knows, I HATE using to describe something as holy and sublime as the Mass - just a quaint little procession for the departing 8th graders before and after the mass. Fr. Beaven gave them an excellent homily with plenty of them to ponder; he touched upon the necessity of "metaphorical death" (Christ crucified!) and made sure they all knew that he was proud of them, wishing them the very best for a bright future.

For my part, I sang with the 7th grade choir. I'm sure the 20-something year-old looked perfectly normal with the jittery group of tweens and their two teachers, plus one church cantor brought along to help out with the event. Regardless, I sang, AGAIN. And I will sing, sing to Lord for his goodness to me, all the days of my life!
Bless the Lord, O my soul!

The rest of the morning involved a few errands here and there, as did the afternoon. I had enough time to sneak in some reading for the "course," and I grabbed lunch at the fast-food joint across the street from the church. All in all, a very quiet day after that; just a few more errands here and there, and I had plenty of time to pray in front of the Blessed Sacrament. There was one point where an 8th grader practicing for the ceremony later in the evening unintentionally interrupted me with his rather superb drumming skills (the tabernacle at St. Ben's is located in a little chapel that can't be seen from most parts of the church, so he couldn't have known I was there!); but he and I both had nearly finished with our respective activities at that point, and I am proud to say this graduate was one of two in his class to receive the Andy Kirchoff/Fr. Steve Bauer Vocation Awar- I mean, the Quigley Scholars Brochure. Fr. Steve and I talked briefly at dinner tonight about any potential 8th grade boys who might be good candidates for the Archdiocese's Quigley Scholars, a discernment program aimed at High School age youth (and specifically created to replace Quigley Preparatory Seminary, my alma mater, which closed just two years ago). So, to Chris, the drummer, and Andreas, the 8th grader who is more curious about the priesthood than anyone your age I've ever met: May the Holy Spirit help you two, in particular, to discover your vocations, whatever they may be. Congratulations to the St. Benedict School Class of 2009!

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