Mass Hysteria

It's Friday, and that means things are pretty lax around here (just like Monday through Thursday, really). Today the kids decided to play Mass for religion. This is the sort of thing that demonstrates, to a parent, the deficiencies in your program of religious education.

Fr. Jack never read his own prayers and scarfed the communion hamburger bun on the sly. Acolyte Isabel acted up to such an extent that I had to step out of character and tell her that if she was actually interested in making her first communion this year, she'd better play Mass more reverently. Diana the cantor turned around and shushed Father and the servers, telling them, "No, it's my turn to sing now!" Julia the lector kept losing her place in the missalette. Eleanor the deacon spent most of the Mass scolding the priest (who needed it, by the end). I have a feeling that the bishop is not going to be consecrating St. Darwin's any time soon.

Diana sings "Alleluia" at a lectern made from a table taken out of the bathroom without permission.

On the plus side, everyone can sing the Latin mass parts, including the Mortem Tuam, and Eleanor chanted the psalm very creditably. People remembered that green was the liturgical color now. No one set her hair on fire. Diana walked her dolly to the back when she got noisy. The school room floor is now mostly clean (although most of the debris was shoved under the radiator). I managed to bite my tongue and not offer fussy input, which was probably the biggest accomplishment of all.

The gospel reading (from this coming Sunday's mass) was about the corrupt judge who renders a just decision not because it's just, but because he's tired of being importuned. I feel like that judge most days -- I'm tired of hearing my name called over and over, even when the request is basically sound, and I give answers not because I think the questions deserve them but because I'm weary of being asked. But perhaps that's okay. If we're supposed to be like the widow, then maybe God waits to answer until the twentieth time someone yells for him when he's in the upstairs bathroom, where people can't seem to hear him until he bellows, "WHAT?" loud enough to penetrate to the foot of the stairs where the petitioner is whining because she can't be bothered to climb up to knock on the door and ask in a reasonable tone.

I don't think the bishop would go for that analogy either.