Days 11 and 12 Rounding out Week 2

Thursday Day 11 – Whew!

Recovery and school catch up day!  We have been doing pretty well about keeping our basic school lessons going, and the best schooling has been our everyday life experiences!  But it was good to just focus on our lessons this day (and get the kids' hair cut!)

Friday Day 12 – Cool to Be Catholic

Today the children and I headed down to City Centre, doing Math on the train.  Our destination: the beautiful Carmelite monestary church, St. Teresa of Avila, just off of Grafton Street church which we stumbled upon on St. Patricks Day.  Today was a special celebration for the monestary, as it was the celebration of the 500^th birthday of their patroness, St. Teresa.  Wow. Were in for a treat!  They had a GORGEOUS High Mass said by the Archbishop of the Dublin Archdiocese, Diarmuid Martin, and con-celebrated by a multitude of Carmelite priests.  Before Mass, the prior of the Monestary, Fr. Christopher approached and asked of Lucy and Sam would be willing to carry of the gifts of bread and wine to the altar!  Sam was SO NERVOUS.  He almost backed out, but they both carried the offertory gifts to the Archbishop!  And when Sam got back he whispered to me, “I did it!” with a huge smile on his face.  He was glowing.  And he immediately knelt down and prayed prayers of gratitude to God for giving him the courage.  There was incense and lots of candles glowing.  Archbishop Martin delivered an inspiring homily which was deserving of applause.  The music was incredible, a choir conducted by the composer who actually wrote the Mass.  It was a beautiful, solemn occasion, and we felt blessed to be there.
I kept thinking that this is something that would happen to us if Elizabeth Wolf was with us and wishing she were there to share it with us!

Afterward, Fr. Christopher came up and thanked us for the part the children played in the Mass, and next thing he knew, we were being led through the church, into the courtyard, to another building, through two locked doors that required passcodes, up a winding staircase, and into the dining hall where sat the Carmelite priests having a catered celebration dinner, that we were asked to join!  We sat at table with Fr. George from India, Fr. Michael from Nigeria, and Fr. Stephen whom we had met before.  I was surprised by how jovial and light-hearted they all were, teasing and picking on each other.  We were a little uncomfortable that meat was being served on a Friday during Lent, but when we asked Fr. Michael about it, he just laughed and said, “This is a celebration!  We don’t eat meat the whole year on Friday, but this is like if Christmas Day fell on a Friday!”  After these three young priests left to go hear confessions, I scooted over next to Fr. Patrick from St. Joseph’s on Berkley St.  HE was an older gentleman, from Northern Ireland, and he had quite a lot to share with me about history and religion, and flower shows, and his Pilipino parishioners and choir.  We chatted for probably close to an hour, and the room cleared out.  He introduced me to the choir director, Rownan, after finding out I was a singer.  Turns out the choir is made up of paid musicians.  He introduced me to an elderly priest who told me in his best Irish accent about, “Spy Wednesday” – the Wed before Holy Thursday, when Judas was conspiring to spy on Jesus and then reveal him to the Roman soldiers.  What a COOL thing this was!!!!  I really felt like Jesus was orchestrating all this just for us!