I had a full day yesterday and so I went to bed early.
First, on Saturday, when I went for my ride, I stopped at Joan Beall’s and had a very nice visit with her and some of her family. It was very relaxing and I met the newest addition to the family – a combined yourkie (sp?) and Maltese named Winston. Very cute!!
Yesterdy, Sunday, I had the 10:30 Mass in the gym. The lectionary was open to the wrong year and the first two readings were wrong. When I got up to read the Gospel, I had to say, “My homily is based on a different Gospel”. So I looked for it and read the other one. People, as always were very understanding. At the 12:30, we had all the right readings and in my homily, I spoke about our Church building and how beautiful and meaningful it is that the motif that emulates from the tabernacle contnues along the walls and then goes up to the ceiling and continues to the front of the church. It is a vine with branches. The readings were about Jesus as the vine and we as the branches. It fit in very well.
At Mass were my cousins, Rick and Peg Jensen. They came to my office and we had a great visit. We also visited the hall upstairs, where there was an exhibition of art work done by men who live at The Gift of Peace, which is a home run by Mother Theresa’s sisters for AIDS patients. Some ladies from our parish have been teaching art there for a number of years and brought out some work and artist to the parish. Very nice work.
Then I drove down to Mama Lucia’s in Dunkirk. My great niece, Amada was confirmed at Jesus the Good Shepherd parish. I couldn’t make the service as it was a 2pm but I made the party. It was fun to be with Maggie’s family and afterwards I stopped at her house to visit with her and Marie. We worked on the 40th anniversary program and then I came home and was in bed by 11pm.
On Sunday, I learned that an article I had written for the newsletter got dropped out. I was moving so much stuff around that I forgot an article about Thanksgiving 2010. So here it is:
Operation “Thanksgiving at Aunt Maggie’s”
My three sisters had a great idea in 2008. They told their children to go and visit their in-laws or take vacation trips or whatever for all the holidays in 2008 and 2009; but that everyone in the family was to keep open Thanksgiving 2010 because we were all meeting at Aunt Maggie’s for a family reunion. It was a “command performance”. So the week of Thanksgiving, relatives starting showing up. Some of the cousins had their out of state cousins stay with them in their homes. That was great because then their children got to meet their cousins’ children. They went bowling and ice skating. They went sightseeing and went to an ice show. They just enjoyed each other. By Thanksgiving, no one was a stranger!! People cooked and brought food to the fire house in Dunkirk. It was the only place big enough for the 74 people to have room to eat and be entertained. Some of the aunts had activities for the children.
I wanted to be sure you all knew about that great party.
I will write something more Monday tonight.