The Weight of a Mass . . .

Someone once shared with me their love of the story about the poor woman who bartered with the butcher for some meat in exchange for offering a Mass for him at her church. He laughed and said he would have to see that weighed up proper on his meat scale. She wrote down her promise of having a Mass said for him and set it on one side of the scale. He placed the pound of meat he promised her if it carried the same weight as the Mass she offered in exchange. Since most of you have probably heard this story, the scale immediately went all the way down . . . on the side of the slip of paper with the promised Mass. The weight of the Mass was 'heavier' than the butcher's piece of meat.

Interesting side note to this story. The person who told it to me later shared that she was very picky about when and where she went to Mass and, even more especially, who was celebrating the Mass. Needless to say, I didn't often see her at daily Mass. This has gone on for over ten years and I often wonder . . . Who are we, mere humans, to decide which Mass rates our attendance and which ones can we decide to avoid because they don't meet a personal criteria. If we truly believe in our Faith and the weight of a single Mass, wouldn't any Mass offered within the correct Rubrics be heavier than any materialistic thing or event? Wouldn't we be judging what only God can judge when we decide a Mass isn't worthy of our attendance?

It often makes me sad when it comes to mind. How does that provide an example to our children? If we pick and chose the Mass we will attend, our children might end up picking and chosing not to go at all . . . because we have minimized the majority of Masses in hopes of finding a perfect one each time. The heart of all Masses is perfect. The man made flaws and liberal antics don't take away from it. And doubting the validity of a Mass based on personal preference of the celebrant is surely a sin against God's Gift to us.

Over the years, we have run into some interesting celebrations of the Mass. Yes, my children have been exposed to these bumps in the liturgical road. It hasn't changed their mind about their Faith. It has given us a lot of good conversation starters and they have learned to overlook the 'stuff' and concentrate on what matters.

A Departure from Quilting . . .

I learned to crochet when I was about seven years old. In fact, I take the credit or discredit for the mini skirt! Why? I was learning while I crocheted a skirt for my doll. Being of an active nature, the newness of the skill soon faded yet I still had rounds and rounds to go in order to modestly cover my beloved doll. I got as far as an inch or two above her knee and before my mother could intervene, I declared the skirt done and snipped the yarn. The first mini skirt!

The pictures above are my crocheted granny squares of a more current generation! I've gotten almost 30 completed and just need another ten before I can start putting them together. Maturity and/or old age has taught me one thing . . . weave in the loose threads as I go along because I will be very glad of this fact when they are all done! Hey, this afghan is sort of like a quilt in that I'm putting together squares!

Progress?

Well, pictures don't always tell the whole story. A first glance would tell you that our little stray friend, Howl, is warming up to my daughter. Reality? She has a fistful of bacon bits which seem to help overcome fear in cats! Go figure on that, huh?

Thoughts for the day . . .

"Remember that as a teenager you are at the last stage of your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you."
-- Fran Lebowitz

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute."
-- Josh Billings

The mind of a cat . . .

We are still trying to figure out how to handle the stray cats that have adopted us but do not want us to pat them, thank you very much. We are treated like a fast food cafe. The cat we are interested in keeping shows up at four in the morning and yowls to let us know he is hungry now. We can't hear his complaints from our bedroom and my son is always up by then and ignore the cat. You can see what we have been calling the cat Howl.

There is another cat with an interesting personality. For the last week, we thought it had extremely short legs because it would scuttle from the bushes to the food bowl and back again. My daughter calls him Stubby. In the evening, Stubby will suddenly pop just his head out from the bushes and then scamper across the walkway to the other side and then suddenly pop his head around from that side. Eventually, he will creep over to the food bowl and have a snack. He is brownish with long, fluffy fur, and white paws. You can imagine how funny he looks when he crawls along and you just see the white slipper feet. The other day, however, my daughter saw this tall, pretty, furry cat come up towards the house. She didn't recognize Stubby until he saw her and went back into his caterpillar mode.

This morning, I peeked out the window to see what the cat forecast was for today. I didn't see anyone in the box we put out for them. I didn't see a cat investigating the empty food bowls. I glanced down and was startled to see Stuffy sitting there and staring up at the window! I don't know how long he had been sitting there but at least he doesn't howl!

Back to Basics . . .

Every day that I put the laundry in the washer, I say a little prayer of thanksgiving that I don't have to go down to the river and pound the wash on a rock to get it clean. I must have forgotten to do so, yesterday! My son had loaded the washer and I was working in the kitchen. Suddenly, there is a NOISE that sounded like either a train or airplane plowing into the house. I raced out to the garage and the washer was tilted and doing a 'dance' and was the source of the awful commotion. I threw myself on the wiggling washer and turned it off. My son and I decided that, perhaps, the towels had bunched up on one side and threw it off balance. We removed half the laundry, rearranged the towels, and tried again. Five minutes later, the train/plane returned. I needed to find a rock by the river to wash the clothes! This is particularly difficult in California as the Santa Ana River hasn't know sufficient water for decades.

Since my husband's job only offers sick leave and not 'sick washing machine' leave, I have some handwashing of laundry to do today. Given the age of the washer the the fact that the repair could well exceed the actual value of our ancient friend, we have to go shopping this weekend in hopes of finding a sale.

In the meantime, besides wringing out wash by hand, I should embroider one of those old-fashioned samplers with a prayer of thanks for the convenience of a washing machine and hang it over the next washing machine to grace my garage. I'm learning . . . never take anything for granted!

A lot of bishops need to take heed of this . . .

“If a bishop experiences the fatherhood within his own vocation and office, he will not only demand what Christ calls from all of us, but live that call himself.”

— Archbishop Charles Chaput on the need for a bishop to take a firm stand against abuse for the good of his flock.