... pray for us

It was a holy day of obligation today - All Saints' Day. So I took the kids to Liturgy at noon. It was one of those cases where you walk in precisely five minutes late and they are finishing the Gospel reading already. The light-footed Mass worked out well for me and the eight kids, since the TWO year old doesn't usually sit quiet for long.

You know, I wish I could go to Mass every day. But here's the wickedness in my heart: I wish I could go by myself. Mass is hard with little children. It is often merely showing up, blessing yourself with holy water, and then shushing the children for an hour. But the participation remains, doesn't it? Presence is something. It's essential, as a matter of fact. I have heard it said, and it seems proven in my life in so many ways, that salvation is mostly just showing up.

Whether you got to Mass today or did not, may the saints whose names we bear pray for us. And may we be converted to Christ as they were, so that our children might have icons of Christ in their own homes instead of icons of anger and impatience. Pray for me.

I must decrease. St John the Baptist, pray that Christ might increase in me. St. Irenaeus, pray that I might behold God in the ordinariness of life, that I might be fully present and fully alive.