This morning
Kevin and I were planning on going to Mass at St. Benedict’s for
first Saturday. We thought Mass was at
8:00 am, and we arrived a bit early, but the priest was nowhere in sight and
the gentleman who usually does the readings and assists the priest at daily
Mass left the building.
We figured Mass
must have been cancelled for some reason, so we went back out to our car. Kevin said I should call John and let him
know since he’d planned to meet us for Mass at St. Benedict’s. I reminded him that he also has a phone and
could give him a ring (along the lines of helping Kevin recall that I’m not his
secretary/administrative assistant, though I would make an awesome one).
I thought that
Mass at St. Bridget’s on first
Saturdays was at 8:30, so Kevin suggested we just go over there. We drove the ten or so minutes over to that
church. The parking lot was pretty full,
but no one was going into the church. A
moment after we walked in the foyer, we discovered why. Mass had already started…probably at 8:00am.
We came back out,
and I suggested that Kevin call John to let him know that Mass had already
started at St. Bridget’s in case he’d woken up late and had planned on going
there instead of St. Benedict’s. He
reached John, who told Kevin that Mass at St. Benedict’s is at 8:30. John called church to double check and called
us back to confirm that he’d been right.
We turned around
again and headed to St.
Benedict’s. This time we walked in
at 8:29am. Of course today was one of
the few times when Fr. Kauffman started Mass a little early, so we missed the
opening prayer.
Leave it to Kevin
and me to be over half hour early for Mass, leave without asking anyone if Mass
was cancelled or checking a bulletin for the schedule, go to another church,
also without calling ahead or speaking to John who might know the schedules at
both churches, arrive late for Mass, and only then call our friend (who, by the
way, made it a little early to Mass at St. Benedict’s) while we walked in a
minute or two after it started.
Kevin and I had
to laugh. We’re doing the Five First Saturdays devotion,
and I didn’t have the pamphlet with me that has all of the requirements in
it. I joked with Kevin about the
possibility of receiving an extra blessing for doing a pilgrimage on the way to
Mass on the first Saturday of the month.
We certainly took the longest possible route. If we’d just stayed where we were, we would
have been early!
Lord, thank You
for opening my heart and Kevin’s so that we are drawn to praise You through the
sacrifice of daily Mass, no matter how long it takes us to get there. Amen.
