Tomorrow morning the Vatican's ambassador to the Court of St James (i.e. Great Britain) will be celebrating Mass in our university chaplaincy! More interestingly, I (one of the clumsiest people in the known universe, given the severity of my neurological disorder) will be serving as an acolyte. As I suspect that setting fire to the papal nuncio is one of the fastest ways to end your career in church ministry, your prayers would be appreciated.

I'll be serving at the national Catholic Youth Day tomorrow. Main celebrant: the archbishop. (Oh, and a couple of other bishops, never mind them... )

I'm the girl that broke her leg by, er, walking!

Let's do a prayer exchange

Um, make that seven bishops. Which number may or may not include the cardinal, my source didn't specify (please note that our country only has about a dozen dioceses or so, which makes about fifteen bishops if you include the auxiliaries).

I should not be posting here, I should be Lectio'ing and in bed, because unlike VA my diocese has to travel half way round God's glorious earth (ok, about two hours) in order to get there. However, I am a Very Important Person, because I have half of the servers' cassocks, and all of the cottas. So nothing is allowed to go wrong with me...because otherwise I'll have to deal with the wrath of my parish priest (whose servers' attire we've borrowed), and not even St. Michael is up for that kind of battle.

VA: you do know we're going to be on telly, right?

Love and prayers,

PP

Hey. I don't doubt Peter, so you're not allowed to doubt St. Michael.



Great, NOW she tells me! CathAnon, do you feel like turning that prayer exchange into a rosary exchange?

~VA

That's wicked cool. I've never been within 50 feet of a bishop.

I've served for my archbishop a couple times... actually three or four i think. and i went to confession with him, it was awesome. and one time i served a funeral that was 5 priests and two bishops. and i served a healing mass that had four bishops! but i've never served something as big as your guys' mass. i'll pray for you!

The papal nuncio was so SWEET! I want to keep him for a pet.

I know this might not be the correct sentiment to have about papal legates, but he was so gentle and funny and unassuming. He encouraged us all to pursue our vocations as part of his sermon, which was short but thought-provoking. There were some giggles at one point as 'selfish' came out as 'shellfish'. (The nuncio is Spanish and his English pronunciation sometimes wobbles a bit.)

According to my friend in the choir, I was beaming all the way through Mass. I didn't make any mistakes when I was serving, apart from crossing my legs absent-mindedly during the homily. Afterwards I stalked the nuncio and talked to him about his childhood in Spain.

I hope you've both recovered from your television experience - and I hope the cottas were all in pristine condition!

Mine was, but PP's had a small stain (don't tell her, she might freak out, and it was nigh invisible anyway!)

I shook hands with six bishops, of which one arch- It was... wicked. Eucharistical prayer with 28 priests (not counting the bishops) all murmuring... WICKED. (They weren't murmuring "wicked", but, well, you get it, right? )

(I'm very very happy, can you tell? I did get stalked on the way back but a very broadshouldered guy from my parish (same train) took care of that for me. <3 my parish

Well. 2000 young Catholics in a big hall. WICKEDNESS!

So, now that I've recovered enough to actually pay attention to OTHERS...

I think papal legates are selected on sweetness, or something. I met the one for the Netherlands once and he was such a DEAR. I didn't doubt for a moment that he could hold his own in almost any situation (some inner power thing), but at the same time, I just wanted to bake him cookies!

Beaming is good. Beaming servers lead people to Christ. I'm glad your Mass was such a good experience!

Our Papal Nuncio is French. His Dutch is fine but his accent is just wonderful!

It wasn't a stain, it was a burn However, it was on one of the back-folds on the front of the cotta, so I only noticed it when I was sitting down. The music took some getting used to, the bright lights have given me a splitting headache...but Mass is very cool, and it was an astonishing honour to be asked to serve. We all (seven of us, and all from the same diocese apart from VA ) received compliments from the clergy afterwards.

*sigh* How is Heaven going to beat Mass? I mean, I know it does, but how?! Because Mass is so amazing...at the Consecration I was kneeling down behind five rows of clergy, couldn't see anything other than some wisps of hair...and yet it hit me like a bolt piercing the heart - this is really Christ, our saviour, re-sacrificed here, just as He was on Calvary. How can anything top that on the amazing-ness scale? Seriously now. Heaven must be seriously fantastic.

There was Adoration all day. And Confession.

But it was also exhausting, and I'm ready for bed.

The cassocks and cottas have been taken back to the cathedral by some very nice people with a car who didn't want me cycling around balancing the suitcase on the back of my bike. Thereafter I and some friends hung out on street corners (yea, real troublemakers), reciting Latin texts from the mass in the style of street-thugs. I guarantee you've never seen mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa proclaimed with quite such...fervour.

But anyway, I shouldn't be wittering.

Love and prayers,

PP