Anointed

As part of my eternal growth, I try to take my daughter E to church with me on Sunday and sometimes Thursdays for the kids mass. She never acts too bad, and I have my ways of keeping her focused on the next item up. Those items that get us through a mass are;

Songs. These come every few minutes. I pick her up and try my best to keep time to the beat and keep her into it.

"Peace". Where we shake hands with our brethren. E really likes and looks forward to this one.

Then it's time to take the money up (collection) which she so dearly loves. The best part for her of course is dropping the money in the basket and making a b-line to the other end of the church. I have taken to holding the hand for that one.

Next is "time to go up". This is communion where I get the good stuff and she gets a special blessing from the priest.

Then it's a prayer, and one more song and were outta there.

Well, this last Sunday, E did a special thing for me. Along with my aforementioned tactics, I also have of course, milk and snacks to placate her. One of E favorite snacks are pretzels. As we were sitting in the pew, I was searching through the snack cup looking for pretzels. As I would hand her one, she would hold it over my shoulder for a few seconds and then pop it in her mouth. I am not sure what that was really all about but it did make me feel pretty good that I was worth the extra effort and I hope that she got extra flavor or some good out of it.

The mass rituals may have been behind this, who knows?? I do know that I enjoy taking E to church to learn and I hope to keep my excuses for not taking her to a minimum. I believe this is what my stretching is all about. Not making excuses and really trying to do things that are sometimes hard. I get a lot out of mass and I truly hope my family can follow me and that I will be a good role model for them.

She really is a smart, polite, caring and generally a great kid. I feel blessed that I have been "anointed" albeit with pretzels by my daughter. I feel the love!!