Last Saturday

Spent the morning reading and then doing the autopsy on this Christmas’ piece of Catholic-bashing literary sewage, A Testament of Mary.  Synopsis: verbally gifted Irish ex-Catholic uses Mary as a sock puppet for pouring out all his bitterness at the Catholic Church.  Our Chattering Classes think this will “forever transform our view of Mary”.  File under: “(*&( Our Chattering Classes Say”.  The review’ll run on the Catholic World Report website in a day or so.

Then came the fun part of Saturday: The West Coast Celebration of the nuptials of Cow and Claire at Blessed Sacrament’s parish hall.  We Work Crew people showed up at 3:30, decorated the hall, helped with the food prep (kindly done for us by the Awesome Angela Kim who catering service you Seattleites should really use for your next fete), and readied the place for  the mob of 150 odd people who showed up to welcome the happy couple to their third month anniversary of wedded bliss (since they hadn’t been able to make the wedding in Chicago).

We don’t have a ton of money, but it’s amazing how much love can cover.  The food was fantastic, a little sound system with Cow’s iPhone and a bunch of party/Christmas music rocked the house.  There was dancing and hilarity and  room full of people that I like as far as the eye could see.  It was like a little taste of heaven.  My brother in law brought some tasty port he made (Chesterton would be proud) and we all mixed and mingled and were glad of each other company and so happy for Cow and Claire all over again.  Even the clean-up was fun.  We all got back about 12:30 in the morning, grateful.  Then Sunday morning we were back at Mass and I just sat there being grateful all over again.  I love our family.  I love our friends.  I love our parish.  I love our faith.  I love the God who gave us all to each other.

And, by the way, I love youse guys too.  You amaze me with your humor, your generosity, you thoughtfulness, and your goodness.  If nobody’s said so lately, I will: thanks to you guys for being such wonderful vessels of grace to the world and to us Sheas.  May God bless you through our Lord Jesus Christ.