Inconsequentials & Trivialities

Got up this morning and the first thing on the agenda was to do my 5K training. Today was 5 minutes of warm-up, 20 minutes of jogging, and 5 minutes of cool-down. I started off from my hotel and made my way to the Broadway Bridge. I managed to do the jog up the incline and coming down the other side was a breeze. I jogged past the train and bus stations and began my ascent of the Steel Bridge. By this point, I’d been jogging for 15 minutes, almost double my previous time, and I was feeling it. And I was jogging uphill. I though if I could make it to the top of the bridge, I could finish out my alloted time. Alas, it was not to be. I was out of gas. I forced myself to get to the 17 minute mark, then I hit pause and walked for a few minutes. I did resume jogging after a bit, and finished out the 20 minute total.

After a shower and breakfast, I went to Mass at St. Pius X. Overall I was pleased. If I had to make this my parish, I think I could tolerate it. I’ll keep looking but I sure could do worse. Here are some salient pros and cons:

Pros

• Layout of the church – Tabernacle was to the side, worship space was wider than long.
• People sang!
• The worship resources in the pews were acceptable
• There are a good variety of active ministries at the parish
• The parish is growing
• There were lots of families at Mass
• The Presider sang the Eucharistic Prayer (and did it well)
• Music group consisted of piano, organ, guitar, bass, and choir
• During the Prayers of the Faithful, we prayed that people find it within themselves to forgive Osama Bin Laden and others who would do us harm. – This was really moving to me. I think forgiving isn’t so much for the transgressor as for those who have been wronged. It’s hard to forgive but so good for us if we can.

Cons

• Marian songs were sung during Mass (twice!)
• Only 1 verse of the Preparation Song and Closing song were sung
• Some strange, unfamiliar Eucharistic Prayer was used
• Psalm was a paraphrased version
• The Fraction Rite was a little odd. – It looked like the Precious Blood was poured into cups held by each of the EMHC that were assisting.
• There was poor line of sight to from the back of the church to the sanctuary
• There was a long delay before singing started at Communion
• The Presider directed us to hold hands for the Our Father
• The Presider directed the assembly to stay seated for the Prayer After Communion

In the afternoon, David and I went to meet Suzanne and Mike at Powell’s Books. As advertised, the place is quite large. After this, we all went to see Thor. It was pretty good. Only a couple of story/continuity problems which I am willing to overlook.

Finally, we all went to the Brazil Grill where I, for one, had WAY too much meat to eat.

Pretty good day.

Tags: postaday2011

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 8th, 2011 at 11:13 pm by Seaners and is filed under Catholic, Food, Health/Exercise, Movies, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.