Good Morning!!

A very blessed Monday to you! Though the weather here is getting colder and more brisk (to go with continued murmurings of snow, though not by The Weather Channel, curiously enough), it has turned out to be another glorious sunshiny morning, keeping up the trend set by the weekend.

This past weekend saw us a little busy, but none busier than the part of playing host, which is much more fun than other sorts of busy. We began the weekend with hosting a short presentation on the new Mass translation in the main church as part of the Diocesan Liturgy group. Attendance was a little sparse, but it was a good opportunity to review some of the “why’s?” and “how come’s?”, even as we’ve been saying the new Mass for several months. We also had the chance to play and sing as part of the evening, and discuss how the translation impacts the creation and selection of new Mass settings.

The rest of the Teach went home from there, while I went out to the Menapians annual Christmas party, which consisted of… karaoke. I contributed Van Morrison’s “Brown-eyed Girl” and then spent the rest of the evening listening to renditions of “Down at the Copa Cabana” (?), Johnny Cash’s “Boy Named Sue”, and many others. Quite the evening.

Saturday morning we woke up relatively bright and early to greet some Notre Dame friends who visited for the weekend from Dublin, Katie and Linda. We walked around town for a bit before heading back to the house to gear up for Mass and our Thanksgiving (alias: Fakesgiving) reception afterward. The reception was very delightful, with people drawn from all the groups that we interact with: the Folk Group, Scoil Mhuire, Kennedy Park, Children’s Liturgy group, the daily Mass-goers, parish office staff, St. Vincent DePaul, and the Menapians – all gathering for lots of sweets, coffee, tea, wine, and conversation. Molly and Jess contributed most of the deliciousness (brownies, pumpkin pie, triple chocolate pecan pie, apple and cranberry crumbles, pecan rings, and cranberry cornmeal muffins) while Dan and I managed to not poison anyone with our baking (chocolate chip cookies, banana bread, and zucchini bread). Most of the people who came brought something as well, either to drink or some more dessert to eat, so that by the end of the night it almost seemed as if we had more than we started with (sounds like a familiar story from somewhere…). We made sure to send some desserts home with people, so as to avoid prolonged sugar comas ourselves.  Everyone there came up and thanked us for the evening before leaving, and it gave us a chance to personally express just how wonderful our time here has been so far, and nowhere as clearly marked than by the people we share it with. All in all, a beautiful opportunity for gratitude 🙂 We’ve added some pictures of the weekend here, enjoy!

After our Sunday morning spent at the parish (which included Katie and Linda, who sang with all our choirs over the weekend) we packed all that remained from the reception home, and then finally got our Christmas decorating done. Unfortunately, I think that I re-awakened the Christmas elves H & H, jrs…

This week sees Jess and I in and out of Scoil Mhuire preparing for our Carol Service, Fr. Sean returning from his holidays in the Gambia, and a trip to Dublin for our last ACE Mass for 2011.

Hope this finds you well and enjoying a fruitful Advent!

God Bless,
Kurt