The occasion was a blessing of a memorial garden that was built at the school in honor of Monsignor Thomas Hayes, the former pastor of St. Anne's who passed away last August.
Based on experiences with Bishop Blaire at some daily Masses I've attended, I thought we were in for a pretty boring homily. What a surprise! He does show excitement and emotion and can actually be pretty long winded! But it took a lot of self-control on my part not to shout "Hallelujah!" when he was finished.
We had a good laugh about it when Mom and I spoke with him after the blessing and dedication of the garden. I told him I had listened to many of his homilies at daily Masses and never heard him speak with such "fire, brimstone and emotion" as I did today. He laughed and said, "That wasn't fire and brimstone!" I told him that based on my experiences, it was. I had never heard the Bishop belly laugh before. I guess there's a first time for everything. Who knew?
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We finally had a meeting tonight with all of the Eucharistic Ministers who provide pastoral care to the hospitals. The purpose of the meeting was to introduce ourselves to one another and to come up with a workable schedule and to talk through some of the issues we may face when bringing our Lord to the sick at the hospital. And we found out the new procedures for getting the Hosts, as well as information about a special "commissioning" Mass where we get a blessing and a "commission" from the parish to go out into the community and provide this pastoral service. The Mass will be one of the Sundays in January. I'm glad we were able to have this meeting. I hate "flying blind." We also got some nifty cards to carry with us (see below) and a crucifix to wear that identifies us as a Eucharistic Minister.
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