Sunday Mass
October 8, 2006 by estelaaque
I went to church today. It’s been a while since the last. I felt I needed to. So before the “katam” bug hit me again, I headed for San Felipe Neri.
It was the Children’s Mass that I caught. I sat somewhere near the front pews. Turned out I was I little early (or the priest was a little late I don’t know). Anyway, the catechist was at the podium, running through prayers and songs. When the service commenced, I was surprised that the commentator was a little girl. The gospel reader was a little boy who barely reached the podium and was struggling with the mic. It was rather cute how in the middle of the reading he realized there was a footstool, pulled it out, and then there he was standing taller by a foot at least. Yes! I noticed it all. I was paying too much attention because I was impressed by these kids. They were what? grade 2? They certainly looked small so I assumed they were at least in the second grade. And yet, they read everything like the old ones does, so fluent and unaffected. And then, there were the 6 kids who did a choral interpretation of Papuri sa Diyos.
I was looking at these kids and I can’t help but smile. I smile at the thought how smart kids are nowadays. How impressive and confident they look. I smiled at how the girls beside me are distracted by the restlessness and badgering of the boys seated behind our pew. I smiled at how some kids were dressed. Looking around I see some girls in prim and proper Sunday dresses with pigtails and hair clips to match. Two or three boys in white polos. And of course there were a mix of shorts, skirts, pants, and t-shirts in bold character prints. I smiled at the uninhibited singing, some were really off key but the giggling seemed to encourage a louder rendition.
I smiled because I remembered how it was when I was a kid. Church was always a dress up occasion. I used to wear those dainty dresses that my grandmother made for me, the kinds where there are raffles and laces and baby collars and balloon skirts. I had my share of shhhhh-ing moments by elders (back home they were called CWL hehehe). I was an “angel” during Flores de Mayo. I still laugh aloud whenever I recall how I cried out when my “wings” got entangled in the barbed wire fence and I ended up joining the procession with ripped wings. (On hindsight, that incident was probably a prophecy of things to come hahaha).
I smiled thinking how innocence can be so much bliss. What do these kids care about the reading (it was about how woman was created from man, how they are not two but one) or the gospel (the disciples asked Jesus about divorce?). I wished it were another verse. But it matters not. I can still see grinning faces.
Yes. Blessed are the children indeed.
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Sunday Mass
Oct 8, 2006
2355
So nag eminisce ng childhood days mo…hehehe
little children are so blessed indeed, they do not trouble themselves with, yes, reading and singing, but most especially, with things like what grown-ups waste their time with: man for a woman (or man for a man, or woman for a woman) and later on spliting away.
the wings, hahahaha! it’s very prophetic (or um, omen?)!