There is a Perpetual Adoration chapel not too far from my home where I like spending time. However, I have never taken my boys with me. It is a very quiet place, and they are not. However, my 8th grader was with me the other morning, since he was coming with me to my school to take part of the 8th grade test. Sometimes in the morning, after dropping off the kids, I will jet to 7:30 Mass, but they moved too slow on this day. So I went with the next best thing - the Adoration Chapel - and kid #1 came with me. We stayed about 20 minutes. He sat quietly, and seemed to be most impressed at how small it is.
The parish associated with the chapel is not one that we frequent, and he wanted to see the inside. (How many 14 year olds want to see what the inside of a church looks like?) I told him that there was a Penance Service scheduled there later in the week, and since he hadn't been to confession yet during Lent, that would be a good time for him to see it. We did not make it to the penance service, for reasons beyond our control (again), but we were in the area at about that time, and he asked if we could still go by. He mentioned that he had been annoying his classmates a lot lately and he wanted to say a Hail Mary for each one of them. (?!?)
Makes me a little nostalgic for the days when you could just pop into a church at any time....
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When I participated in Perpetual Adoration at our previous Parish (before we moved to Tn.), there were times I would go in and feel like a blanket had been put over my shoulders. It was awesome!
ReplyDeleteMary, I once had that blanket experience. I hadn't been to confession in many years, and had lots of "big stuff" on the list. I finally made up my mind to go. As I sat in the church afterwards, I could feel a warm blanket around my shoulders. God is good.
ReplyDeleteWe were just talking about this at the First Eucharist Retreat today in the parent's class. Fr H said that it's hard for us to teach our kids to live their faith when we're not living our own. It falls into the "do as I say not as I do" category that way and that's a slippery slope to find ourselves.
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