Okay, so yesterday I was late getting out the door, later still after clearing the snow off the car, and slightly delayed due to slower (although not horrible) traffic.  End result?  I was about 4 minutes late for Mass.

This means that I came in as the Gospel was being proclaimed.  What?!?  I wasn’t that late!  He must have known that I was going to be late and got everyone to agree to skip the first reading and started with the responsorial psalm.  Seriously.  Okay, okay.  He wouldn’t do that, but I thought I was doing pretty good, here to find out I missed almost half of Mass.  Maybe it just took me 10 minutes to walk from the parking lot to the chapel?

Anyway, I had the vague impression that there was something that I had wanted to say to Fr. John after Mass, but I could not remember what it was.  Sometimes I have a horrible memory, so during Benediction, I just kept looking at the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, trying to remember if there was something that I should be remembering.

Ah ha!  (Thank You!)  I was going to tell Fr. John that yesterday was my one year of coming into the church (building) and going up to an usher after Mass and asking, “How do you join?”

So, I stand outside the sacristy after Mass, ready to pounce, along with the other parishioners who have questions for him.  As incoherent as I often am in e-mails and blogs, I am usually far more incoherent in person, speaking.  So, I can totally understand if he thinks I’m a bubblehead.  That and I laugh a lot — so much that one of my other priests has said, “You are a giggly little pumpkin.  Come, join us, giggle over here.”

I say something like, “Hi!  It’s my one year coming into the church — coming through the door!  Thank you for scaring me back!”  And he replied, “That’s what I do!”

Hahahahahahhahahahaha!

One of these days, when I get more time (does that ever really happen?), I should post my “conversion story,” so you can get all the inside-joke references.  🙂