Get Thee To the Church: St. Mary's, Blacksburg, Virginia

So now that it's Ascension Sunday and almost Pentecost, I think it's high time I showed you where we went for Easter Sunday Mass.

 As many of you know, I grew up in a Baptist church.  (They're getting ready to sell it--the building and the land and all the buildings surrounding it that the church owns--and move into a bigger place.  My parents fear that whoever buys it will tear it down.  I'm hoping to get down there this summer and take some photos of the church that holds many childhood memories to share with you before it's gone.)  When I was a kid, St. Mary's was located right behind my church, but I never set foot inside.

There was a statue like this one on St. Mary's original building.  It might be the same one, but I don't really know for sure.

 Sometime in the 1970's, the parish relocated to a larger, more modern building on a good-sized piece of land.  After I became Catholic we attended several Masses there, when we would visit my parents on a weekend.  I liked the priests, and the Masses were always beautiful, but the building itself was, well, not the most attractive.  It frankly didn't look much like a church, either inside or out.  (For a while the tabernacle was shoved into a "chapel" that was more like a closet with a few chairs inside.  When they got a new priest, he had the Blessed Sacrament moved inside the church, front and center.  Much better.)

Just a few years ago, St. Mary's built a brand-new facility.  It's beautiful.  THIS is what a Catholic Church should look like.

While I was walking around taking photos after Mass, a lady came up to me and gave me her email and asked if I would take some pictures of the baptismal font, because she was in charge of the Easter decorations and wanted to have some photos she could use when planning for next year.  I guess it's time I sent them to her...

Happy Ascension Sunday!  Now get thee to church!

Good Friday

One of my New Year's resolutions was to go to confession once a month. I went in January and February, and then I did not go at all during Lent. I resolved to go to at least one "extra" Mass every month besides Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, and so far I've been able to do that, but then again it's still only April. (I don't know about you but when I'm at Mass, there isn't anywhere else I want to be. Even on days when I'm distracted, not paying attention, nodding off during the homily, thinking about all of the things that need to get done--at Mass I'm truly home.) I even told myself I'd go to Holy Thursday Mass, but as usual, that did not happen. We (I) treated Holy Thursday just like any other ordinary day. I dropped the kids off at school and went to work and ran errands and gossiped and worried and made mistakes and took the boys to tae kwon do and did laundry and plopped my lazy self down on the couch when there was work to be done. And every Holy Thursday night, after the Eucharist--which we Catholics believe to be the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ--is taken from the church and brought to our parish hall until midnight when it's (He's) taken away (laid in the tomb) until Easter Vigil, I always, always, make an effort to go and spend a few minutes with Him, no matter how tired I am from the day. Last night I didn't even do that.

Often I have a hard time sleeping, fussing over things to be done, things I wish I hadn't done, things I wish I had or hadn't hadn't said, things that I've been putting off that should have been done yesterday. I think, if the world ends today all of our troubles will be over. When we all get to Heaven everyone will love each other and nobody will see anyone's faults or past mistakes, only the beauty that God made in each one of us. At times I've even found myself wishing God would speed things up a bit already. But I realize that there is still much work to be done. God wants us to face challenges and learn from our mistakes and love each other and stand up for the weak and feed the poor and clothe the hungry and encourage those who need encouragement.

It's almost Easter. I'm ready. (And I can get on Facebook again. Oh, and I can get on Twitter and tell all my followers to PLEASE vote for Gavin on Dancing With the Stars, 'cuz he's hanging on by the skin of his teeth and I REALLY don't want him to be eliminated this week. The number is 1-800-868-3404.)

All silliness aside, I hope you all have a blessed Easter. Today, Good Friday, may we all be filled with the hope that Christ's resurrection brings. He's alive. He's prepared a place for us. We are His.

Get Thee to the Woods vol. 25: Grandma's Easter Garden

I have always been forgetful. Almost every time we go on a trip, whether for a day, a weekend, or a week, I manage to forget something. I have been known to make Joe turn the car around ten miles down the road because I've forgotten something important, like Moe's inhaler or my camera or some such thing. On Easter weekend, when we travelled two hours to the South to spend the holiday with Joe's parents, guess what I forgot? The plastic eggs we were planning to fill with the candy and treats that Grandma B. had bought, and the Easter baskets to put them in. Only I didn't remember until after we were there, and Grandma asked me, "Did you bring the plastic eggs?" Needless to say, we did not hold our traditional egg hunt in Grandma's garden. Moe is still mad at me. Larry and Curly didn't care, as long as they got to eat the candy anyway, which they did. There wasn't any left to bring home.

You won't find any photos of brightly colored eggs--real or fake--in Grandma's garden this year, but since we had nice weather for Easter we were able to spend some time enjoying the outdoors all the same.

When I first met Grandma and Grandpa "B" they lived in a rustic little log cabin on a gi-normous piece of land in rural Pennsylvania. Later they moved to a gi-normous house on a good-sized lot in a small town in New Jersey. When Joe and I started having kids, they wanted to move someplace a little closer to their grandchildren, so they found another spacious house with an average-sized yard in a sprawling golf community in Eastern Virginia. Last summer, they downsized and moved into a lovely cottage in the same community, with a gorgeous little yard, just big enough for their Springer Spaniel to run around in.

What do Curly and Moe have for Bailey to play with today?

A...plastic bucket?



If you even say the word "Bucket," Bailey the Springer Spaniel goes bananas.

Good boy, Bailey!

(Check out this post for a few more photos of Curly and Moe with Bailey last summer, playing in Grandma's garden. And this one about a weekend last fall we spent at Grandma's house with Joe's brother and sister-in-law and their beautiful family. And Bailey.)

I couldn't resist some photos of Grandma's garden.

No Easter eggs, but I found this bunny here among the hostas.

Look up and you'll see this period-looking flag

...and a cozy front porch, just big enough for a couple of rocking chairs and a place to put up one's feet. I love spring!

A blessed and glorious Easter season to all!

Easter Praise!

Hallelujah! Christ is risen! It's high time for a blog post from me, and today I praise God for His MANY wonderful blessings!

1. My family has just grown a little larger! Last weekend, my brother and his fiancee became husband and wife. They were married in a wonderfully moving ceremony in the beautiful Baptist church where they attend, surrounded by many friends and family members. At their reception, I remarked to several people that there were SO MANY people there that I had never seen before, and I realized how blessed the bride and groom are, that so many wonderful people love and support them. My sister-in-law's parents are fabulous people, and I had the pleasure of meeting a number of her aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. God is definitely good! Praise Him!

2. A wedding is a wonderful time for families to be reunited! Between the wedding shower that my mother's friend hosted a few weeks ago and the wedding last week, I was able to reconnect with many relatives (and friends!) who I hadn't seen in years. We all made renewed commitments to get together more often. I hope we're able to keep that promise. I miss them. Facebook is great, but being together in person is so much better.

3. Praise God for the wonderful Easter weekend we shared with my parents in my hometown! The weather was perfect, and we spent a lot of time sitting on their back deck watching the kids playing in the little spring behind their house. Moe caught three frogs and a salamander. Spring is here! This morning we attended Easter Sunday Mass in the (beautiful!) newly-built church near their home, and God brought us home safely today.

4. Praise God for Spring, and warm Easter weather! I've spent many Easter weekends mostly indoors because it's either a). raining or b). cold. I can't tell you how many hours I've spent shivering outside hoping the kids would hurry up and find all those eggs already so we could all go in and get warm. This weekend, the weather is perfect, and it's wonderful to see the trees blooming and budding!

5. I'm looking forward to the kids being off from school this week. Praise God for the opportunity to sleep in! (Okay, the dog won't let me do that, but I can dream, can't I?) We're planning to spend some time shopping for clothes (esspecially for Larry, who at 13, is already taller than me--I'm 5'8"--and quickly catching up with my husband. I'm thinking of nicknaming Hubby Shemp; what do you think?) It's time for sandals, too, and I *hope* if the weather is nice, I can talk the kids into doing some geocaching with me, something we haven't done in almost a year. Hopefully we'll finally wash the car and catch up on some housecleaning as well.

6. Praise God, I'm finally out of my reading funk, and I've been devouring books like crazy. (I'll admit, though, that my relationship with my new friend The Fly Lady has suffered somewhat. I still want to blog about her sometime.) Since my post on March 11, I have finished three books (Culture of Corruption by Michelle Malkin; Open by Andre Agassi; and War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq by NBC correspondent Richard Engel) and I'm halfway through a fourth (Danielle Bean's My Cup of Tea: Musings of a Catholic Mom. I swear I'd never heard of Danielle or her book before I named this blog.) Richard Engel's book was particularly moving, and I'm hoping to share my thoughts about it here this week. I'm still trying to wrap my head around that one.

7. Praise God, Christ is Risen! (and I'm also thankful that I can start putting cream in my coffee again. But first I think I'll pop open a cold one --gave that up for Lent too-- and drink in the spring sunshine.)

Happy Easter!

Praise God!!

Here's my second installment of Praise God! Thanks once again to Jennifer for inspiring me to count my blessings.

1. Praise God for the beautiful weather we had here this weekend.

2. Praise God for people who put the needs of others before themselves. You inspire me.

3. Praise God for our recently re-opened farmer's market!! I am so glad to have fresh spinach, asparagus, and eggs to munch on this week--no more tasteless industrial stuff! Oh, and some delicious free range ground beef, too! :)

4. Praise God for an Easter Week spent with family, and for everyone's safe travels.

5. Praise God for my awesome husband!!

6. Praise God that my children are learning compassion for others.

I have so much to be thankful for. I hope I'll make this a weekly post! Happy Divine Mercy Sunday!