Good Trip

Well, the shopping trip went along quite well.  We went first to Kohl's and they had a huge sale on their Easter/spring dresses.  Two we found were in spring green and white, and yellow and white.  They were lovely for this time of year but also for all summer long.  And we found a beautiful hat that looked just perfect with the dresses.

Lauren was on top of the world.  So when she got home, she put on one of the dresses and went outside in the driveway -- and DANCED.  She was just like a flower, moving all over the driveway oblivious to the fact that two pairs of eyes were watching.  My husband got a real kick out of it too.

On Sunday she got to wear one of the dresses to church and that pleased her to no end as well. 

It was a nice weekend, because on Sunday we took a spur-of-the-moment walk on our property, winding all the way down to the dry creek bed and then back to the house through the briars.  They are really getting bad.  No one has been through there in a while and so there was no natural pathway to take.  We kept getting snagged by the briar branches as we slowly moved along.

But it felt good to her and it felt good to me.  I need to get exercising again!  It's past time for this to start.  My goal was to go back to Curves in January, but the weather put a big damper on it.  And then my hip started bothering me a little bit.  And that was followed by my knee.  Both are fine now, and it sounds like a bunch of excuses, but honestly, they aren't really poor excuses at all.

Today I could just take a nap.  It's raining outside, it's dreary, and it's cozy in the house -- the perfect recipe for wasting a fine day by doing nothing.  And it would seem as though on some level I am powerless to do anything about it.

The weekend's main event included the canonization of Pope Saint John XXIII, and Pope Saint John Paul II.  When you think about it, these two men really changed the face of the church, although Pope John XXIII didn't have as much push-back from the faithful, and some of the societal problems that have come along to enter into the dialogue of our faith weren't even issues then.  Still, the message was clear that we had to change, and from John Paul II that we need to love one another.  He was an emissary of that love, especially to young people.

The people from St. Stanislaus Church in Cleveland were very proud because Pope John Paul II had been to their church and had said Mass.  Many of them remembered it.  They are Polish and he was Polish. 

John XXIII shook up things in the church.  I have a book that we used at Mass back in the 1960s.  It contains the Latin and the English words of Mass.  It was John who brought the vernacular into the church through Vatican II.  The amazing thing about his papacy is that he was Italian, older, and no one expected that he would do anything of great merit.  He shocked nearly everyone but doing a great deal in his rather short tenure. 

In the case of John Paul II, Pope Francis waived the second miracle requirement for his canonization.  So there were a lot of firsts this past weekend.

One man at St. Stanislaus said that the saints should be like our rock stars, and he is so right.  We should know more about these holy men and women who in some cases lived and died not that long ago.  We should be inspired by them, to the point where we are ready to make choices in our lives that perhaps no one else saw coming.

And always, always, always -- there is love.

Thanks for reading.

Karen