The Weekend of Family Reunions

Crazy weekend. Gabe came in town for a visit...though we also happened to each have a family reunion. Earlier in the week I went to a trivia night with my siblings and a couple of out-of-town cousins. It was a lot of fun, though of course we didn't win. We did however rock the Year of 1932 round...are we dorks or what? It was crazy smoky in the bar though, so much so that my contacts were completely clouded up by about the halfway point. I love hanging out with family so family reunions are wonderful. Hearing stories and everything, it's great! Gabe's family party was on Saturday and was up in like St. Charles so it was a trek from my house. It was cool though, I got to meet some of his extended family and hear stories about their past and listen to some interesting conversations.

On our way to the park

Sunday was my family party at the house. It was a pretty relaxed gathering. There was some Wii played, beer drank, and laughs had. Our family from California came in and stayed with us. That was really wonderful. A lot of people it seems don't find it strange to have family spread out over the country, only seeing each other every few years at most. I do though. I'm used to grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins being a part of everyday life. I guess having some family far away makes their visits more special then.

It's difficult to apprecaite family at all times. It's easy to become impatient, to be ungrateful. It's good to have a reminder every once in awhile how important and beautiful family is, but it's better not to need that reminder. I need to work on thanking God everyday for family as well as showing my thankfulness.

Love and prayers

Holiness in My Life

I'm not sure how it happens, but at times I forget about the incredible holiness that certain people in my life possess. This morning after Mass and breakfast with the youth group the female core team met to discuss AYM Women's Nights for the summer. There are no words to describe the hilarity of the scene of the meeting space we walked into...it was beautiful...and organized:)

I felt like holiness was just eminating from the young women I was sitting with and flowing around the table we sat at. Being around these beautiful women always reminds me of how I desire to live my life. They are uinintentially (well, I suppose it's God's intention) my spiritual guides.

Project Life

Project Life is a service retreat. I served as a chaperone, and it was also my first experience on it. We traveled down to Perryville where we spent a week serving the community in a variety of ways, in prayer and mass, in programming, in the fellowship of young Catholics, and, in some cases, sitting on the side lines of a game of capture the flag due to a knee injury which still hurts...

I, along with my new friend Bridget:), were group leaders for Group L.

Such a wonderful, joyful group...even through Shay's endless complaining:)

We were at a variety of sites. The first two days we spent helping some older folks around their property. We stacked wood from some of the 18 trees that fell during a recent storm, we cleaned up their workshop, we gathered branches and sticks for burning that were scattered over their property, and we cleaned out their shed. We had a lot of fun, despite all the little critters living in the wood piles. They had a rather large hat collection and we all received a camo hat as thanks for our help which was awesome, but I struggled to really relate those days to the retreat and the reason for service. Our next site was at Delbert Bonhert's home. What a wonderful experience. Delbert is an elderly man. We scraped and painted his old shed. He sat there on his porch all day and watched us work, helping whenever he saw an opportunity to get a tool or a ladder. We enjoined the wonderful bonding time amidst our group itself, but Delbert, I've realized, became Christ for me on this retreat. At the end of the job he asked how much he owed us and was shocked to learn that he owed us nothing. Our payment was the knowledge that we served and loved Christ by serving, listening, and growing to love Delbert..."Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me" (Matthew 25: 40). The people we helped and will go on to help were and are channels to Our Lord.

On a lighter note...fun night turned out to be less than fun for me. My idea of fun is watching a movie, not capture the flag. I tagged Pete, our youth minister, sending him to jail, but in the process I twisted my knee. It still hurts. I had to wear a knee brace for the next several days and hobble about everywhere...I'm sure I was a funny site.

On the last day we went to another group's site to help them finish up. We had to stay a couple of extra hours to get it all done, get completely covered, head to toe, in stain, and nearly collapse from heat exhaustion, but we did it! There was no way we were going to leave the job unfinished. The couple was so thankful. It was beautiful...though at the time all we could think about was getting back so we could take cold showers and try to scrub the stain off of our skin in time for Mass.

Mass was another wonderful experience. One night during the Consecration I noticed the looks on Fr. Brian's and the deacon's faces. They were looks of utter, unrestrained love, awe, gratitude, and so many other things I couldn't even place. They were looking at the true Body and Blood of Christ, once the bread and wine. They were looking into the face of Christ. They were witnessing the sacrifice of the alter with pure joy for the salvation and eternal bliss Christ offers us each moment of life on this earth. It was a definite "wow" moment.

Love and prayers


Snipe!