May Procession

In May and October, my parish holds Processions in honour of Our Lady. We walk around the streets of my parish (stopping for a service-type thing at a local school in May), carrying the processional statue of Mary, praying the rosary and singing. They are not my favourite parish events, but I attend every year.

So today was our May Procession. The sermon was really good ('What does Mary teach us? To listen to Jesus and do what He tells you'). The choir were really good (I'm growing into my new role of 'coordinating' the choir and I'm really beginning to enjoy it. We're having fun with music - it's cool!). It didn't rain, which was disappointing. It almost doesn't feel like a real event unless it rains.

The rest of it was soooooooooooo boring. It was a challenge to stay focused - I gave up on prayerful after about 10 minutes. The only place I have found where the rosary is prayed in such a way that I stay both focused and prayerful is at the regular Covent Garden Youth 2000 meeting.

Like I said here, I just didn't believe what other people saying and singing.

I was at a Catechesis with an American Bishop in Germany at WYD 2005, who said that two marks of a Christian are joy and kindness (this is pretty much the only thing I remember from WYD Catechesis - the rest of the time I was looking after fainting friends or asleep). It's the kind of joy that (as my Mother would say) 'shines out through your eyes'. It's compelling and indescribable, but you know it when you see it. Out of all the people I saw and spoke to today, I can count on one hand those who had that joy. Hence, boring!