Now THAT'S a Sense of Occasion

How do you mark your festivities?
I should remember this for my next birthday.

A quip by the late Fr Edward Holloway, founder of the Faith Movement, when he was celebrating his 50th: "I feel that on these occasions, rather than celebrating so wildly, one should make a good act of contrition."

Fr Finnegan's post from which I drew the charming quip was remembering his own ordination, and also featured this beautiful sentiment, accompanying a snap of his large family:

Missing from the photo but not from the liturgy (which includes the Church militant, the Church suffering and the Church triumphant) is my brother Gerry who died in 1979.

I know what he means, exactly. It is a great comfort, to be certain of that. I have sometimes, several times, had the most overpowering sense of the presence of my dear Father, after he had been gone for decades -- and always in Church, and usually in Mass.
There is no doubt in my mind, and as I say, it is a great comfort.

"Act of Contrition" remind me - at dinner once, while some tow-headed niece or nephew was preparing for a sacrament, there were maybe six of the dozen siblings, all of us but one having gone through the same "Faith Formation," in the same parish, and never with a break of more than two years from another. We knew, we had been taught -- SIX DIFFERENT VERSIONS of the Act of Contrition.

That's okay, I think we all learned differrent "versions" of everything the Church teaches.

The Splendor of Confusion....