Make a wish!

Yesterday, Palm Sunday, I attended mass at a church I've never been to before, St. Patrick's Church in Whitinsville, MA. I had a few churches to choose from in the immediate area, but it turned out that this one must have been the right one for me at the time. The service was really moving. On Palm Sunday the Catholic mass always includes a lengthy reading from one of the Gospels recounting Christ's Passion. Sometimes this is a deadly boring affair as you stand there, missal in hand, for what seems like forever, following along with the story and reading out the 'Crowd' parts in that deadpan delivery I think all Catholics master by 5th grade.

This time, however, the priest asked us to sit down, close the books and just watch and listen. As the priest and a couple lectors read the story, a troupe of about 15 people acted out the scenes of the Passion as a series of short pantomime vignettes. The man playing Jesus was dressed in all white. Everybody else was dressed in black. Most of the other roles were played by young women except for things like Judas, Pilate and the Pharisees. The only major prop was an enormous red drape, that was used in different scenes to represent things like Christ being dragged around by the soldiers, the cross, and the tomb. As I related in my last entry regarding Jesus Christ Superstar, the Passion story means a lot to me and this particular experience of it was really wonderful.

Ok, so what's with the title of this entry, "Make a wish"? Well, that's because I was reminded of something in a completely different direction as I sat through mass on Sunday. Some of the friends I made a while ago in a Catholic young adult group would often say, that any time you visit a new church for the first time, you get to make a wish! Not exactly Roman Catholic dogma, but it's a nice thought. Especially right now when I can think of a few things to fervently wish (and pray) for.