The Weeken Marathon

Weekends seem to be full of events here at the parish.  It’s almost a marathon.  Saturday began with morning Mass at 8am.  I continued getting the office ready until about 10am then came back at 2pm to put the finishing touches on the Sunday homily.  We had confessions from 3:30pm to 5pm as we do most every week and then the Sunday Vigil Mass at 5:30pm.  Normally that would be all that I would do on a Saturday evening, but a priest needed some help so I went to another parish right after the vigil mass here to celebrate the vigil mass for another Catholic church down the road.  I got back a little after 9 in the evening, woke up early the next morning, said my prayers and came to the parish to offer the Sunday liturgy.  Normally we have 3 masses on Sunday.  9:30am Mass in English, Noon Mass in Spanish, and 5:30pm Mass in English (this is our Life Teen Mass.)  Most of the time this is all I would do, but this Sunday had a packed schedule.  After the morning Mass I heard confessions for the kids in the religious education program which took all the time I had before the next mass.  During the noon mass we celebrated a baptism and a convalidation.  After the noon mass I had the honor of eating with and giving a spiritual talk to the Christian Family Movement about Advent and Christmas.  I also spent some time giving them a reflection on scripture.  After that, I prayed vespers in the church privately to prepare for the last Mass.  After Mass the teens and I celebrated a holy hour together in the church with songs of praise, some time for silence, a scripture reading, and benediction.  I went home after that to pray night prayer and plop into bed.  Running from one event to the next made me feel like I was in a marathon, thus we had another fruitful time during the marathon weekend here at St. Anthonys.