Shoulder massage and school Masses

Stood up to stretch my back just now, and give myself a 20-second shoulder massage. Don't know why I have a bit of a headache -- maybe the glow of the fluorescents after several days of not having them buzz over me. Last Friday, I took the day off to hang out with AJ on my last day as his 3rd grade Room Mom. We had an ice cream party with the class and let them basically have recess for the majority of their half-day of school. Afterwards, the school had its last Mass of the year and I got to attend (probably my first of this year, which is too bad).

Those school Masses, man. They get me right in the heart. And this time, they were a humorous answer to a little prayer that I'd prayed several months ago when I was feeling bored with faith, as I think we all do from time to time. Months ago, I'd watched The [new] Muppets movie for the second (or maybe third) time, and I got weepy when they sang The Rainbow Connection, as well as the Opening Theme. Nostalgia, you know? It made my heart supremely happy that my kids were hearing some of the songs that were such a fixture in my childhood, I guess, and because my Mom was there, too... it feels stupid, but it was a really big emotional moment for some reason. So it made me crazy the Sunday after that, thinking that I get emotional about The Muppets, but not at Mass. ...Right? How can that be?! How ridiculous. Jesus is to the Muppets like.... well, like nothing, Jesus should be well MORE than the Muppets. And He is. But apparently my tear-ducts don't know it.

So anyway, I prayed at the time, and have since, to be moved somehow. To FEEL something about my faith. To get more from a Mass than I do from the [loveable] MUPPETS, for heaven's literal sake. And at this school Mass... these kids get so INTO it. They're lucky they have a music ministry that allows them to have praise and worship music (I mean the Contemporary Christian rock-band songs from the radio) during the Mass. And some of the songs have motions, where the kids raise their hands up when they sing, "Lord, I lift your name on high," or make a cross shape when they sing about the cross. East, West (point left, point right), you get the idea. So, two things: 1) I adore those songs already, and love seeing the kids singing them at the tops of their lungs; and 2) It made me giggle to think that our "Songprayers" and "Glory and Praise" hippie-dippy '70s music -- which also had motions [If I Were a Butterfly!!] -- was supposed to serve the same purpose for my generation of school-Mass-attending Catholic kids. Haha!

I felt EVERYTHING. I was happy, yet weepy at every "hymn." AJ knew it, too, but he didn't say anything to me. He knows his mother is a teary-eyed weirdo sometimes. I let my eyes leak regularly at his school. I love that they let parents sit with the class, with our own students, during school Masses. Because we're ALL a family of course, and we love to sing "You are Holy" (by Michael W. Smith, whom I've loved since I was 11 years old buying my first cassette tapes with a friend who was the deacon's daughter) and lift our arms up high and aaaaahhgghhhh!! I felt everything. I loved everything. I was full of joy and happiness. God does Answered Prayers really well sometimes. :)

After that we went swimming with friends, and then on our annual Memorial Day road trip, and it was all very good and the whole thing, this whole long weekend, has made me feel very grateful, and happy.