sunday openers and sunday mass

Here are some pictures from last Sunday. Let's just say Cole looks much better than the last guy to wear this jersey. .

I actually took the jersey off by the end of the first quarter. . .just superstitious I think.

And since we're talking about Sundays, we finally got a date for Cole's christening - October 5th. Bill and I sat through a hour long "class" where a woman told us it was okay to raise our boy as a Catholic. Hmmm. Then they gave us a date. Apparently they do the ceremony during a regular morning mass. . .so ours will be at the 8:45 a.m. mass, with breakfast after.

After a long discussion with Bill about how many people we could actually invite due to space and breakfast issues, we decided that the best (and most fair) would be to just invite the immediate families. I know that knocks a few of you off the invitation list. . .but think of it this way. . .you don't have to sit through church. . .and a free breakfast isn't that exciting, anyway. :-) Thanks for understanding.

All this planning and preparation for Cole's baptism got Bill and I talking though about something we hadn't even thought of before now - what to do about Cole's faith or spirituality or whatever you want to call it. Neither Bill nor I are practicing Catholics.

I went to years and years of catholic school (lot of good it did me!) and Bill stopped catechism young. In fact, we (or rather, I) wanted to get married in my childhood church but couldn't because Bill hadn't made all the required sacraments. In addition to the hundreds of dollars it was going to cost to put him through the accelerated classes for these sacraments, he didn't have the time it was going to take to "learn" what he needed to so we could be married in the church. So we JP-ed it. And we didn't go to hell. . .yet.

After a surprisingly short discussion, we were both on the same page from the start and figure the most important thing is to make sure Cole knows the importance of spirituality - in whatever form that takes. The church, we figure, is an important institution in our society and it'll be important that Cole knows about the church and also how to behave in one. Regardless if we go to church on a regular basis or not, there will always be weddings and funerals that'll take us back to it. And Cole should know what that's about and not be frightened as I know some young kids can be when they aren't comfortable in that setting.

So what exactly does all that mean? *Sigh* It means mom needs to start taking Cole to Sunday mass. Is this one of those sacrifices you do for your children that you never see coming?

Besides, as Bill and I joked. . .it isn't until you get older that the church tells you that ludicrous thinking that women can't be priests and that gays are horrible people. . .and Cole will know those things are ridiculous long before that. In the meantime though, learning that it's nice to give a leper a helping hand (terrible joke!) is a great thing for a kid to think about.