Old and young

We've been in the process of working toward establishing a children's choir here at the parish and one of our parents and teachers has been working with the children who are interested.

One of our Sisters who works largely with our sick and elderly came up with the brilliant idea to ask the children to sing at the Mass at - what I call - the St. Anthony of Padua Retirement Monastery (faithful blog readers will know what I mean).

I just happened to have my camera in my pocket (it's true; it's the nice thing about having a small camera now; I can take it with me wherever I go and it doesn't get in the way) yesterday when I arrived to celebrate the Mass so I asked one of the moms to take pictures. She agreed and I'm glad she did.

The children sang very well and even proclaimed the First Reading and the Psalm very well. I was very pleased with them. As usual, the elderly prayed very well. It was a beautiful celebration.

Because this retirement center does not have it's own chapel, we meet in one the common spaces in the hallway. It is generally a good location as it's in the back of the building and doesn't get a great deal of traffic when we're there. As you can see, we don't have a lot of space to work with.

The only real trouble with celebrating Mass in places that don't have a chapel is finding a decent sized table to use that's high enough that the priest doesn't have to almost fall over to reverence it with a kiss. I haven't found one high enough yet. And I haven't found a "portable altar" that is actually portable, unless you have a small entourage with you, which I haven't, though I would be open to one.