Achievement 1 of 12: Worship at a church once per month

On March 20, 2011 I attended the 8:30am Mass at my home church- St. Theresa. 1 down 11 more to go. I have failed to update my blog as to why I chose this goal but I eventually will so this write-up is about the achievement.

On Saturday (March 19th) I had planned to go to the 10am or 11am mass since I work part-time at a bar and didn't know what time I would get home (usually between 2 and 3am). I ended up getting home at 4am so I googled the Mass schedule and found out there was an 8:30am, a 10:00am and an 11:30am Mass. 11:30am was just a tad too late for me and I knew the 10:00am Mass would be filled with (annoying) children. So at 4:12am I set my alarm for 7:24am to make the 8:30am Mass.

And I made it! I was proud of myself when I got to the parking lot a 8:17am only to see that the parking lot looked sparse. Then I started wondering if the Mass schedule was wrong that I had looked up, maybe they had cancelled for a funeral???  I soon saw 2 couples walk in so I felt relieved and walked in to the church. I'll spare you on why I am no long a fan of this church (remodeled it a while back and it's not the church that I once knew by any means)...that's not why we go to church, right?

Church soon filled up. Only spotted  3 children under 10, the rest were well over my parents' age. The music wasn't great (we all go to church for the music, right?) but the homily was wonderful. The pastor went on a little too long at one point but the key things that I remember are:

• the first and second  (March 20th) Sundays of Lent are the most important- they set the pace for the rest of Lent
• Theme: transcend
• Don't let the Devil make your life content
• The pastor used the analog of Thanksgiving dinner. We stuff ourselves selfishly with food on Thanksgiving and then we fall asleep to the world.
• If we let the Devil make ourselves content meaning we give ourselves everything we want all the time (all the food, all the material things, etc), then we get so full of this stuff and fall asleep to God. We don't think we need Him because we have everything we think we need. And we start to believe that our lives here are better than the life beyond.
• It's okay to be pensive
• and worry about not having everything we may think we need. If we have God, we do have everything.  The life beyond this one will fill us more than the Devil can on Earth. 

There was so much more but I that's what I remember the most. I hope my explanation made sense. And lastly, here's the photo of the church bulletin as proof that I attended church. But we all know that having the bulletin doesn't always mean you sat through Mass...;) (inside childhood joke/memory with my sisters- ask me via the comment section and I'll explain).