Where two or three are gathered.....

Ah, first my preface: I'm now joining my dear husband in the blogging-world, hopefully with an occasional post here or there. I'm so blessed to have him and my son in my life, thus my blogger ID (well, that and Big Mommy, a "counterpart" to his ID, just didn't sit right!)

"Where two or more are gathered in my name, I am in the midst" Mattew 18:20

I hate to admit it, but it is becoming more difficult to go to Mass with John. He's so anxious to explore the world around him and see all there is to see, he just doesn't like to sit still for too long. And who could expect him to, right?

We went to Mass a few weeks ago at a Charismatic Catholic Church - a wonderful experience usually blessing us with awesome singing, powerful preaching and a real sense of the Spirit being in our midst in community. Vito, John and I take our seat in the back pew and almost make it through the opening prayer before John is off and running. I usually accompany him on these "tours", and we have great fun waving hi to the statues of the Saints, saying hello to a Mary portrait and so on. This Church also had a side door leading to a little garden. Once John caught sight of that, I knew where we were going to be spending the rest of Mass!! Off we go, together, out in the beautiful sunshine while I tried to listen to the first reading being preached from the lecturn.

All of my efforts to direct my little boy back inside were in vain, he was too happy to be walking around in freedom. So, we sat down, at the base of a statue of Mary and started gathering rocks. Now, John loves rocks. He'll gather them, line them up, count them off one by one and them hand them to me, like little treasures -- Indeed, they are treasures to him. Rocks and acorns, he loves them! So, we're both sitting on the ground, rock-gathering, and I watch my little boy hold each rock close to his heart and then hold them up to Mary. He'd then hand them to me. I was witnessing my son cover his treasures with love and then offer them to Mother Mary. What a beautiful, spiritual moment it was -- we didn't need to be inside at that moment, we were in God's midst celebrating our own Worship right where we were, led by John's Grace. For "Where two or more are gathered in my name, I am in the midst" I picked my son up into lap and we sang a "Hail Mary" together to "Mommy Mary" as John says.

Lord, may my sacrifices be as full and loving as my son's offering his treasures...