On Friday, Melanie and I went to the local Carmelite convent for the Feast of St. Therese. They are a cloistered group of nuns whose convent is dedicated to Therese and every year they have a special Mass for the feast. This was my first time. Boy, was it packed. I ended up standing in the entrance to the chapel. The Mass was presided over by Bishop Francis Irwin, an auxiliary for Boston, who did a good job. (He avoided all those “bishopy” antics, like thanking everybody in creation at the end of the Mass or breaking the rubrics just because he’s a bishop, and other inappropriate things.) His homily was good, except I think he might have found better inspiration in the words of St. Therese than having to go the lyrics for Bette Midler’s song “The Rose.”
In any case, that was a minor matter. The congregation was enthusiastic, even if the average age was probably somewhere north of 60. Still, they sang the old classics with gusto. And at the end we got beautiful roses to take home with us.
