7 Quick Takes vol. 7

It's Quick Takes time again!!  Enjoy!  And don't forget to check out other Quick Takes at our host's Jen Fulwiler's blog.

~1~

I had wanted to do a whole post about the lecture I attended last Thursday about the Council of Trent, but I never had the time.  So instead of a whole post, thought I would mention one interesting thing about that talk here.  The Council of Trent was held from 1545-1563 and was in response to the Protestant Reformation.  One of the main things that got done at Trent was the standardization of the Roman Rite Mass.  But the talk itself actually focused much more on the history that led up to Trent than anything really about Trent.

So the one thing I found really interesting was in regard to the elevation of the Eucharist during Mass.  Up until about the 10th century the Eucharist wasn't elevated right after the consecration.  Also remember that the priest faced the same way as the people, so without the elevation the people could not see anything and did not know when the consecration happened (I don't know when the bells were instituted, but once that was instituted that would have been the only way the people knew that the consecration had happened).  It was around the 10th century when at the request of the people, the priest started elevating the host, the Eucharist, the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ.  The people wanted to be able to see and adore Jesus in the Eucharist.  So around 1000 AD was when this was put in place.  Interestingly, it was only the Eucharist that was elevated, not the chalice.

~2~

Our front porch is done!!  Last weekend, hubby stripped the columns and railings, primed, put up molding on the columns, and then painted the whole thing.  He also replaced the outside lights with something much, much better than what we had.  It looks so much better!!  This weekend we're (hopefully) going to go get a tree and plant it in the big hole in our backyard.

~3~

On Monday I attended another session of what is being called "Companions on the Journey."  It is at my church and being led by the rector of my parish.  This session was all about gratitude.  Unlike the first session, I feel like I got a lot more out of this one.  One thing that gave me food for thought:

When you greet someone and they ask, "How are you?" you should respond with "I am blessed!"  I bet you'd get some surprised looks at the bank or the grocery store, but also just from your friends.  I haven't started this yet, kind of hesitant to do it.  And think about saying that if you're having a bad day.  It'd be hard to be too down on yourself if you had to admit that you ARE blessed despite what may be going on in your life.  Definitely something to think about!

~4~

Wednesday night we attended the "Evening of Excitement."  It was a lot of fun!!  This was a dinner/fundraising event for our local Catholic radio station.  It was free and a big announcement was promised.  We saw lots of people we knew, met some people we hadn't met before, and got to see some people we hadn't seen in a while.  The Bishop gave the keynote speech and then we got the big announcement.  The Catholic station currently runs on an AM station and is required to power down between sunset and sunrise.  So it really doesn't come in at all during those times.  You can get it online, but that means only at home or work, not in your car.  So first (not the big announcement) they are increasing their wattage so that they will cover more area (maybe we'll get it in our house!!).  Second, the big announcement was that they will be simulcasting the station on an FM channel sometime in early 2011!  Woohoo!!  That means 24 hours a day it'll be available in the metro area and it won't get hard to hear because of static when you're under power lines at a red light or in a parking garage.  I'm looking forward to the change.  Hopefully more people will discover Catholic radio as well.

~5~

We've been going to a lot of things lately.  We attended the third part of the Liturgy series on Thursday of this week.  The priest who presided at our wedding and is now pastor at a few parishes about an hour south of us came up to give the talk on Vatican II.  He is such a history person!!  I've heard him give different talks at Church as well as at Theology on Tap events and he obviously knows a lot of history.  He gave a good talk and made a point to talk about the fact that what happened to the Mass following Vatican II was not the only major change to the Mass in the history of the Church.  I feel like I have a deeper appreciation for the history of the mass overall.

Unfortunately I'll be out of town next week for the last talk.  That one will be about the changes that are coming to the Mass starting in Advent of 2011.  Wish I could be there, but hopefully there will be other opportunities to hear about the changes coming before they get here.  I expect we will.

~6~

After the talk last night we went to a new frozen yogurt place that just opened in town.  Actually, Thursday and today was their "soft" opening, the grand opening is Saturday.  It is called Orange Leaf.  It's self-serve frozen yogurt with a topping bar and you pay by the ounce.  There were about 10 or so different flavors of frozen yogurt (everything from vanilla and chocolate to coffee to mango and pomegranate) and lots and lots of different toppings (fruit, candy, sprinkles, cereal, granola, etc.).  You can take one flavor or mix some flavors, take as many toppings as you want, and then you pay depending on how much it weighs.  For the two of us we ended up paying a little under $7.  I didn't think that was too bad.  And the bowls were pretty big, it'd be easy to fill that thing up!!

~7~

Finally, just wanted to mention that today was Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.  There is a lot about this day on the website October 15th.  I lit three candles this evening starting at 7pm for my three babies.  I'd like to see a larger public event in my city to commemorate this day.  But I think I'll start with my church first.  I may talk to our rector soon about doing something next year.  A year to plan should be plenty of time.  Any ideas?  Did you attend a public event?  What did they do?  Was it at a church or somewhere else?

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