Confirmation Complete!

What a relief!

Being short-staffed, and having a lot of other projects in the works, I was concerned about not giving enough time and energy to everything associated with confirmation this year. It's that sort of situation in which details get forgotten; and what gets forgotten could be minor...or major. Forgetting to invite someone to a meeting is one thing; forgetting something--or someone--part of a one-time event can be a deep hurt.

Well, all the children showed up, all got confirmed, all were included. The bishop showed up, everything seemed smooth--well, as smooth as such complicated endeavors can be. The servers did well, despite my having very little time to train them; the church was packed--and because I forgot to recruit ushers, I am sure no one counted; however, I did recruit a couple of boys, plus their father, to be stand-in ushers and they made sure we got programs out and the collection taken up. They recruited another boy so we got it done.

The bishop ended up having far less time at the end than he and I expected, so he didn't stay as long as we all might have hoped. He never got over to the Caserta Center for punch and cookies, so I'm sorry about that. However, he did greet a number of folks.

After the Confirmation, I joined one of our families at a confirmation party and met some friends of the family who were visiting from Colorado. The young parents brought their six boys--what a delight it was to meet them! I kidded with the boys about becoming priests, and when the retired priest came along later, I introduced each of them to him as "Father ____." He loved it and so did they. Two of the boys came up with papers, asking Father C. and me to sign "so they would pray for us." Hard to argue with that! It was part of something called the "Blue Knights," and I joked with them about having swords and helmets and perhaps a knighting ceremony; they liked everything about the idea except for the oldest brother doing the knighting--"not with a sword!"

I was pretty exhausted yesterday afternoon, and I really slept last night. I'm still tired today, but not so much. I have a partial day off today; I have two meetings this evening.