Sunday 11 May 2003

It was vocations Sunday at Mass this morning. I went on my own, but met Richard there, and asked him why he was becoming a Catholic. I'm starting to feel a bit awkward about going to mass and not doing things like signing the cross and genuflecting; it'd be a very easy thing to go through the motions, but it's strange not to do so, and strange to do so. It reminds me of learning to pray as a child. You start off by closing your eyes and putting your hands together, and it seems like that's what prayer is, but it's not really. I couldn't have much less issue with signing the cross, it being a sort of pious reminder. Genuflecting would seem to indicate particularly emphatically the presence of God. One is meant to genuflect towards the tabernacle because Christ is physically present. This is slightly more hardcore, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to affirm something I'm not sure of. Well anyway. James had a long entry about holy water, which I haven't got round to reading all of yet, but will now. Anyway, he also complained to Fr. Paul about there being no such water in the stoop last week, even though James indicated on his blog that he was very much up for it. This week however, Paul decided to bless some to do the baptismal reminder thing, and was pseudo-put-out by the fact that James wasn't even here to appreciate it. Had a little chat with him afterwards about the physical bits of the liturgy.

When I got back, Andy had decided to watch Tron, because I'd mentioned it a couple of times in relation to my liking of lightcycles clones, such as Armagetron, which is the only 3D one I've ever seen. You can play it over a network, but it's well laggy. I wonder if a direct serial link would be any better. Anyway, Andy thought the film sucked, and this is because it does, but it sucks in an entertaining sort of a way I think. After that, Andy asked if I fancied coming to Evensong. I'm a sucker for this Christianity thing, so I tagged along, listened, prayed, creeded (crode?) and sang a little. Every other time I've been to evensong, Andy and myself have sat at the far corner, but today we were directed to sit right next to them, thus enhancing the clarity somewhat. Andy did some shopping at Sainsbury's after this. There's a girl I know slightly on my course who was, I noticed, doing her shopping concurrently with us. I saw her a couple of times, but she didn't register my presence. Nor Andy's, who revealed after she left in front of us at the checkout that he also knew her. Better than I in fact, but that she hadn't spoken to him in ages. He's most put out by this, because he does not know wherein he has offended her. She also lives at St. David's apparently, so we came back the same way too. Unfortunately, she fell down the steps, and proceeded to be deeply embarassed and started talking to me, but still studiedly not to Andy. This perturbed him still more. Poor Andy.

Well, it's about time for Raiders of the Lost Ark. God bless, you crazy crazy people.