Well folks, I've fallen behind again.  I was intending to write up a post about what happened on Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, but unfortunately I haven't gotten to it yet.  Thus, I'm (for now) cutting my losses and writing something up about the week after Easter: Divine Mercy Sunday.  For now I'm not going to dive into the spiritual aspects of Divine Mercy - perhaps I'll post about that some other time - it certainly is beautiful, important, powerful, and necessary, but I'm sticking with the hum-drum world of seminary here and will save the spiritual side of things for another day.

Mass, if I remember correctly, was pretty typical - you know, heaven on earth, with me struggling to pay attention...  After Mass another one of the guys asked me if I was interested in going to a Eucharistic procession at St. John's (a beautiful, vibrant parish in downtown Indianapolis).  I was trying to figure out a way to do something special for the feast, and it was looking less likely that I would make it to anywhere else at 3:00, so I jumped on the opportunity and headed downtown.  It took a few laps around the block to find a place to park because we were looking for the place that has $2 parking (versus $6+ elsewhere).  Eventually we found it, parked, and headed down to the street that St. John's was on.  As we headed down the stairs we heard loud music playing (from a rock band) and a huge inflatable dog.  As we began to march through the crowd, and the hundreds of dogs, it hit me that there was something other than a Eucharist procession here; we had run into some sort of doggy event.  There was stands selling hot-dogs, pizza, dog biscuits, leashes and everything else associated with canines, right next to St. Johns. Ignoring the hustle and bustle we entered St. Johns and waited for the procession to begin.

Fr. Nagel processed out carrying the monstrance with several altar servers in tow, paused to let 4 young guys (more servers!) to lift the baldachin (canopy thing) over the monstrance and the procession of the many people in church assembled behind.  Once on the sidewalk, a man walking near the front started the Divine Mercy Chaplet (singing) which we all (obviously) prayed along.  We sang some hymns and by then had walked away from the church and were on our way back.  I didn't know if they were going to turn before the church or walk beyond it and run into the dog-walk.  Well, they didn't even flinch, and Father went charging (ok, he kept walking, but he did have to forge a path of sorts) into the crowd.  Briefly the hymn was drowned out by the band that was playing for the dog thingy, and then the congregation got the song going again.  It was a beautiful moment as the dog walkers stepped to the side to watch Our Lord process past.  I don't know if they knew what they were seeing, but they were cordial none-the-less.  Great moment!  Really showed me the power of Christ even in our modern society.

Well folks, this write-up is too long already.  I've been banging out a few sentences every day and now I don't remember what else I wanted to say.  Enjoy the pictures (and video) and have a great Sunday afternoon (we have gorgeous weather here!).

God Bless!