Horray! We made it to Dublin! but enough about that... (for now)... this post has to do with my Tuesday at the House in Wexford.
We woke up today and the day began just as Monday did. It's a routine that I could get used to... breakfast, then leave the house at 9:15 to walk to the parish, join the older folks for the rosary, and then Mass with the parish. Not a bad start to any normal day :-)
From that point, I was hanging out in the office as each member of the community did their own work and I got to read a bit of the Irish Catholic. There is no doubt that I am bringing it back to continue reading a few of the articles that have to do with the exact thing that I was looking at while I was here -the current state of the Church in Ireland.
By far the best part of the day was when I got to go next door (like down the hallway, not down the street) to join Patrick and Carolyn in leading a Confirmation retreat. I joined them after the break, at about 11am, so that I could see things in motion. The participants were 6th class students, which as I soon realized are very young for a retreat (especially one with a small group element). Without a doubt, Patrick and Carolyn did everything they could to make it possible for these students to get something out of the day, but it was tough going sometimes. Thinking back to when I was in 6th grade... a retreat that involved affirmations and 20 minutes of reflection would've been a stretch, but by the end of the day the students were all in. A couple of the surveys that the students filled out afterwards even asked for more prayer time. One of the students was originally loud and actively resisting and bringing others with him, but after lunch he was a different person. He settled down, blew off some steam, and was changed all together. I watched his face as Carolyn explained the stained glass windows and was moved more than he was... he saw things in that window that I wouldn't have noticed in half an hour. Then during the reflection time he didn't say a word and I would go so far as to say he enjoyed it :-)
Leading the retreat made for a long day, but I wasn't going to turn down an option to visit an Irish castle! The pictures say a lot more then I can... but it was awesome. We didn't (couldn't, it was reserved for weddings and such) go inside, but the grounds were even better.
The evening was spent just hanging with the community and celebrating the fact that I had somewhere to stay in Dublin with ice cream cones from the gas station (horray lactaid). And since this post began with the word horray, it might as well end with the word horray!
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