Returning to normal, well, our kind of normal

My wife Wendy has been home now since Monday night from her unexpected hospital stay and all is well.  She is dutifully taking her new prescription and magnesium supplement and doing well.  So much so that she has been doing her morning exercise and worked full days Tuesday - Friday.  As I write this, Wendy is at Wal-Mart.  If she can endure that workout, she is really doing well. So the balance of this week is all about returning to our kind of normal!

In reality both Wendy and I missed precious little time from work.  Wendy did miss Monday of course, being in the hospital all day, but she was back at the office Tuesday morning by 9:30.  She even worked late two evenings this week.  As for me, I missed even less time from work as Wendy willed me to stay at the office Monday until they began running tests.

I returned to ministry thankfully beginning Tuesday night with our ongoing adult faith formation exploration of the Gospel of Matthew.  We begin this earlier in the fall, when we still were in Cycle A but decided to see it thru until we reach the end.  After all, even though we move to Mark in Cycle B for Sundays, we often use Matthew for daily Mass.  Thursday night I attended our parish Advent Mission evening.  The speaker was a brother Deacon here in the Archdiocese, Dave Farinelli.  The long time Director for Marriages and Family Life, Deacon Dave is a gifted speaker.  He was given the topic of Baptism as it relates to Advent and he hit a home run borrowing on themes from the Christmas classic, A Christmas Carol.  I was thankful that I attended the event, both to be there to see Deacon Dave but to support our parish in an effort to hold this mission.  Friday night was another 1st Friday, the only one that happens in Advent.  At MHT parish, we have all day Adoration, then Confessions in the early evening, Benediction at 6:45 followed by Mass.  I assisted last night as Deacon of the liturgy.  See what I mean, normal for us.  Then comes today.  I love helping in any way I can with formation classes and activities for the newcomers.  Today I drove Deacon Frans Labranche to class so he could present the final session for Social Justice to our 2018 aspirants.  It is my contribution to simply bring Deacon Frans as this is the 30th year he has taught this class.  I enjoy reliving my own experience from taking this class in 2004 and experiencing the reaction of yet another new class.

Tonight, Wendy and I are going to spend a quiet evening together, finalizing our Christmas decorations as we continue to reflect on Advent.  And we are going to continue to give thanks that she is recovering so well from last weekend's scare.  We have clearly returned to normal, ues, our kind of normal!