And The Winner Is...

Only a few times in my life have I ever gone to the Life Teen Mass at my parish. The first time was my very first time at any Mass ever. My second time was last fall, and I took issue with a few different aspects and resolved to stick to the regular Masses if at all possible. The third time, due to a series of circumstances and events, ended up having to be last night.

This time was better - but there is still one story that simply begs to be told.

Last night was the final Life Teen Mass of the year; they do not do them during the summer. As such, part of the announcements at the end of Mass involved thanking every single person who was in any way involved over the course of the year, and having each person or group of people stand up so we could give them each a round of applause. The youth minister did each of these announcements except for the final one, since for that one, someone else had to come up and invite everyone to thank the youth minister.

It was a pretty long list. There are a lot of people who help out at our parish, including within the Life Teen program, which has quite a few teenagers. For each group on the list the congregation gave a short burst of nice, polite applause. Perhaps appropriately, yet still a bit odd, the youth minister finished his portion of the list by stating that we owe the most (of course) to God and invited a round of applause for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The congregation complied, giving God also a quick round of nice, polite applause. I sat and, well, sat, saying a quick prayer of thanks to God and trying to hide my amusement.

I don't think I did nearly so well hiding my laughter at the absurdity of the whole thing when a moment later - after remaining seated to give God a nice, polite round of applause - the whole congregation gave the youth minister an enthusiastic standing ovation.