Glorious

It was a glorious weekend. Perfect for a little friend time, and some of that old time religion.

It started with tons of gorgeous weather, an epiphany or two, followed by a First Communion. Throw in a couple of beers and a Leaf playoff victory and really, can you get any better than that?

The weather has been so beautiful all week that I’ve almost enjoyed working in the sunshine. All that sun went to my head, however, and was giving me visions. Or hallucinations. But let’s go with epiphanies, in keeping with the spiritual theme.

One is I’m getting lazy again, so I went to the track at Eastdale for the first time this season Saturday for a run. Put the track shoes on Sunday, too.

The second revelation was that I need to work on my awesome, so perhaps some church time was in order. You know, for some divine guidance.

So, on Sunday morning, after watching the Leafs square their playoff series with the Bruins the night before, I went to church. St. Phillip the Apostle Catholic Church, to be exact. The occasion was my young friend Phoenix’ Communion and his mom Terrine asked me to go, so I did.

Now Terrine, who is about 50 months pregnant, is a dear friend and one of my favourite people so I would have gone anyway, but each time I run into her and her family, I end up spending a few minutes chatting with Phoenix.

He’s my buddy now. So I went for him.

Now I don’t go to church much, but where I grew up the local United Church was a community focal point in my WASP neighbourhood. It’s where I learned to smoke, and where I had my first “ask her if she likes me” moment.

But all my church-going in the past two decades has been to Catholic churches because my family is Catholic and my kids all attended Catholic schools.

So while I enjoy my time there – in church, that is – there is a certain disconnect because the rituals are different from my childhood experiences. Sunday, however, I felt right at home, thanks to Father Callaghan, who is hands down the funniest priest I’ve ever heard.

He even slipped a Leafs reference into the “repeat after me” stuff he was sharing with Phoenix and the rest of the kids up at the front.

“God can do anything,” he said. “He even got the Leafs into the playoffs.”

A bonus was I got to see little Ava – Phoenix' little sister and a bundle of two year-old perpetual motion if there ever was one – in action for the first time. Terrine and her husband Dan were hesitant to bring her into church, insisting Ava was the spawn of the devil, but I sided with Grandma. She’s just an angel, says Patricia, with too much energy.

Anyway, the ceremony was beautiful, Phoenix enjoyed his moment and I'm pretty sure I saw a few of the Kardashian sisters, and we exited the church to more glorious sunshine. Whether I gained any divine guidance remains to be seen.

But all in all, a glorious weekend.