Since my headache's let up a bit ... I'm Elect now!

So my Naproxen Sodium FINALLY kicked in, and my headache is managable. It's still there, but at least it only feels like a thud now instead of razor blades.

I'm an Elect now! We had our Rite of Sending and Rite of Election this Sunday at the Cathedral. The Rite of Sending basically consisted of my priest asking the catechumens to stand up, and then our sponsors said we were ready to be baptized. Then the Candidates stood up and walked out with us to Breaking of the Word.

I also want to interject here to say that the music that the Cathedral has been playing has been SOOOO beautiful lately! Ash Wednesday music was great - very traditional. Then today they sang the most beautiful Kyrie Eliason I have ever heard. I wish they would do that EVERY week! Each song was so beautiful. And the priest chanted a lot of his prayers. Plus my very favorite cantor, this man whose songs almost bring me to tears they are so beautiful, was singing this week. The music really made this Mass very spiritual for me.

When we got to "the catecombs" where we have our Breaking of the Word (it's in the basement of the Cathedral), they had a nice table set up and had a big book - the Book of the Elect. Our book has been with the cathedral since about 1990, I think they said. All of the adults who have been baptized at Easter vigils since 1990 were in that book. It was very moving to read. There's 8 of us in our class who are being baptized, and all of us but one were there. We signed our name in the book, and then talked a little about the ceremony going on that evening, and about the ceremony next week for the Candidates.

Dan agreed to go with me to the Rite of Election. We got there early, and got seats right in front of the choir. The ceremony was great. There was a small child behind us that I wish would have had a babysitter, which was very aggrivating for Dan as well, but since he comes to almost every class, I've kind of learned how to tune him out a bit. The service started with Liturgy of the Word, and then each church introduced their catechumens. Then we all got to shake hands with the Bishop. They gave us all an excellent book with the history of the diocese, which I found very interesting. Our diocese is so large they had to have two of these services, and our service was the second one. At our service, I'm guessing there were probably 200 or so people who were announced for baptism.

The only issue I had was with the music. I love good old Gregorian chant, and traditional hymns. The stuff they were singing was WAY too Christian Rock for me. The songs they played were:

Here I Am Lord - Dan Shutte
Reponsorial Psalm by David Haas
You Are God: Te Deum - Marty Haugen
I Say "Yes" Lord/ Digo "Si," Senor - Donna Pena
Intersessions For The Elect (General Intercessions with Triligual Response) - Bill Gergen
You Are Mine - David Haas

As I mentioned above, the music at the Cathedral was absolutely gorgeous at Mass, and then came this trumpet-playing Randy Newman guy at the piano band, and it was so jarring and unspiritual. I didn't enjoy the music at ALL! But I did my best to feel spiritual. I was glad that Dan was there, too, because it was nice to have someone to make snarky comments to.

He enjoyed hearing Bishop Grahmann speak because he was miked "with one of those headset microphones like Britney Spears", and when he would talk, it would sound like the Booming Voice of God. Bishop Grahmann rocks.