Sunday Morning

March 12, 2017
7:25 AM, Madrid


After a fairly restful night, I’m up and ready for coffee.  I’m going for a short run to the Starbucks…except it doesn’t open for another hour!  What’s a gal gotta do to get a cup of coffee in the AM around here?  This is the first hotel since the Waldorf where I haven’t had a coffee pot in my room.  Hopefully the hotel breakfast will do, though those tiny cups are never enough.

Breakfast did not disappoint.  It was a buffet, but none like I’d ever seen.  Meats and cheeses, fruits and some kind of yogurt-like substance, pastries, bread and fresh eggs if you wanted them.  And the coffee!  I have decided that I do like Spanish coffee!  It’s thick and rich but not bitter.  I’m re-thinking my earlier impressions of Spain.  We’ll see how long it lasts.  Off to Mass—I haven’t been in years but the words and the ritual never really leave you.

Church today was beautiful.  The shortest Mass I’ve ever been to but still beautiful.  It’s been decades since I’ve attended Mass as a Catholic, though, every Mass since then has been easy to follow along as the perfect impostor.  Today, however, I felt quite lost.  I had no idea what was happening.  I could pick out words here and there and at one point, I thought I recognized The Lord’s Prayer but then, later in the Mass, I realized it was too early and felt slightly foolish for reciting it in English anyway. 
I tried to use the time to pray and reflect.  It occurred to me, as I sat staring at the face of God, that over here, all the way in Spain, He still hears me.  I was also struck by the visual implication of seeing the body of Christ on the cross.  In my own faith, we do not display the body—only the cross, because we celebrate the risen Lord.  But I thought that the Catholic faith had done something profound when displaying the body of Christ.  How differently would I feel about my sins if I had to face Christ every Sunday?  To see him there, dying for me every Sunday.  I must see it more and appreciate it more.  If I did, I might remember better the sacrifice made and come to terms with the fact that He loved us more than anyone else ever could and He so cared for my soul that He died for it.

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