Priest Zebrun and His Dead Batteries

...hopefully I'm not the only one who liked Gangs of New York enough to get that...three baptisms, nine chrismations last Sat/Sun, and not a camera to my name that had a working battery! Maddening.

Glorious to see, though. I do believe I'm one of those people who, instead of crying at weddings as many do, I am cursed (blessed, probably) to cry at first communions. Probably's got something to do with how close I've become to all involved...and being able to relate to "coming in from the cold," as they were yesterday. To see my now-brethren and -sistren partaking for the first time of the all-holy Body and precious Blood of the One who died to trample down death for them and rose again to breathe His life into and through them...yeah, I lost it...wasn't the first time...I'd love it if it weren't the last...

How wonderful to know that they're under the full protection of the holy Church who's embraced Her Bridegroom for 2,000 years...and now, has embraced them...and now, they, though Her, are embracing Him in that most intimate of all encounters...flesh fusing with Flesh; blood mingling with Blood; one Body nourished, fed and united by the One Body; one Family linked by One Blood.

Appropriate that it should be on the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, the commemoration of the restoration of the Holy Images to the universal Church.

OK. Favorite Story Time:

My favorite story about the Holy Icons comes from a priest (I forget who, exactly) who was explaining why we kiss icons made of paint and wood to his child. He went outside and stood on the opposite side of the window. Mom told the child, "Kiss Daddy!" which the child promptly did.

The Father came back in and asked the child, "Now, what did you just kiss?"

"The window," the child said.

"Right. But, now, whom did you kiss?"

"I kissed you, Dadd-- ohhhhhhhh."

A worthy confession and realization made by those coming in that "we worship not these images as idolotry, but venerate them with the honor passing on to the prototype."

I do believe I'll go "greet the family" now.