Church on Sunday

The last picture is the nativity scene outside the small Catholic church... isn't it interesting?

The next morning, I had the opportunity to sing at the lighting of the advent wreath outside the big Catholic church here in Tata.  I wasn’t sure what the plan was, since I had missed choir that week.  Oh heck – if I’d been at choir I still wouldn’t have known what was going on.  I had to get the troops roused and be out the door by 10:20.  I arrived at church – since I was told we were singing after church – early and went inside.  This was the first time I had been in the big Catholic church in my town, and it was beautiful.  It had very interesting murals and all different types of art on the inside. I hadn’t been in there but 5 minutes, when it was time in mass to kneel.  I was standing in the back with about 2 dozen other people, and they all proceeded to kneel, so I did too.  Kneeling on a hard concrete floor wasn’t exactly my idea of fun, but hey.  Shortly thereafter was the handshake of peace.  Sheesh – all of a sudden Hungarians were approaching me and I didn’t know what to do or say so I just stood there and smiled.  Some did the handshake, some did the double kiss… it was stressful.  Speaking of stressful, it was coming on Communion and I hadn’t spotted anyone else from the choir.  Oh no.  Where was I supposed to be?  What was I supposed to be doing? I didn’t even know what songs we were singing.  Shit.  Then, the army walked in.  I was glad that they all had skipped out on actually attending church and came just for our songs.  Nice church choir we are huh?  At any rate, Communion was an interesting experience.  It was not as orderly as I was used to – row by row… it was a free for all.  Anyone who wanted communion could go – and at any point that they chose.  It was really weird, but anyhow.  As church was wrapping up, it all started to make sense to me why we were singing after mass – we were singing for the lighting of the advent wreath- which was outside.  Hmph- it was freezing out, but hey- it was for the church so I made a sacrifice J  We lined up and before I knew it, we were singing.  Luckily I knew this song, so I was not worried.  Then the priest spoke for a bit, and we sang again.  I had sung this song before, but Edit luckily had the music so I looked on with her.  The last song we sang, I totally faked.  I had never seen it before, so I spent the entire song looking over Edit’s shoulder to see what was next.  It was not good – especially since the Tata Television guy was there filming us.  Man.  Oh well – We sang and life was good.