Ok, more on the Pope, which is basically what I did on Sunday.

Some of you may know that I have a friend from high school in the D.C. area who is currently a deacon studying to be a priest. Great guy. Did Boys' Nation, met Bill Clinton, went to St. Joe's (where he roomed with the Hawk (see 1998-99), who also went to Sallies), and then immediately began his journey to become a priest.

No, his nickname for this will not be Altar Boy. Let's go with Deac.

Anyway, he's also a diehard Democrat and massive Delaware patriot. When we met at Sallies' Model United Nations program, he was always an efficient, hard-hitting delegate. Whenever I've seen him, whether he was teaching religion and history while running a high school's Model UN program or while he was working for a summer doing his hospital rotation at Georgetown (when we were trying to figure out a place to go for dinner once, he famously asked me if I knew of a place called The Tombs), he has always been unfailingly kind, organized, and dedicated.

Even better, he help me put together some of the Ikea furniture I got, including an evil A/V storage unit.

Since I've moved down here, the one thing that I haven't had is a church within walking distance, which has made my attendance sporadic. I did want to go today, however, out of a sense of obligation and import. I debated going to my old church, comfortable in the knowledge that they would roll out their big guns in Father Creedon to talk about the Pope and his concern for "the lowest, the lost, the least". The other option was the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, but that seemed too massive and impersonal.

Then I saw Deac on AIM last night and asked him where his church was. He answered that it was St. Martin's and that he was doing two masses - one at 9 and one at 12:15.

So I bounded out of my condo around 10:30. While walking there, I decided it was best to take a taxi to the Metro so I wouldn't be late. I mentioned my plans to the cabdriver, who asked me whether an American would be chosen Pope.

Anyway, after a long Metro ride that included meeting two current Sallies students who were in town for a cross-country meet at Crystal City while waiting for the Yellow Line and seeing one couple that looked around forty taking their five-year old to the Nationals exhibition game, I got off the New York Avenue station and started walking.

Sidebar. The Nationals are really getting annoying. I'd assume if Tom Boswell has a wife, she'd be considering divorcing him after seeing paean after paean. Every single baby boomer has these long-winded stories about Bat Night.

On the bright side, I have faith that the D.C. City Council will find an intriguing way to screw up the stadium deal that will leave this team in Portland.

Anyway, I walked the ten minutes to the church (fool that I am, I thought I didn't need a jacket and that it was going to warm up), sat down, and waited for Mass to start.

I saw Deac about fifteen minutes before Mass started - he seemed genuinely happy that I could come to see him. He also mentions that this is a good Mass to attend since the gospel choir is quite good. After talking for a few minutes, he heads off to get ready.

For the record, St. Martin's is an African-American-inspired Catholic church. I had never been to an African-American "gospel"-style service before (the hymnal referred to a large number of songs I had never heard of and included an essay on African-American music and its different branches). Just different enough to be noticeable - sort of like when all the celebrants at the 8pm Mass at Georgetown cluster around the altar.

Anyway. Mass starts.

Important note - if you think you're a halfway decent singer, never try to sing along with the gospel choir. Just accept your limitations, try to clap in time, and revel in gifted people praising God.

Anyway. Gospel time. The reading is John 20:19-31 - basically the origin of the term "Doubting Thomas". After that, it's time for the homily, which Deac gives.

Deac intertwined the Doubting Thomas story with his comments on knowing Pope John Paul II for his homily. It's amazing to see someone I knew in 1992 when he was a sophomore in high school give a homily during Sunday Mass.

In his Sunday column, Tom Shales wrote a relatively nice column on the coverage of the Pope's death. The only negative thing was this comment at the end:

"The Greatest Generation and the baby boomers respected such things, but the iPodders now coming to adulthood apparently do not. One wonders how many of them even knew of the pope's passing, or how many were in a snit because they couldn't see the NASCAR races as scheduled."

I wish Tom had seen Deac, talking about how Pope John Paul II was the only pope he had ever known, while referring people to the Vatican site's quick transition from John Paul II's seal to a vacant one as proof that the Church goes on, before he wrote that.

On that, I found it amazingly bizarre to switch from NBC, ABC, and Fox, all of which were showing specials on the Pope's death, to CBS, which was showing a special on Jim Calhoun of UConn.

I also found it difficult to reconcile the discussions that occurred on TV where Pope John Paul II was criticized for his stance on items such as euthanasia and women priests. It's difficult to address that since Catholics hold as an article of faith that the pope is God's messenger on Earth - if you're God's messenger, and He tells you that euthanasia is wrong, then my bet is that you're not going to go with the opinion polls.

After the homily came the Liturgy of the Eucharist, where the priest skipped over the traditional "John Paul our Pope" and went straight to "Theodore our bishop"; he then asked God to accept John Paul when he arrived at Heaven.

For the record, the number of people at the church for the Mass wasn't remarkably big - certainly under a hundred and probably under fifty (Deac later said that a lot of people missed the time change and that it's usually much more full). With the exception of the gospel choir, the vast majority of people seemed quiet.

Then came the sign of peace.

Church stopped for ten minutes. This wasn't shake the hand of the person to your left, right, and in front of and behind you. This was "shake every hand you can find in the entire church". It conveyed a warmth of community that seemed genuine and loving. Amazing.

Anyway, afterwards I sat in on a post-Confirmation class that he helped to run - the kids were quite sharp when it came to a trivia baseball game (the class also reminded me why I never want to be a middle-school tracher).

After that, I proposed that we stop and get some lunch - Deac suggested Shirlington, but wanted to stop by the Oblate residence to change first.

Famous last words.

If you are friends with a residence hall manager

and if that hall manager is in charge of the phones

and if there's a small, ten-minute power outage

and if the battery backup either doesn't work or doesn't exist

prepare for a LONG, six hour wait as your friend reprograms every single one of 40+ extensions.

I kept Deac company while he fixed the phone system. Afterwards - much later than expected, he, I, and another priest-in-training headed down to Luna Cafe.

My Sunday.