Friday, July 25, 2008

Pilgrim Blog: Day 13

Mrs. Willitts’ Blog - July 23, 2008

Whew! By the time this is posted, the pilgrims have landed and sleeping in their own beds. Of course these are the beds that they have not seen for 12 nights.

As I considered the date assigned me, I thought: “This is great, a no-brainer, all we are doing on this day is flying.” Sounds pretty simple…

Absolutely nothing is simple with the Dragaroos: example: am I writing about today – maybe today is yesterday or today could be tomorrow – whatever. Really, this dateline crossing is wrecking havoc on the calendar, after all, we completed a 43-hour Sunday!

But here is what transpired on this day of flight from Hawaii to Boston. Let’s see, we got up at 4:00 A.M. Luggage collected in the hotel pickup area at 5:00 A.M. I point out that no breakfast is included. But to the rescue is a bag with crackers and some fruit supplied by Fr. Matt. The baggage was loaded onto a truck and off it went to the airport as we waited now for our 5:30 bus. And yes the bus was on time. We boarded, prayed and off we go for a lazy day of flying.

Such a piece of cake – through checking-in luggage with no additional charges for the extremely over-weight baggage, through the security check with no one sounding off bells and whistles and off to get Burger King, Chinese or anything for breakfast. Then we begin our venture of take-offs and landings that will eventually bring us to Boston.

We had a scheduled 5-hour layover at the Los Angeles airport. Now here is where things get interesting. As pilgrims on a faith-filled journey, we had celebrated daily Mass for the past 12 days. With time on our hands, Fr. Matt seized the moment and searched out airport personal. He wanted to know where the airport chapel was so that we could celebrate Mass. Well, lo and behold, the city of angels has no chapel in the airport. Did that stop this energetic young priest and 126 pilgrims? No way!

Here at LAX, in the Air Tran luggage check-in area with no airport personal to check-in our bags, Mass was celebrated. An oversized suitcase was laid down on the floor. A large plastic airport tray was placed over the luggage and waa-la and altar was built. Christin, the performer that did the Mother Theresa segment in Sydney, provided a green Hawaiian print cloth to cover our altar. Sean Longden volunteered to do the reading. As Fr. Matt dressed for Mass, Deacon Roshan set the altar. And we were ready to begin. We sang, we prayed, we worshiped all in an airport baggage area. This was an extra-ordinary moment of what we were called to Sydney to do – “…be my witnesses”. Even the reading of the day spoke directly to the youth – “don’t be afraid because of your youth…”

And back to take-off, eating, sleeping, and landing. Take-off, eating, sleeping, landing. And take-off, eating, sleeping, landing.

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