"Sunday Morning, Very Bright....

".... I read my book by colored light / that came in through the pretty window-pictures." I thought of that lovely song about going to church with mother, as I got dressed to go to St. Thomas the Apostle Church for 10:45 AM Mass. I had debated long about where to go to worship this particular Sunday morning. I had considered St. Mary's Chapel, the Catholic Newman Club parish for U of M students – I often attended services there in my past Catholic youth – and had also noted that there was a very nice-sounding Episcopal parish just around the corner from the place I was staying. But in the end, I really felt drawn to worship once again in the building in which I'd first learned to pray the ancient prayers of the Roman Missal.

As I was driving over to Kingsley Street, I found myself humming "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," and chuckled to myself: "I'll bet I'm not going to hear that in St. Thomas this morning!" Never bet against The Creator, folks: as I walked into the church, the organist was rendering a rousing variation on the melody for "Eine Feste Burg," to which Uncle Martin Luther had set such mighty words. Thanks, dear Pope John Twenty-Three, for opening those windows!

In many ways, I found the St. Thomas of today had not changed that much, however: I noted the usual lack of friendly greetings or welcoming smiles (to which I've now become so gladly accustomed in Episcopal parishes); the vast population of little children were yelling and fidgeting next to their parents (no parish Sunday School here, those kids need to learn to genuflect and fold their hands, somehow); and it's still hard to get an aisle-hugger to let one into the occupied pew. However, as I was resigning myself to squeezing in behind one of the big marble pillars that support the basilica form of the building, a fellow who was saving a place for someone shoved over a bit and indicated that there was actually room for one more on his side of the pillar. I gave him a big smile, and sat down.

I'd forgotten what great acoustics that basilica has got: and now the parish has a superb organist and a really fine choir to take advantage of that blessing. Listening to the coda strains of "A Mighty Fortress" I thought that I could not believe I'd ever dared to set my fingers and toes on that instrument – but I guess I did, back in the day. Ah, the hubris of youth. The choir, later in the Mass, sang a gorgeous version of Mozart's "Ave Verum Corpus," and I remembered that we'd been taught to sing that, in Latin, when I was in choir there – along with how to read shape-note Gregorian chant. It was a privilege I have only appreciated much later in life.

It was very moving to receive the sacraments this Sunday in the church where I'd made my First Communion – then with my little hands placed palm to palm in pious prayer, returning to my pew with Sister's guidance, placing my hands then over my face, as I tried to imagine Jesus actually being inside my soul (and with no clue in the world as to what Transubstantiation meant – as is ever true, world without end, Amen).

I prayed, there, for my mother, who had instilled the faith that yet sustains me in my latter age, for my father (whose different way of faith did the same), and for "everyone for whom I've been asked to pray, down through my ages".

As we were dismissed and began filing out, the man who'd moved over to make a little room for me in the pew turned to me and said, "I hope you have a lovely Sunday." (Knock me down with a wet noodle!)

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After church, I decided to make a full-nostalgia day of it, and drove out to the old roadhouse near Lakewood where my parents used to take me with them occasionally when they went out for a cocktail: Weber's Lounge. Of course it's now a huge convention hotel and very fancy restaurant facility; but for $9.25, I had a generous brunch buffet meal (quite conventional, as befits a convention center, but a steal at that price – and with fresh-squeezed OJ!)

I spent the rest of Sunday getting packed up a bit and ready to move out of Claire's Guesthouse, and in trying to decide whether I could go up to the old vacation haunt of my youth in Kincardine, Ontario, on the shore of Lake Huron. But the weather reports were ominous as evening wore on, and it looked unlikely that I would leave Ann Arbor .... ("Oh, no, you can't escape!" I thought once again, history repeating itself.) But I resigned myself to deciding on Monday morning what I would do – and at least now I had self-determination on my side, as had not been the case when I was 18 years old.