Our parish dates back to the 1800s. As such, it’s beautiful, but a bit small. There are no cry rooms. The narthex is a narrow corridor in the back of the church with double-hinged doors (easy for little hands to push) large, hollow radiators (easy for little hands and feet to bang on) an old holy-water font (easy to splash in or bend the frame of) and miscellaneous other things to get into. It’s also got a understandably dirty tile floor from all the grit that Mass-goers track in from the DC streets, so when your kids like to do the commando crawl, they act like human dust-mops.

Sophia, as she nears the age of three, is beginning to behave in Church. Not wonderfully, mind you, but as long as she is with mom she rarely if ever has to be taken out to the back. Ivan, on the other hand, is a human dynamo, climbing and squirming and flipping and flopping. The boy never sits still, humming like a fusion reactor from the moment he awakens in the morning and his eyes snap open, filled with mayhem and mischief.

Because of this, I rarely get to keep him inside the church building for longer than it takes to get to the homily. From that point, we spend most of our Mass outside, with him roaming the grounds and expending his energy as he runs from the small Marian shrine to the kneeler in front of the crucifix to the park bench to the bars separating the grounds from the street and back again. On slower days, I can usually follow along in my missal or say my rosary as well as possible until I hear the bells for the Hanc Igitur or the Consecration or the Domine Non Sum Dignus (depending on how rowdy he’s being) and head back in, hoping that God will forgive me if I receive Him whilst less-than-adequately disposed. I figure I need the graces, so I usually opt to be a communicant rather than miss out.

This past Sunday, I brought my camera with me in hopes of getting some pictures of the Church and DC while we were down there. I accomplished neither, but what I did decide to do was document Ivan’s Sunday Mass gymnastics for future reference. I hope the boy becomes a priest. I will make sure he has a copy of every one of these, so he can share with other suffering parents his own youthful exuberance for anything but sitting still. (There are quite a few in this gallery. I had burst-mode turned on and haven’t culled them yet.)

You’ll notice, approximately half way through the photos, a picture I snapped of a sign outside the church that reads, “To The Calvary” with a finger pointing toward the Sanctuary. It’s old, and peeling, but its message rings true. I would much rather be able to subdue my rambunctious 20-month-old and join my wife in the pew so I can focus on the Sacrifice, but as Sophia has proven, this is a phase that will pass. For now, I simply have to endure it, on the Sundays Jamie and I can’t take turns at home with the toddlers, and remember that I’m following His will.

There is a kindly old black woman who works at the rectory and usually stands in the narthex with us (for as long as we can manage back there) monitoring everything that’s going on. I joked with her yesterday that “Someday, I’ll actually get to be INSIDE the church for Mass.”

“Well,” she laughed, and then gave me a more serious look, “The Man Upstairs knows what you’re doin’.”

Yes, I suppose he does.

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