At Last! The White Swan & Mass

We arrived in Guangzhou yesterday afternoon after a 2-hour flight. Leah only cried once early on when she was frustrated about the window being too small to see out of. After a few Cheerios, she wound up falling asleep for most of the flight. There was some crying on the bus ride to the White Swan hotel, mainly because we were out of coconut milk and past the normal feeding time.

Things improved for all of us once we were settled in our room. We joined two other families from our travel group to make a direct path to Lucy's where everyone except Angela ordered a hamburger and fries for our first real American fare since landing in Beijing over a week ago. Angela ordered a chicken wrap, but we'll blame her temporary insanity on the cold she seems to have picked up from Leah.

After dinner, we worked our way among the souvenir shops in search of more diapers for our stinky angel. A worker at one of the shops asked us what size Leah wore then disappeared into the streets of Shamian Island for about 15 minutes. She returned with a package of Pampers priced at 59RMB ($9). I joked that we would probably find them the next day for 35RMB, but it saved us searching on our own so we took the nighttime deal. After being forced to promise a return the next day to buy some souvenirs, we reached our destination of the local Starbucks. Bill came to my rescue by offering to buy my Caffe Latte Grande when I realized I had spent the last of my current wad of foreign currency on the diapers. With the delicious drink in hand, we returned to the hotel to call it a night. Leah was unusually active so we were forced to turn off TV and lights and all go to bed around 8:30 along with her.

As has been the case most every night in China, I awoke around 3 AM for no good reason. This time, I played around on the internet to see if I could figure out when the local Catholic Church was celebrating Mass. Our Lady of Lourdes had a listed time of 8 AM -- not very convenient for Angela's or Leah's schedule, but we missed church last Sunday so we made the sacrifice to attend.

Fr. Roux might have frowned on the banners and colored Christmas lights hanging in the sanctuary, but they did have Jesus and Mary. They also had a tabernacle, a confessional, and incense. The priest and two male adult servers also sprinkled the congregation with Holy Water, and all knelt throughout the Eucharistic liturgy. For the sign of peace, the laity simply bowed to each other without any shaking of hands, hugging, or kissing. There was no hand holding during the Lord's Prayer. To top it off, the priest gave a homily that lasted longer than any I ever heard from Frs. Reid or Roux. Angela and I speculate that it took that long for the Chinese to express the fact that "Jesus wept."

Any way, praise God that in His wisdom, he would instruct us to include outward signs in the liturgy. Between sitting, standing, and kneeling along with the sign of the cross and other visual cues, we had no problem knowing where we were in the Mass at any given time. While a Latin Mass would have been bonus, we figure we understood just about the same amount today. We also noted that there would be a Christmas Eve Mass at 8:30 PM which is great since we will be on an airplane all of Christmas Day. Although that will be an equal sacrifice as far as schedule, I look forward to another opportunity to worship before the long flight home.

My apologies to Fr Roux for snubbing him by giving another priest first dibs on a blessing for Leah. With the assistance of Cheerios, Leah sat quietly throughout most of the hour long Mass. She only cried once as we returned from Communion. As it turned out, she was apparently upset that we did not have a hymnal for her to hold while the rest of the people were singing!

Back at the White Swan, we enjoyed breakfast and returned to our room. Angela is snoozing on the bed after taking some medicine for her cold. Leah is tearing the room apart and making international phone calls as I type out this blog entry. We are both watching Popeye in Cantonese on TV. We skipped the tour to the Buddhist Temple today in favor of attending Mass, and plan to check out the island with our friends this afternoon. No new pictures to add since leaving Zhengzhou yesterday morning, but I'm sure we'll have more in the coming days.

A special Happy Birthday wish to our seven year old son Eli! If not for Mass this morning, we were going to call home to wish him a happy birthday in person. Although his birthday is still "tomorrow" back home, it is "today" here. We can't wait to come home -- just five more days...