Francis Xavier: Jekyll Island

Quite unexpectedly, I landed upon my first church to visit in our diocese and it was a wonderful experince. I'm not always a huge fan of "signs" from God (I seem to always conclude that God is up in the sky having a good laugh after he sends me a so called "sign"), but I think he may have sent me confirmation that he approves of my little project. My family took a long weekend vacation to Jekyll Island (80 miles south of Savannah) this past weekend and found ourselves in need of a church during our stay. We ended up at a very small church, St. Francis Xavier. Actually, this is no regular catholic church. It's actually a methodist/Lutheran church. It moonlights as a catholic church.

 I immediately noticed something about this parish as I walked in. There was so much white hair! My sister and I being 27 and 31 were somewhat of an anomaly. Later at dinner, my dad said, "it's like being at church with your grandparents." People were so friendly as we sat down and as mass started we were encouraged to meet the people sitting around us. My mom quickly made friends with a kind woman sitting behind us. She quickly encouraged us to turn our cell phones off (apparently there had been quite an ordeal with a cell phone/ priest/ and the consecration the week before).

 It came to me sometime during the offertory.  The word that describes this people is relax. It was after the prayers of the faithful, when father asked us to be seated that I began to feel relaxed. An usher at the front of the church yelled out, "raise your hand if you're planning on receiving communion." My sister seemed to not understand the strange announcement so l leaned over to her and said, "Lyndsey, put your hand up." My sister, looked at me, looked down the pew at my mom and dad, all of us with our hands up, and looked around the small church with everyone else's hands up. She, quite unaffected, put her hand in the air. Later, after communion, the priest asked, "do we have announcements"? As usual when this question is asked, there were several. We had a birthday announcement, an announcement about mass time for next week, and then we (if we happened to be a woman), were encouraged to bring a lilly to mass next week for Easter decorations. Relax. raise your hand for communion for a head count, bring a lilly for Easter, turn your cell phone off (or something funny may happen). Relax.  Of course, mass is always a little different at the beach. Think of all your funny mass experiences- i'll bet at least one of them was at the beach. Was it, perhaps, relaxed?

As I thought and prayed later after mass, I thought of St. John "relaxing" next to Jesus. If someone is relaxed, they are generally, "at peace." Normally, they know who they are and are confident in where they're going. So, from the people at St. Francis Xavier on Jekyll Island, I learn to relax.