Here's a picture of my children's Chrismation on December 3, 2006 at St. Mary's Holy Protection Byzantine Church. If you follow their line of sight you can see that, as Father is giving them the final blessing at the end of the Sacrament, their eyes are not on him, but on the Cross he holds in his hand.

When we assisted at Mass for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, we went forward to receive Jesus in Communion....my younger son was directly in front of me in line, as we do when we assist at NO Masses, in case I have to reassure the minister that he does receive. When he reached the Extraordinary Minister - a grandmotherly-looking lady who was administering Communion with more-than-common reverence - he made a profound bow, at which point she looked at me and asked "does he receive?" I assured her that he does, whereupon she elevated the Host and said "The Body of Christ" and my son responded "AMEN!" and opened his mouth to receive his Lord. She gave him the Body and then touched his cheek and said sotto voce "how beautiful!"
Even little children are called to be witnesses to the power and grace of the Holy Spirit and the love of God.

Hermit crab update - none of them are AWOL now; I found the 'missing' crab last night while straightening up their crabitat. I have film in the camera now so I will post pics when available. I realized if I'm going to talk about them on this blog, they should really have names, so...

small crab in American flag painted shell: George

medium crab in green striped shell: Teresa

large crab in gray/brown striped shell: Patrick

One of the other things that happened at that Holy Day Mass I mentioned in a previous post was that at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer, the celebrant said: .....Benedict, the Bishop of Rome,...
I am currently trying to find out what's up with this, and if it's permitted to say that, rather than ...Benedict our Pope.... will let you know when I know.