Got up, found some breakfast, then over to the Convention Center to Mass which had, we hoped, the potential to be memorable.
For you see, the presider at this liturgy was Bishop Myers of Newark, who, this time last year, was Bishop Myers of Peoria. Last year, Bishop Myers of Peoria announced that he would not be supporting the attendance of folks in his diocese at the National Catholic Education Association meeting because of their quite dubious choice of Joan Chittister, she of Let's all be more like Jesus - no wait - let's all be more like me (same thing) fame.
And this year, he's celebrating one of the major liturgies. Gee. I wonder why.
Well, the only reference Bishop Myers made to the past was a reference to the song "What a Difference A Day Makes." which he then applied to that situation, but only obliquely. The rest of the homily was the usual praise of his audience. He did the Eucharist Prayer I (the Roman Canon), though, which was interesting. I doubt they would have done that at the NCEA twenty years ago.
So then I turned in my talk to the Press office, checked out the room in which I'll be speaking tomorrow, and then we were off - to do a bit of wandering down the coast, find some lunch, and then back here where the baby could finally nap lying down and Michael could work out and I could blog with you, my dear friends.
Tonight, a reception. Tomorrow, the talk and a couple of hours of book-signing. I don't quite know how that's going to happen, what with the baby and his nursing requests and all, but we'll see.