Laetatus sum eo quod dixerint mihi in domum Domini ibimus

Yesterday while cleaning and clearing up after the Mass for those going on the Christus Rex Pilgrimage, we (John-Paul, Omar and myself) received a very special visitor, Mrs Margaret Scott. Margaret had been a parishioner and student in the early days of St. Aloysius, where she was confirmed by Dr. Daniel Mannix and later married. Her mother had worked in the school canteen and Margaret herself had been one of the ladies who prepared the flowers for Church.

During our conversation with Margaret, she recalled the horses Fr. John O'Brien, the first parish priest, kept on the land adjacent to the church, being sent out to purchase cakes for the visiting Presentation nuns, who were not allowed such extravagances in the convent, and the old spire of the church, which was subsequently removed because of structural problems. She also referred to St. Aloysius being a replica of a French church, which she had the fortune to visit during her forty years living in England, and the occasion Dr. Mannix went disguised as a nun to England, which he had been barred from visiting because of his Irish sympathies.

In the header of this post I have quoted Psalm 121, "I rejoiced when they said to me: Let us go to the house of God" and for the three of us the most memorable part of Margaret's visit was the visible joy she experienced in returning to the church of her childhood as well as knowing the Mass of her youth was still being offered in that same church.