Michael is currently in FLA with friends and told me this morning on the phone that if I’d been with him at Mass, I’d have "things to blog about for weeks."

Not what you think, either.

They decided to go to Mass at a parish near their hotel. Michael likes to go to Mass early, and this early Mass happened to be the Tridentine liturgy.

His quick description from a boat crossing the St. John’s River (yeah, and here I am in The Fort with this event the highlight of our day) was enough – the church was fairly full, but dead, absolute silent. A choir of sorts sang old pious hymns, but there was no congregational involvement in chant or responses of any kind (remember this was a quick call, so I’m not exactly sure what they were supposed to be doing.). The priest says "Dominus Vobiscum"….no response at all, and it seems one was expected. Etc.

Then the homily. Forty minutes of increasing volume and emotion, beginning with a treatment of tragedy (9/11, Katrina)  and God’s role ("Who would build a city in a bathtub?") , and then escalating (screaming is the word he used) to the rhetorical question, "Well, and for President Bush, we all know how he was elected, don’t we?" a furious denunciation of the War in Iraq…forty minutes worth, all told.

Whew. Wish I was there…or maybe not.