No, really.
The scene: daily Mass. Total population is between thirty and forty people, most of them women age fifty and older. Another woman and I bring our children with us, and by coincidence, the children were born within weeks of each other.
Note: during a Sunday Mass, when it’s packed, the Kiddos all sit, stand, kneel (Catholic calisthenics) and generally behave. But during a daily Mass, there’s more room, and Kiddo#4 wanders around the benches.
At the sign of peace, instead of shaking hands, Kiddo#4 fell backward off the bench and landed squarely on his bottom. His boots banged the back of the row in front of him, causing the surrounding women to gasp. I saw it happen and his head never hit anything, so I scooped him up and asked him to touch his ouch. He showed me his hand. I was satisfied that the only thing he hurt was his pride. He whined a bit and then settled down.
We went up to Communion, all the little old ladies looking at him with worry and him returning their looks with an expression of Grave Concern.
And now for the part that would horrify Father Z. When I returned from Communion, Kiddo#4 went back to playing on the bench, singing softly to himself:
I get knocked down
but I get up again.
They’re never gonna keep me down.
I get knocked down
but I get up again…
Yep. He’s fine.
I sang that song to my daughter the other day; we were playing on the couch, I’d push her back and she’d “get up again”…
I think I actually own a CD with that song, somewhere in the basement I guess.