"Mass"ive laughter

Darrel works at a Catholic University which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this weekend.  He was needed at the festivities so the kids and I joined him for part of the evening.  The evening started off with Mass.  Now, we are not catholic but Darrel thought it would be good to expose the kids to Mass and then we could talk about the differences between Mass and our weekly church service .  The only problem was our 9 and 5 year old were the only children at Mass.  It was held in a beautiful chapel of a convent, so many in attendance were retired nuns and university alumni.  We sat facing each other and ceremony was held in the middle so there was no sitting in the back.  Anyway, the children did really well sitting quietly and standing when they needed to stand and following along.  So the Bishop had finished communion, with the incense and the service was ending.  It was really quiet, I mean really quiet.  The Bishop, with a great and majestic movement, put on his hat with tails.  Lily, who I was holding, let out an uncontainable little laugh.  I quickly hid her face in my neck.  I just about died laughing myself, it was so hard to contain it.  Others around us were chuckling too.   It seemed so loud in that quiet room with great acoustics.  One of Darrel's co-worker said, "Just count it as joy, and God loves joy."  Yes, He does.  And I am thankful for that tonight.