MSI Press Blog

  Excerpt from Tale of a Mission Catt (Sula)  The Mass The Mass is where the community of believers gather to worship in obedience to Jesus’s words at the Last Supper, “Do this in remembrance of me.” The Mass has several parts, and, depending on my assignment for the day, I may be expected to take part in one or more of them. The introductory rites include the entrance of the priest and the ministers, who join the already gathered people of God. I may walk down the aisle at the end of the line. I rarely do that, but sometimes I need to. If not, I may watch from the altar, seeking out the special parishioner, who is my mission for the Mass. Sometimes, I can just wait patiently in a pew or on the lap of a parishioner. After the procession, the priest leads the people in the sign of the cross. This reminds all of us of how Jesus conquered death. Then the priest reminds us that the Jesus is present among us, and all the people are led to think about their sins, asking God and Jesus to have

 Wooper (inside, on the catio) communicates with Nellie, a neighbor's cat, on the outside. Wooper is our gatekeeper cat, always checking up on anyone outside who might try to come in. Our Wooper , quite a character on a regular day, some years ago took to licking off all her hair. Concerned, when both her sides were showing a lot of skin -- we wondered how she could not be cold -- we took her to the vet for help.   The vet scratched his head. He had never seen anything like this. (That is Not what a pet owner wants to hear from a vet.) He suggested that maybe she was itchy and gave us some anti-itch crean. We applied it faithfully even though it turned her skin and our hands black. But she continued licking, and the hairlessness of both her sides grew. We read everything we could find online. Nothing seemed to fit among the few pieces of information we came across. After a while, she had no hair on either side of her body. For some reason -- happenstance, for sure -- she had grown