Farewell Mass for Archbishop Dolan

We attended a beautiful Mass for Archbishop Dolan today at Holy Hill. They sure pulled out all the stops to honor and thank the Archbishop for nearly seven years of service in our Archdiocese. We barely got seats in the main church by arriving an hour early. There was a big screen with close-circuit TV for those seated in the lower church. The place was filled and overflowing with clergy and Knights of Columbus (and other orders I hadn't seen before,  but only heard of - Knights of Malta, Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, wow!). 

I've been to quite a few packed Masses at Holy Hill, but this was one of those particularly memorable ones where all of the congregation responds and sings in a resounding way - as if to say, "We're here and we really mean it."

These pics are a little out-of-order as Blogger seems a little fussy today. These are the Knights of Columbus et al. processing into their pews just before Mass.

We weren't sure if we'd try to say hello to Archbishop Dolan after Mass because the lines were likely to be long and the littles ones were fast approaching the breaking point. In the end, we decided to give a try because Frank just missed shaking hands with Archbishop Dolan at the end of Mass. As it turned out, the line wasn't too bad. They had set up the Shrine Chapel as a place where the Archbishop could say hello to people individually. When we got in, we decided to swing around to the side to allow more people into the room. We ended up just behind our dear Schoenstatt sisters (who host a number of activities for our local homeschool group). That's Frank in the corner of the picture.

When the Archbishop came in, they were the first ones that he greeted. When they were done, they "pushed" us up into their place as they were anxious for Frank to say hello to the Archbishop too. :) 

And so we got to say hello and thank him and tell him we'd be praying for him. John also had the foresight to hand our camera to a friend standing just behind us, who got this shot.
Don't you just love how Frank insisted on wearing his new St. Michael T-shirt to Mass?