More on May Day

So, I just wanted to add a little more to Margaret's report of our action-packed May Day, particularly the scene at Mass and dinner last night.

We had thought that Mass was going to be in the chapel of the Jesuit building, where it was on Easter. But when we arrived, it was clear that no one was in the chapel. The guard pointed us toward the courtyard (a fixture of most Budapest buildings) where we found a small group of people, some mingling, some tending to the bubbling stew in the cast iron pot swinging above the robust flame. Fr. Curry was there, too, in jeans and a t-shirt and greeted us warmly (click here for a picture of Fr. Curry from an earlier post).

Two or three long tables bi-sected the courtyard, with about 20 tealights scattered on top. The courtyard is big enough so that all this, 4 cars (including an old Communist-era Trabant), and two lovely towering trees, still left a lot of room.

Fr. Curry took Margaret, Pat, Devin and I through a doorway and down into his woodworking shop the instant he heart Pat was a carpenter. There was a stack of round table-tops he had been working on and he and Pat compared notes on tool brand names.

Fr. Curry -- remember he's an architect who runs a community design center with his students -- is the kind of guy who makes you think that there's probably a lot more you can do in a day work-wise while still squeezing every last ounce of enjoyment out of life -- a fitting example for Workers' Day.

I've been to many Masses with Margaret over the years, but never one outside, and certainly never one around a dinner table. I asked Margaret if this was the most unusual one she had ever been to and she said that she had once been at one with five people on a beach in the Dominican Republic.

There were several non-Catholics around the table, including myself, and Fr. Curry, who had since donned his off-white clerical robe, was very respectful of that fact, explaining the Mass and its rituals as he went along. Some of his architecture students were there, as were other Americans doing stints in Budapest (such as a couple of oil execs and their families -- hey, who know there was oil in Hungary?).

We had heard there'd be stew, but this was really the best stew I ever had and this and the other offerings, including some delicious sopressate worth of Arthur Ave. and some fresh-baked bread, really put the meal close to the top of the list of the great meals we've had in Europe.

After 5 years, Fr. Curry will be leaving for China soon, possibly to organize a similar community design center there. We feel lucky to have spent this time with him, his students, parishioners and friends.