Had tidied up the car last week for its service appointment and consequently couldn't find my missal or his envelopes this morning.

I keep a spare missal ... that's right, a spare Sunday missal ... in the passenger seat pocket. It's arranged differently from my regular one: order of liturgy up front, followed by all cycle A readings, all cycle B readings, etc. The other one is slightly more comfortable to use because the order of liturgy is smack-dab in the middle, for better balance, and cycle A, B and C are arranged together by Sunday.

The ribbons didn't mark the correct Sunday because I hadn't used this missal in months. All I knew was that it was ordinary time again. I didn't know which Sunday. It isn't my custom to take a bulletin on the way in but at least glancing at it would have helped.

The Sunday after Corpus Christi in my missals is the 10th. I didn't even say, "Yeah, but Easter was soo early this year." I went with it, but the Opening Prayer didn't match up. Then I, like, forgot what cycle we're in ... Isn't it B?!

The first reading from Deuteronomy sounded familiar, but from another place.

I was able to find Deuteronomy in the Scripture index in the back, flip to the page number indicated and get on track. Yeah, obviously, the missal's calendar expired years ago and I didn't feel like extrapolating the years forward ... 'though I have done that before and can do that. If the first reading wasn't as familiar, I would have had no other choice.