In her poem, “Mysteries, Yes,” Mary Oliver begins, “Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood.” How grass nourishes animals, how gravity...
Liturgy
Attending Sunday Mass last year over Independence Day weekend, I watched as the priest gave the final blessing and a man a couple rows ahead genuflected and...
Ordinary Time, or the season in the liturgical calendar outside of Advent, Lent, and the Christmas and Easter seasons, is a time when the church focuses on the...
For many Catholics, the word liturgy brings to mind processionals with incense and a crucifix, Eucharistic prayers, or the Communion Rite. Vestments, incense...
Not two minutes after transcribing my last interview for this story, my phone rang. An undergraduate student at St. John’s University, where I work, died...
Ever since I first learned the Hail Mary, I have loved prayer. Perhaps Sister taught us the Glory Be first. It’s shorter, more repetitious; if you know the...
I recently went back to Mass at my home parish for the first time since returning from college. My eyes snapped to the altar servers, and I watched closely...
In 1955, Pius XII reformed the liturgy to make foot washing part of the Holy Thursday Mass. Since the 14th century, it had been practiced in a separate liturgy...
Holding hands (or not) is less important than praying in a “commonly bodily posture,” as the body of Christ. One of my first memories of Sunday Mass was my...
Whether the sound of music has them singing to the mountains or running for the hills, U.S. Catholic readers agree that Mass to the sounds of silence would...
