Thoughts on daily Mass

I have so many things I wanted to talk about this week, but I really don’t have the time or the patience to write them all down. I’ll try to tackle a few of them though.

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I try to go to Mass every weekday morning—and Sunday, of course. I like the 6:30am Mass, because it is usually over by 7am and I can go to work and not feel like I am late. If I could find a Mass on Saturdays that fit my work schedule, I would attend every day. I love the Mass so much. I can’t say I have always loved it. In fact, there were Sundays that I only went because of the obligation every Catholic has to attend. But now I find that I feel sad when situations arise and I am unable to go.

And because I go every day, I have the opportunity to experience the Mass in several different churches, which helps to keep the celebration “fresh” and my love for the Eucharist grows more each day. It’s also a chance to see that the Catholic faith is alive and well. I have been attending daily Mass for almost two years now and I have seen the number of parishioners at the weekday Masses grow by leaps and bounds. For instance, while in Bakersfield I usually go to St. Francis of Assisi church. When I started going there about 2 years ago there were probably 20-30 people at Mass. Now there is probably 50-60 every day! And they have 2 Masses there each day.

The other thing I find interesting about attending different churches is that each one has it’s own “personality” as a parish. Some are aloof, some are really friendly—some have “fire and brimstone” preaching and others have “feel-good” preaching. What makes it really interesting is that God seems to speak directly to me in each homily no matter which church I go to.
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I receive the Eucharist only on the tongue. I have never received in the hand. And I think I’ve only received the Precious Blood out of the chalice just once in my entire life. I never felt worthy enough to actually hold the Eucharist, and I have a phobia about sharing the chalice with dozens of other people. Since it is His Blood, one would think that He would not allow any germs to go from one person to the next, but it still concerns me. I don’t think my hands will ever be clean enough to actually hold the Body of Christ—which presents a problem to me in that I have seriously been considering becoming a Eucharistic Minister. I have felt a call recently to ask Father if he needs help in distributing Communion to the sick and elderly in the hospitals and convalescent homes. St. Bernadette’s, where I go to Sunday Mass most weeks has a shortage of Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion and the plea in the weekly bulletin sounds almost desperate. But my feelings of unworthiness are holding me back. I guess more prayer is in order.
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After proofreading the previous two subjects it brought to mind another experience I love—and I don’t know why. Twice, while in Bakersfield I have been able to go to Mass on Saturday morning. The only church to offer a Saturday Mass is Sacred Heart. The priest there weighs probably about 325 pounds and it seems like he has a hard time getting around. But what I like is that he dispenses Communion by intinction. He has the Precious Blood in a little shot-sized cup in the middle of his (I can’t think of the proper name of the bowl or dish the Eucharist is distributed from right now, so I’ll call it a “plate”) plate. When you approach him and either kneel or bow profoundly, he announces, “The Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ”, dips the Host into the “chalice” and places it on the tongue. For some reason, both times I have received it this way, I felt more of Christ’s presence and more emotional—but it could just be the novelty of it. I don’t know. What I do know is that I felt as though Christ's love was burning in my heart longer than usual after Communion.
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I have a few other things I wanted to write about, but I have a lot of work to do, and I can’t spend any more time on this blog. Maybe next week. As a teaser, though, a couple of things I wanted to write about were my sin of pride (which I hope to confess tomorrow), my inability to go to confession last week (although I really did try—twice!), and a billboard that I saw advertising a local non-Catholic Christian church that displays a cross without the Corpus—and why I feel it’s important as Catholics to remember that although He is risen (Alleluia!) we still need a reminder of the pain and suffering he endured for us.