‘Help my unbelief’ →

In the traditional Lectionary, there is no three-year A-B-C cycle, and those who attend the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite or any of the Eastern Rites hear the same readings in the same order every Lent, just as their forebears did from the fourth century on. That builds among the faithful a comforting familiarity with those readings, and I came, in our 20-plus years at an Extraordinary Form oratory, to look forward to particular selections, which always seemed to arrive at just the point in Lent when I needed them most.

Introibo ad altare Dei →

For many years, I served the Extraordinary Form of the Mass at 6:30 a.m. at St. Mary Oratory in Rockford, Illinois. Only once in that time — in the midst of a terrible winter storm, with 60-mile per hour winds raging outside — did the Mass consist of just myself and Father Brian A.T. Bovee, our priest.

Today, I celebrated my second private Mass. On this Monday of the Third Week of Lent, in the midst of our “social distancing” measures, Monsignor Campion returned to our chapel here at OSV to say Mass — not for my sake, but, as every Mass is, for the sake of all the world.

Understanding the ‘front porch of Lent’ →

The “front porch of Lent,” as Father Brian A.T. Bovee, our pastor at St. Mary Oratory in Rockford called the three weeks before Ash Wednesday, was meant to help ease Christians into the Lenten fast. It was a recognition that a change in heart rarely happens overnight, that we need time to set aside sinful habits so that we can embrace the spiritual discipline of Lent. And it was a reminder, too, that the fasting, abstinence, prayer and almsgiving of Lent should not be confined to those 40 days but should spill out into the rest of the liturgical year.