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.

For Whom the Bell Tolls →

The chapel here at OSV has a bell. Or rather, it has a recording of a bell that whoever is serving Mass that day activates by pushing a button in the sacristy five minutes before Mass is scheduled to begin. The recording plays throughout the building on our public-address system, sometimes triggering the prepare-for-an-announcement tone before the bells start ringing, and always ending abruptly in the midst of the last bell.

Still, we at OSV are rather fond of that bell, which reminds all of us, even when we cannot attend Mass, of the sacrifice that is about to take place and calls us to pause, however briefly, to join ourselves spiritually to that sacrifice.

Living in service of others →

Mass this morning at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Huntington was no more sparsely attended than any previous Saturday morning. But following the guidelines established by the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, the faithful dutifully staggered themselves among the pews. Families sat together, but everyone else maintained a healthy distance of more than 6 feet.

As in other dioceses, Bishop Kevin Rhoades has ordered the removal of missalettes and hymnals from all of the pews. I brought my copy of the March issue of Magnificat to Mass and noticed a few others who did the same, and a couple of people had their own daily missals. Seeing the hymnal board with no numbers on it was a bit more jarring than I expected, but since traditional Lenten hymns such as “These 40 Days of Lent,” “The Glory of These 40 Days,” and “O Sacred Head Surrounded” are so well known, there’s reason to hope that music will return soon to our celebration of Mass. If not, that will be one more thing that we can offer up in a spirit of Lenten sacrifice, and for the sake of all of those affected — physically, emotionally and spiritually — by the coronavirus and the measures put in place to combat it.

A day of change →

It’s 11 a.m., and the chapel is dark, except for the spotlight over the crucifix and the flickering flame that reminds us that Christ is truly present in the purple-robed tabernacle.

We hold Mass at 11 a.m. every day here at OSV, but today is not a normal day. Yesterday afternoon, Kyle Hamilton, our CEO, announced that the senior leadership team had made the decision to disperse the workforce as much as possible. Those who can work remotely are doing so; those who must be in the office or on the production floor are here, but practicing “social distancing” and taking every precaution.

The coronavirus and a stark reminder that wellness was not always a given →

One of the most popular books for Lenten reading in the Eastern Catholic and Orthodox churches is “The Ladder of Divine Ascent” by St. John Climacus. St. John, a seventh-century monk and abbot of a monastery on Mount Sinai, wrote “The Ladder” for his fellow monks. Divided into 30 “steps,” the book uses the image of Jacob’s ladder (cf. Gn 28:10-19) as a metaphor for the monk’s advancement in the Christian life. . . .

I’ve read a chapter of “The Ladder of Divine Ascent” every day during Lent a few times over the past 25 or so years, each time finding deeper meaning in different steps, depending on my state in life. As I work my way through it again for the first time in probably seven years, I have been more aware than ever of St. John’s emphasis, step after step, on the need to keep our own mortality ever before our eyes.