Jim Steichen     Avoiding the Masses Whenever I mention that I sometimes attend the 5:15 daily mass at St. Thomas Aquinas, I usually get one of two reactions from people: either a look of tentative curiosity that seems to want to ask "So are you one of those hard-core Catholic types?" or one of wistful jealousy to the effect of "Gee, that's nice. I wish I had time for that." I'm always unsure how to respond to these sentiments because daily mass is about neither fanatical devotion to one's faith nor time commitment to another extra-curricular activity. Daily mass is -- in the most all-encompassing and meaningful notion of the word -- nice. There's a different crowd at daily mass. It's smaller, for one. Instead of standing-room-only as it is on Sundays, the church is deliciously spacious, the center sections peopled by roughly 25 worshippers. There's no bumping elbows with your neighbor; you usually have your own pew. Far from making the service seem half-hearted or second-rate, the small congregation creates an intense feeling of participation in the mass. Jesus' words, "where two or three are gathered in my name ... " have a particular immediacy, and one also gets a fuller sense of the word "liturgy," literally the "work of the people." You realize what the reformers of the second Vatican council realized when they decided to bring the mass out of the middle ages: that the people matter. In the days before Vatican II, the congregation was separated from the sanctuary by a bar, and the priest said the Latin mass with his back to the people, as if they were an afterthought to the divine mystery taking place on the altar. At daily mass, you can't just mumble the prayers and responses, knowing that there are a hundred other people there to take up the slack and with this heightened sense of participation comes the realization that without you, the individual worshipper, there wouldn't be any mass. The mass has a different overall tone during the week. It's minimalist, stripped down to the essentials. There's none of the bureaucratic housekeeping of Sunday mass, no announcements or collection. Usually the only singing is during a few of the eucharistic responses and is all done a capella. What you are left with is bread, wine, and words -- a kind of liturgical trinity. I once heard it explained that the mass is basically a re-creation of the events of the Last Supper, and at daily mass, you get a better sense of this underlying principle of the liturgy. The simple and fundamental nature of the individual rites of the mass also become more apparent at daily mass: you are not listening to a reader from the lectern, you are hearing stories from a book; you are not repeating a psalm intoned by a cantor, you are echoing the refrain of a poem; you are not being lectured to by a sermonizing cleric, you are being edified by a caring teacher. You shouldn't go to daily mass in place of Sunday services, and I am not suggesting that weekday mass is somehow inherently better. On Sunday we come together as a community to praise God and share our faith with one another; during the week we can focus more intently on our personal spirtuality and relationship to God. No crying babies. No long wait to get out of the parking lot. Just a half hour of peaceful prayer.

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