McGrath Institute Blog

This Sunday, like many of my fellow Catholics, I’ll be participating in Mass via live-stream. This is a totally new experience for me, and, I suspect, will be a little strange. Many in Catholic media like Nick Mayrand (a participant in the McGrath Institute’s Strong Foundations for Pastoral Leaders program and writer at Crux) are asking how this might be done well. Here are a few things I’m personally going to try in order to make this mediated Mass more fruitful.

Elijah was having a good day, until he wasn’t. He had just defeated hundreds of false prophets on his own, then brought rain down upon the drought-stricken Israel, all in the sight of the king who had been seeking his downfall. The Israelites flocked to Elijah’s God, leaving behind their divided allegiance to other deities. It was a good day––until Jezebel heard what Elijah had done.

Editorial Note: This post is a part of our saint devotion series, in which one of our staff or faculty members explores their relationship with a particular saint. 

St. Joseph is my favorite saint. He is my “best friend” among the saints, if the saints are our “friends.” I love him better than all the rest, and it’s OK, because, as St. Bernadette used to say, “there is no jealousy in Heaven.” But I cringe when someone asks me to write about him. I love St. Joseph so very much because his life is thoroughly “hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). He hides himself. We know him as someone who does not speak, who does not represent himself, who does not tell his own story, who gives up giving an account of himself. In this way, his life is a whole burnt offering, speaking to us only by not speaking.

For many dioceses in the United States, as of today, public celebrations of the Mass have been suspended. In a post published just two days ago, Tim O’Malley affirmed that, even if we cannot attend Mass, we can still participate in the Eucharistic sacrifice of Jesus, and indeed, that our sadness over not being able to attend Mass “is itself the Eucharistic sacrifice that many of the baptized will be called to offer.”