Who killed reverence at holy mass? Alternate opening to book . . .

. . . as explanation for my interest in Holy Mass besides the usual for a mass-going octogenarian with a history of  mass attendance.

Along lines of something I wrote in a few years back as “Church Reporter” for the (now defunct ) Chicago Catholic News:

Meditating at Mass: PRAYER AND MEDITATION

No paragon of these am I, even if at 18 I left home to study them full time. After two years of it (novitiate), I got my SJ degree, which I relinquished many years later but would rather not go into right now.

Even so, much of it has stuck. At Mass, for instance, I often enter the zone of prayer and meditation, which makes me a poor participant in the liturgy.

Doesn’t mean I think of nothing else (distractions, you know) or that I am superior to the fellow or gal next to me who belts out the…