Old Saint Mary's Cathedral + Chinese Mission

Attendance I remember that on my report card I got a grade for "Attendance." This graded how many times I was present or absent from school since the last report card. Everyone walked to the neighborhood school. Bad children would leave the apartment as if to go to school, but then would play hooky. The report card would reveal this to the parents, when "Attendance" got a C or a D grade. So children then would attend school to avoid consequences of punishment. But is a

Catholics of my age will likely remember little or nothing of the traditional, unreformed rites of Holy Week, prior to Pope Pius XII's 1955 reforms. My minimal childhood memory of Holy Thursday from when the Mass of the Lord's Supper was still in the morning is a fleeting one. I remember the church being very crowded (as churches tended to be in those days), and I remember the schoolgirls in their white communion dresses solemnly walking past in the procession at the end of

A Distance People might ask me if I am a Christian, or a Believer, or go to church, but never am I asked if I am a disciple. Why? I suspect that it was different in the early days of Jesus' followers. Peter, the first pope, was asked if he was a disciple, that is, a follower of Jesus. He said no a few times. No one asked if believed. Belief was not an issue back then. Did you do as Jesus did was the issue. In time, belief trumped following as the focus. With the dev