Daily Mass did not make my life easier or turn me into a “super Catholic.” It taught me where home is.
I have attended Catholic Mass for more than 1,500 consecutive days.
When people hear that, they sometimes assume I must have always been this deeply committed Catholic woman who woke up ready for daily Mass, knew every prayer, followed every devotion, and practically floated into church each morning on a cloud of incense.
Honey, no.
I was away from the Catholic Church for nearly 20 years.
I never stopped believing in Jesus Christ. I never became an atheist. But I stopped attending Mass, stopped receiving the sacraments, and stopped living as a practicing Catholic.
My faith was still somewhere inside me, but I had learned how to keep it in its own little compartment. God was over here. The rest of my life was over there.
Daily Mass began breaking down that wall.
Not overnight. Not through one dramatic burst of religious enthusiasm. It happened gradually, one invitation and one yes at a time.
I Did Not Begin With Seven Days a Week
I think this is important because someone may read “1,500 consecutive days” and immediately decide that daily Mass could never become part of their life.
Please understand something: I did not go from nearly 20 years away from the Church to attending Mass seven days a week.
I began by coming back on Sundays.
Then I started attending one weekday Mass.
At the time, I thought I was big-timing it. Your girl was showing up for an extra Mass during the week. A-plus for you, darling. Look at you getting holy.
But Jesus kept calling me closer.
It was almost as if He were saying, “Come on, girl. I want a little bit more of you.”
So I added another day. I started attending Mass on Wednesdays and Fridays. Gradually, my heart began to recognize something before I was completely able to explain it:
I needed to be there.
I needed Christ in the Eucharist more than once a week. I needed the altar. I needed the sacrifice of the Mass. I needed that regular encounter with the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ.
The desire did not come from trying to prove that I was a serious Catholic. It came from realizing how desperately I needed a Savior.
Coming Home Through the Eucharist
My return to the Catholic Church was not simply an intellectual decision.
Yes, I had questions. I wanted to understand the faith more deeply. I had been in Catholic school my whole life, from kindergarten through college. I had taken theology and faith-and-reason courses at Fordham. But academic knowledge alone had not anchored me in the sacramental life of the Church.
Something deeper had to happen.
During the years I was away, I spent time in Protestant Christian spaces. I remain grateful for the love of Scripture and the sincere faith I encountered there. But there was something I could not escape.
I missed the Eucharist.
I knew the difference between receiving bread and grape juice as a symbolic remembrance and kneeling before what the Catholic Church proclaims to be Jesus Christ Himself.
Not a symbol pointing toward an absent Savior.
Not a religious prop meant to help us remember something that happened long ago.
Jesus Christ, substantially present in the Eucharist.
Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.
That recognition called me home.
The Catechism calls the Eucharist “the source and summit of the Christian life.” I had heard those words before, but returning to Mass forced me to ask whether I truly believed them.
If the Eucharist really is Jesus, how could encountering Him remain a casual or occasional part of my life?
The Forty Days That Changed Everything
My commitment to daily Mass took shape during Lent.
By that point, I had been growing gradually. Sunday Mass became nonnegotiable. Weekday Masses had begun working their way into my schedule. I was also participating in OCIA as a sponsor, which gave me an opportunity to revisit the Catholic faith as an adult.
As the Easter Vigil approached, I decided to attend Mass every day for the 40 days of Lent.
No excuses. No endless morning negotiations. I was going to show up.
By the time we arrived at the Easter Vigil, something had changed. I was hooked, although that may not be the most theologically sophisticated way to put it.
There was no turning back.
The 40-day commitment became an ordinary part of my life. One Mass became another, one week became another, and those weeks eventually became more than 1,500 consecutive days.
But the number is not the point.
Daily Mass is not a spiritual streak. It is not Catholic Peloton. I do not receive a badge from heaven every time I reach another milestone.
The real story is what Christ began asking of me after I left the church.
Daily Mass Began Demanding Something From Me
Daily Mass absolutely demanded that I change my schedule.
I had to become available for God.
There were days when that meant arranging my work around the Mass schedule. There were seasons when my home parish did not offer a convenient morning Mass, so I attended different churches. Sometimes I was church-hopping between three parishes, trying to find a Mass that worked with the responsibilities of my day.
Los Angeles traffic will test whether your desire for holiness is sincere. Let us just tell the truth.
But the greater demand was not getting into the church building.
The greater demand began when I walked out.
You cannot continually receive Jesus Christ into your body without eventually confronting the parts of your life that contradict Him.
You cannot receive Love Himself and remain comfortable refusing to love your neighbor.
And people? Lord, people can be a lot.
I am not somebody who needs to be surrounded by a crowd at all times. But Christ does not command me to love only the people I naturally enjoy. He commands me to love my neighbor, including the difficult one, the irritating one, the one who misunderstands me, and the one I would rather avoid.
That kind of love is impossible through willpower alone.
It requires grace.
Daily Mass made me more conscious of Christ dwelling within me and of my responsibility to carry Him into every encounter. It made it harder to keep my faith separated from my relationships, my work, my decisions, my habits, and my body.
Jesus wanted all of it.
The Eucharist Made Me More Aware of My Sin
Some people imagine that getting closer to God means gradually becoming less aware of their sins.
My experience has been the opposite.
The more light Christ brings into your life, the more clearly you can see what does not belong there.
Daily Mass led me back to regular confession. I had once gone nearly two decades without entering a confessional. When I finally returned, I had to bring all of it with me.
Do not let embarrassment keep you away from the sacrament.
The priest has heard sins before. You are not going to enter that confessional and shock the man into early retirement.
I began by going to confession occasionally. Then it became monthly. Then every other week. Eventually, weekly confession became part of my ordinary spiritual life.
Daily Mass also led me to spiritual direction and a more serious examination of conscience. It gave me greater accountability and a deeper desire to remain in a state of grace.
We tend to focus on the large, dramatic mortal sins while excusing all the little habits that slowly deform the soul. But a million little cuts will still make you bleed.
The impatience. The pride. The gossip. The resentment. The unnecessary anger. The refusal to forgive. The little ways we protect ourselves from God while maintaining the appearance of being faithful.
Daily Mass made me more uncomfortable with those contradictions.
It did not make me perfect. It made me less willing to settle peacefully into my imperfections.
Becoming a Living Monstrance
St. Josemaría Escrivá used the beautiful image of Christians becoming living monstrances after receiving the Eucharist.
Think about what that means.
A monstrance carries and displays the Blessed Sacrament for adoration. When we receive Jesus Christ in Holy Communion, we carry His presence with us into the world.
We leave the church and bring Him into our homes.
We bring Him to our work.
We bring Him into traffic.
We bring Him into conversations with people who are suffering.
We bring Him into our families, our friendships, our conflicts, and the ordinary responsibilities of daily life.
Every time I leave Mass, Christ has entrusted His presence to me.
That is mind-blowing when you really sit with it.
I am not merely leaving with a pleasant spiritual feeling or a little inspiration to help me through the morning. I have received the King of the universe.
If receiving Christ does not make me more loving, truthful, obedient, humble, and willing to die to myself, I have to ask whether I am truly allowing the Eucharist to transform me.
A Eucharistic life must eventually become visible.
Rediscovering the Traditions of the Church
My return to the sacramental life also awakened a hunger for the traditions of the Catholic Church.
I grew up in a Brooklyn parish during the 1980s and 1990s. Although I did not grow up attending the Traditional Latin Mass, many traditional elements remained part of my Catholic experience.
There were bells at the consecration. There was incense. Women sometimes veiled. Receiving Holy Communion on the tongue was common.
On major feast days, little girls might have a doily placed on their heads. If nobody could find a doily, somebody’s grandmother was liable to pin a napkin up there and keep it moving.
When I returned to practicing the faith, I missed some of those things. I could not fully explain the longing at first. I simply knew that certain expressions of reverence had formed my understanding of the sacred.
Eventually, I began attending the Traditional Latin Mass once a month. Then I attended more frequently. Today, I attend the TLM on Sundays and major holy days whenever I can.
During the week, I attend beautiful and reverent celebrations of the Novus Ordo.
Both forms of the Mass have nourished me.
I am grateful that I can rediscover the traditions of my faith while remaining completely faithful to Rome.
The Eucharist Should Make Us Smaller
There is something I need to say plainly because the online Catholic world has become consumed by liturgical warfare.
Attending the Traditional Latin Mass does not automatically make someone holier.
Attending the Novus Ordo does not make someone less Catholic or less faithful.
External reverence can never replace charity, obedience, humility, and communion with the Church.
A person can know every rubric, pray in Latin, dress beautifully for Mass, study the faith, and still be consumed by bitterness, anger, and spiritual pride.
That is not the fruit of genuine Eucharistic devotion.
The form of the Mass we attend should not become another tool for placing ourselves above our brothers and sisters in Christ. If our devotion makes us feel larger, greater, or purer than everyone else, something has gone terribly wrong.
The Eucharist should make us smaller.
“He must increase, but I must decrease.”
Those words of St. John the Baptist should shape our entire Eucharistic life.
Reverence matters. Tradition matters. Beauty matters. The way we worship matters tremendously.
But all of it must lead us to Jesus Christ.
Daily Mass Did Not Turn Me Into a Super Catholic
More than 1,500 consecutive days of Mass have not made me perfect.
I still struggle.
I still fall.
I still need confession.
I still need grace.
I still need a Savior.
Daily Mass did not make my life easier. It taught me where my center is.
Through grief, disappointment, depression, anxiety, pain, joy, fear, hope, and the mundane responsibilities of ordinary life, Jesus Christ has continued to meet me at the altar.
He met me when I felt spiritually strong.
He met me when I had very little to offer.
He met me when I arrived attentive and prepared, and He met me when my mind was racing in 15 directions before the opening prayer.
He remained faithful.
Daily Mass taught me where home is and that the door remains open, even for a prodigal daughter.
You Do Not Have to Begin Where I Am
If you feel drawn toward daily Mass, do not turn my 1,500 days into a burden God never gave you.
You do not have to begin with seven days a week.
Start with one additional Mass.
Look at your responsibilities, your family, your work, your health, and the Mass schedules near you. Choose one day when you can faithfully and realistically attend.
Daily Mass is a devotion, not an obligation. Sunday Mass and holy days of obligation are required. A Catholic who cannot attend Mass every day because of work, caregiving, health, distance, or other legitimate responsibilities is not failing Jesus.
God is not asking you to neglect the duties He has already entrusted to you.
The goal is not to collect Masses.
The goal is to become Eucharistic.
Attend when you can. Read the daily Mass readings. Make a spiritual communion. Visit the Blessed Sacrament. Spend time in Eucharistic adoration. Offer your work and ordinary responsibilities to God.
Give Him the opening, and allow Him to lead you gradually.
That is how it happened for me.
One Mass.
One invitation.
One yes at a time.
The Question Christ Continues to Ask Me
Every day, Jesus meets me at the altar.
And every day, I imagine Him asking me the same question:
“Roxie, will you receive Me only with your mouth, or will you receive Me with your heart, your mind, your strength, and your soul?”
That is the real meaning of these 1,500 days.
Not a record.
Not an accomplishment.
Not proof that I am holier than anyone else.
It is the story of a prodigal daughter learning where home is and returning there every day.
And tomorrow, by the grace of God, I will return again.