The uphill climb of daily Mass

It is a challenge to live a life of daily Mass attendance. At a very difficult time in my professional life, I woke up at 4:30 a.m. to attend the early Communion service at St. Brigid's Catholic Church. I was facing some real challenges at work and some of the people that I had to work with were not very nice, to say the least. I felt I needed the extra spiritual strength that I knew I would receive from receiving the Eucharist daily. The job went from bad to worse (hostile place), and eventually, I resigned. I would probably have resigned much sooner if I had not had the extra inspiration and graces received from daily reception of Christ in the Eucharist.


Fast forward to now, I have felt a real need to start attending daily Mass. Many years ago, there were many local parishes that had super early morning Mass, at 6 a.m. Now, those Masses are harder to find, but there are a few in San Antonio. St. Brigid still has their 6 a.m. Communion service. It is not a full Mass. It is Liturgy of the Word followed by Communion. If I remember correctly, the service is led by a Deacon of the parish.


St. Matthew's Catholic Church on Wurzbach Road has the most daily Masses of all the local Catholic Churches. I reviewed the listings at masstimes.org and at the Archdiocese parish search page. Many of the local parishes have only one Mass per day. St. Matthew's has a 6 a.m. full Mass, Monday through Friday, at 6 a.m., 8:15 a.m., 12:05 p.m., and 6 p.m. On Saturdays they have 8:15 a.m. Mass in addition to Saturday Vigil Mass at 5:30 p.m. What a blessing for those who want to practice daily reception of Christ in the Eucharist!


My problem is a common one. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. The 6 a.m. is the only Mass that really fits my schedule during the workweek. This means that to make daily 6 a.m. Mass I need to be up by at least 5 a.m. (and have everything laid out the night before to be dressed and out the door on time. I didn't make it that far today. I'm going to try again tomorrow. I know firsthand the incredible graces that are manifest in the life of a daily communicant. I want to live that life. Here's to tomorrow!


https://stmatts.org/mass

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