As a young altar server at St. Polycarp Church in Orange County, I had many opportunities to serve for the sacrifice of the Mass. This was not the deciding factor in why I aspired to be a priest at a young age. I am fairly certain that it was the other way around. I wanted to be an altar server because it was the most logical steppingstone to fulfilling my hope to someday be a parish priest.

My availability to serve on a number of occasions — Sunday Mass, daily Mass, funerals, weddings, Lenten and Holy Week rituals — was enabled by the frequency with which my parents brought my siblings and me to church. Home and church were weaved in and out of one another to make a single fabric of faith.

A soft rain settled on Lourdes as the pilgrims walked over to the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception for the final celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass before beginning the journey home.

Because of the large number of pilgrims – malades (those who are sick and frail), their caregivers, volunteers, and the members of the order – any venture to the Sanctuary Domain was quite an orchestrated event requiring traffic and crowd control.  

The May-June 2024 issue of Catholic Herald magazine has been published. The theme for this issue is the Eucharist in the lives of the faithful. The digital edition of the magazine is available at https://catholicmagazines.org/magazine-archive/catholic-herald/sac0524. 

In the cover story of this issue, the Diocesan Eucharistic Congress activities from March 9 are featured. With the theme of "Real Presence, Real Life," some 2,000 for the faithful form across the Diocese of Sacramento joined in the event, which was part of the Eucharistic Revival currently taking place in the diocese and across the United States. The congress featured music, food and inspiring speakers.