Daily Mass
By Kristen Bourgeois
It was years ago when I discovered daily Mass. While I grew up receiving the sacraments, my family was not practicing our faith.
It wasn’t until after dating my husband that I learned about daily Mass when he said to me, he was attending a weekday Mass. I was shocked. I didn’t even know that daily Mass was a thing.
“Why?! Why would you go to daily Mass?”
Soon after, I started to attend. It was essential to my own on-going conversion, and such an easy thing to do. After work, I’d go to St. Dominic’s daily Mass. It brought much peace and the fortitude to change the things I could in my own life.
New Orleans is blessed not just with a plethora of churches, but churches that offer daily Mass and confession throughout the day.
While working as a local law enforcement agency detective and conducting interviews for a case at the Hale Boggs Federal Building, I recall hearing St. Patrick’s Church’s bells on Camp Street. I was being called by those bells to church, and daily Mass was how I spent my lunch time.
Once, at St. Dominic’s daily Mass, I watched as a young mom with her five children. After Mass, I approached this mom and commented how daily Mass was a great idea with little kids. This mom agreed, but added that daily Mass was great for her, too.
After all these years, that comment still resonates with me. I can’t be the type of mother, wife or woman that God has called me to be without his grace. Attending Mass more than once a week, going to confession regularly and spending time with Jesus in adoration are all available to me.
Since leaving my career in law enforcement to be a stay-at-home mom, things are different. Trekking to daily Mass with my three young children is a struggle. Yet, it’s been on my heart to put daily Mass back into my schedule.
In prayer, I was honest with Jesus about how tough going to daily Mass with three kids (ages 5, 2 and seven months) without my husband was going to be. I needed his help getting there on time and help in Mass, too.
Jesus did not disappoint. My first time back to daily Mass with three kiddos in tow did not go smoothly, but I had peace and received encouragement from others after Mass.
