Sundays feel different now.

Among the few reasons I appreciate Facebook is its "On This Day" feature. Every so often that time-hop allows me to relive not just a memory, but the emotions that came with it.

The summer of 2021 was a “post-heavy” season for me. My Facebook updates became something of a journal as our family adjusted to being a “party of four,” with our oldest son away for Plebe Summer in Annapolis. 

Then came Sunday, July 18.

I was sitting in Mass when a realization struck me – hard. At that very moment, hundreds of miles away, my son was also at Mass. He was hearing the same readings. Praying the same prayers. Professing the same Creed. Receiving the same Lord. In an instant, the distance between us seemed smaller.

His letters confirmed that amid the challenges of Plebe Summer, he found peace in praying the Rosary each night and looked forward to Sunday Mass, where he found not only air conditioning, but refuge. In those sacred moments, we were united in a way that no miles could diminish.

I had always known the Catholic Church is universal. I could have answered that correctly on any religion test. But that Sunday morning, I truly understood it.

Yet again, my gratitude deepened for the gift my parents gave me by raising me in the Catholic faith. They taught me something far more enduring than knowledge or achievement. Intelligence and physical strength can carry us only so far. Faith carries us through what we cannot manage on our own.

I began that 2021 post “Sundays feel different now.” And since that Sunday in July, Mass has never felt quite the same. Whether I attend Mass at my home parish or elsewhere on my travels, I don’t worry about not knowing my lines. Countless Catholics around the world are praying those very same words with me. It is one of the Church's greatest gifts: we are never truly separated when we gather around the altar of Christ.