Mass is every Sunday, and Saturday evening, at a parish near you.
Potato saved you a seat. Every Sunday, in a church not far from you, there's a pew with room in it, and you're welcome to come as you are: first time, or first time in a long while.
Find a Mass near you This Sunday's readings
MassTimes.org lists the Masses near you, and confession times too. The readings are from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The Cathedral of St. Isidore the Farmer is only a drawing, but the welcome is real: there's a Catholic church near you with a Mass this Sunday.
Isidore worked the fields outside Madrid about nine hundred years ago, and he went to Mass every morning before he started. The other workers grumbled that he came out late.
The story goes that when his master went to see for himself, he found an angel ploughing Isidore's field while he was at his prayers. The work got done. It usually does.
He's the patron saint of farmers. His feast day is May 15th.
Beside the tabernacle, the little gold house on its pillar, a lamp in red glass is kept burning day and night. It tells you that Christ is truly present there, in the Blessed Sacrament, kept from Mass for the sick and for prayer. Catholics genuflect toward the tabernacle as they go into their pew.
Many churches are open for a while each day. You can go in, sit near the lamp and pray, or just sit.
This little gold house behind the altar is the tabernacle. It's kept locked, and inside it are hosts, the small round wafers consecrated at Mass, kept for the sick and for prayer. Catholics believe each one is no longer bread at all, but Jesus himself. They call it the Eucharist, or the Blessed Sacrament, and it's why the red lamp burns beside this case day and night.
It goes back to the night before Jesus died, when he ate a last supper with his friends. He took bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me” (Luke 22:19). He did the same with a cup of wine: his blood, poured out for them. Christians have done as he asked ever since.
Catholics take him at his word. At every Mass, by the power of the Holy Spirit and the words of Jesus spoken by the priest, the bread and wine become his body and blood, soul and divinity. They still look and taste like bread and wine, but that's no longer what they are. It isn't a symbol or a reminder. It's him, truly present, and the one sacrifice he made on the cross is made present again, not repeated. Eucharist comes from the Greek for “thanksgiving”.
That's why Catholics call it the source and summit of their faith, and why they genuflect toward this tabernacle as they come into their pew. In Holy Communion they receive him, and he makes them one with him and with each other.
If you're not Catholic, you're very welcome at Mass. Receiving Communion is a sign of being one in faith with the Catholic Church, so when everyone goes up, stay in your seat and pray. In many parishes you can also go up with your arms crossed over your chest, and the priest will give you a blessing. Nobody will think anything of it either way.
This chair is what makes a church a cathedral. Cathedra is Latin for chair: the cathedral is the church where the bishop of the diocese has his.
It stands for the bishop's work of teaching and caring for the diocese, as a successor of the apostles. Every parish belongs to a diocese, and every diocese has a cathedral. Yours does too.
People light a candle here for someone they're praying for, and ask Our Lady to pray for them too. Truffle's lit his on the bottom row; it's as high as he can reach.
Rosemary and Thyme are warming up for the 10 o'clock, with the organ.