There was a boy I knew who would spend a lot of time with the friars at the parish we were doing RCIA at. He was nearly always with the parish’s deacon–in and out of the office, puttering around church talking to people, moving things around, and just generally hanging out. This deacon (now a priest) was the parish MC, and in charge of the healthy troop of altar boys at this big suburban parish.

I got to see him serving mass one weekend, and I was struck, all of a sudden, by how he walked and moved and just seemed to breathe like the friar he spent so much time with. Reverently, solemnly, and grandly, like all the smallness and greatness of man was simultaneously apparent. It was beautiful.