When I was a child in parochial school, we began each morning with ­daily Mass. My mother worked nights, and no one in my family was an early riser. I inevitably arrived late to church. The nuns stared disapprovingly as I slipped in among my more punctual classmates in our assigned pews. This daily dose of shame was good training for later life. It made me immune to peer ­pressure.

The Mass, which was conducted entirely in Latin, meant little to me. I endured it respectfully as a mandatory exercise. I was relieved when the service ended and we filed off to our classrooms across the street. What impressed me was the church itself. St. Joseph’s was larger than the old Los Angeles cathedral. It was one of only two buildings in my hometown of Hawthorne, California, that might have been called beautiful. (The other was the Plaza, an old movie palace—now torn down.) I liked being inside St. Joseph’s lofty, cool interior, which was illuminated by tall stained-glass windows depicting the saints and apostles.

On the first Friday of each month, however, there was another ceremony called the Benediction. Having already attended Mass in the morning, we were marched into church again in the afternoon to participate in a short but elaborate ritual in honor of the Eucharist. 

The priest, wearing a special mantle over his robes, entered accompanied by several altar boys. Candles were lit, and great suffocating clouds of incense dispersed. As the priest approached the altar, we sang a Latin hymn called O Salutaris Hostia. We read the verses from little laminated cards. I didn’t know what the words meant. (I assumed hostia meant the communion host, which, of course, it didn’t.) I liked singing the hymn, but it wasn’t my favorite.

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