The Case for Reverence in an Age of Casualness

The Case for Reverence in an Age of Casualness

My father is a reverent man. Not in the incense-swinging, Latin-chanting, cassock-donning kind of way—though he’d probably volunteer for all three if asked—but in the unmistakable, sometimes exasperating way that says: this matters. Whether it was praying before dinner or dressing for Mass, his posture told the world something sacred was happening—even if the cathedral happened to be a station wagon on the way to my grandparents’ in Dubuque, Iow…