Today I want to share with you a powerful reflection on preparing for Mass, I hope and pray that you benefit from Msgr. Guardini’s insight.

"When we come into church from the outside our ears are filled with the racket of the city, the words of those who have accompanied us, the laboring and quarreling of our own thoughts, the disquiet of our hearts’ wishes and worries, hurts and joys.  How are we possibly to hear what God is saying? That we listen at all is something; not everyone does. It is even better when we pay attention and make a real effort to understand what is being said. But all this is not yet the attentive stillness in which God’s word can take root. This must be established before the service begins, if possible in the silence on the way to church, still better in a brief period of composure the evening before."  Msgr. Romano Guardini, Meditations Before Mass, p. 17 May God Be Praised!