Jon,

My mom went to Mass every day, and truly, sometimes twice on Sundays. She was a Eucharistic Minister…one of the first women I knew of to serve in such a way. She was a secular member of the Third Order of St. Francis, which was as close as she could find to being a nun while still married to my dad. She sang in the church choir.

We had a Marian Shrine visit our home, and for a week, when Mom wasn’t kneeling in front of it, there were people in our house in perpetual adoration…at all hours of the day and night. (My brother and I called it “The Traveling Mary Show”. Our dad, an agnostic, managed to be out of town for that entire week.)

If there was a “Hall of Fame” for Catholics, she’d be there. I think the phrase was originally coined by Bill O’Reilly of Fox News fame.