MOUNT ANGEL — Darkness covers the pathway leading away from Mount Angel Abbey. It’s 3 a.m. Not much is happening in town yet. But Benedictine Brother Justin Gilligan is awake. He runs down the abbey trail and into Mount Angel, collecting several miles before he begins his day as a monk. Brother Justin doesn’t run with music. “It’s my time to think and be with God in a different way.”

There is a misconception among some that those who desire an elevated experience of the sacred liturgy want to turn the clock back to the 1950s. This is not the case. My view is that we can achieve a more reverent, more beautiful and more prayerful experience of the liturgy just by applying the current universal norms and directives of the post-Vatican II church.

The Spiritual Works of Mercy guide us to help our neighbors with their spiritual needs. Unless you enjoy finger wagging and “tsk tsking” at the faults of others, “Admonish the Sinner” is the most difficult work of mercy to appreciate. Its value lies in being properly understood.

Sacristans, those behind-the-scenes volunteers, ensure neither the celebrant nor worshippers have to think about all the physical parts of Mass.

MEDFORD — Murray La Hue tried twice to become a Catholic and decamped in exasperation. “This is hogwash,” he told himself.

The third time went differently. 

BEAVERTON — A sprightly ukulele-playing nun is the newest member of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Sorrows here.

During World War II, Portland and Vancouver hosted Italian prisoners of war.

The Italian men, many of them Catholic, were transported to places like The Grotto for Mass from their barracks across the Columbia River.

Catholics in the pews of western Oregon churches are seeing reforms meant to make Mass even more reverent.

Six months after it was issued by Archbishop Alexander Sample, the Archdiocese of Portland Liturgical Handbook has begun to infuse the prayer life at more than 120 parishes.

EUGENE — The national Shroud Encounter Talk came to the University of Oregon last month.

As a follow-up, Dominican Father Anselm Ramelow, a professor of philosophy at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, California, will speak in room 023 in the Erb Memorial Union (the student union building) at the university Thursday, Jan. 17.

The beauty of the Christian moral life is the topic of a series of presentations and a panel discussion set for Monday, Dec. 10, 7 – 9 p.m. in Aquinas Hall at Holy Rosary Parish in Northeast Portland.

A 26-year-old member of St. Mary Cathedral Parish in Northwest Portland is in New Jersey discerning the possibility of life as a Franciscan sister.

In many ways the Grotto is a transient spot: Each year around 300,000 visitors from diverse faith traditions spend a few minutes or hours meditating or meandering within the 62-acre sanctuary, then depart with a bit of its peace in their souls.

But for some of the Servite friars who minister on the grounds of the Catholic shrine, the green Northeast Portland enclave is a final resting place.