The morning drive to my mission church is treacherous. The snow-packed road points a narrow path up a steep hill. I chide myself for not cancelling Mass. Nevertheless, my truck crunches ice beneath its wheels like a dog gnawing a bone. I’m proud of the ol’ boy and give the dashboard an affectionate pat. I just wish he’d stop wagging his rear end.
             An elderly man and woman meet me at the door of St. Ann’s. José is the janitor, Matilda, the sacristan. José lost his wife to Covid a few months ago and Matilda is mourning a neighbor’s recent passing. Yet, a gleam of pride shines within their weary eyes.
             “Looks like we’re the only ones,” says José.
             Matilda nods and gives me a good look.  “I told you he’d make it,” she says to José. Then to me, “Stomp that snow off your boots before you step inside.”
              I do as I’m told.
              “She also said you’re stubborn,” José winks.
              I nod and smile. “She’s got that right.”
             On my way to the sacristy, I genuflect toward the tabernacle. Truth be told, I’d also like to genuflect toward José and Matilda. They embody the presence of Christ in a way that I love: Practical. Honesst and humble. Down-to-earth. They are to St. Ann’s what earthen floors and wooly burros are to the Bible.
              A draft chills the air. I reach for my alb and hear a rumble in the furnace duct. I suspect that the empty cruet on the table is due to frozen water pipes. If it weren’t for José and Matilda, I’d be peeved about the cold, the snow, the inconvenience of it all. But, with them in the wings, I have no worries.
             “The Lord be with you.”
              José is seated in the last pew, Matilda in the first. Between them, empty benches stretch like broken bleachers at the town’s abandoned rodeo grounds.
             On a morning like this, I did not expect many congregants. Yet, even if I had cancelled Mass, José and Matilda would have been here.
              The lights blink during the reading of the gospel. They remain off during an abbreviated homily, after which we rest in the silent glow of altar candles. When electricity returns, we rise and pray for the Church, the sick and all utility linemen.
              I place the missal on the altar and unfold the corporal.
              “We offer you this bread, O Lord, fruit of the earth and work of human hands.”
              A single host, flat and dry, rests amid the paten’s golden gleams. Soon, I will bow in homage, not to gold, but to a humble piece of Bread.
              I place the paten on the snow-white cloth. In my estimation, the Presentation of the Gifts is an undervalued part of the Mass. Sometimes I wish the rubrics allowed for scrub buckets, ladders and channel locks to accompany the procession of “the work of our hands” to the altar of God.
              I recall a conversation with a Mexican stone mason. At the time, he and his son were constructing a wall for an addition to my church. In the course of a casual morning chat, I learned that their family had risked their lives to shelter priests and seminarians during the Cristero War. Since that conversation, the phrase, “the work of human hands,” carries more than mere appreciation for human labor. It resonates with raw courage.
              Last week, the blog post of a friend of mine related the story of a carpenter pounding on the roof of the church during weekday Mass. The noise was particularly loud at the Words of Institution and the priest apologized for the disturbance at the conclusion of Mass. But my friend marveled at the timing of the intrusion. Indeed, he noted, that very sound echoed amid the crowd gathered at Golgotha.
             “Behold the Lamb of God.”
              My mind drifts to the woman who scrubbed stains of Precious Blood from the seamless garment. I wonder how many quarrymen formed the crew that chiseled the Holy Sepulcher from a cliff of stone. 
              On the drive home, I ponder a recent article that I read about manufactured meat. Will such a product eliminate the need for ranchers and shepherds? Will robots come to replace carpenters? Will sanitized wipes take the place of starched altar linens?
               I find such thoughts disturbing, yet I rest in the knowledge that, early this morning, I was greeted at the door of my church by a man who repaired truck engines for a living. And I unfolded a cloth ironed by a woman who raised five children and three grandchildren. Is it too far a stretch to connect her hands with those of the woman who touched the hem of Christ’s garment? Is it too far a stretch to associate the toil of a mechanic with the man who fashioned the halter of the burro that carried the Lord through the streets of Jerusalem?
              Amazing, the mysteries that unfurl inside an empty church on a winter morning, in the sole presence of a janitor and sacristan.
              Amazing, the redemption revealed in the worship of Christ and the humble labor of His people. Sunday after Sunday. Monday after Monday. In time never-ending. In time standing still.