Building Community, One Daily Mass Buddy at a Time

The blessings of making friends with your neighbors in the pew

Mar 23, 2025

If you’ve attended daily Mass for a while, you’ve probably noticed two things:

everyone sits in the same place, day after day, and
most of the people there seem to know each other.

There’s a chance they don’t know each other’s names, but they know each other. They know whose daughter is cancer-free now, who’s in the middle of cardiac rehab, and whose beloved pet just needed to be put down. When someone is missing, they ask around to see if someone else knows if the absentee is OK. And some of them celebrate every time they manage to get there.

In other words, Daily Mass is a community.

My Pew Buddy

Several years ago I found myself with a pew buddy at daily Mass. I’ll be honest: I didn’t want a pew buddy. I had that spot where I liked to sit, and one day someone else was sitting in my spot. Well, I was a bit put out by that, because that’s my spot, and we daily Massgoers are creatures of habit.

I tried some other pews, but, well, I liked that one. The line of sight was just right and I could see the altar and the ambo without anything obstructing my view. So I wound up sitting at the other end of the pew from the woman who’d taken my spot.

It didn’t take long before she started asking me what page she should find in the missal for the daily readings. And after Mass, since she uses a cane, I would make sure to hold the heavy door for her (and I’d watch until she safely got into her car). I would want someone to do that for my mom, after all.

And pretty soon we’d exchanged greetings and she let me know that she knew where I lived, because she lived right around the corner (and I drive a fairly distinctive car). She’d ask me where my kids went to school, and talk about how the local Catholic high school was doing these days.

Once the churches reopened after the pandemic shutdown, she stopped coming to daily Masses. I worried about her. One week I saw her and her daughter at a Sunday Mass; she was using a walker. After Mass I worked my way over to where they were sitting and greeted them. Turns out she was recovering from hip surgery. She never did make it back to daily Mass. Three years ago, she passed away and her daughter asked if I would read the Prayers of the Faithful at the funeral. It was an honor.

My New Daily Mass Buddy

I have another daily Mass buddy now. He sits in the pew in front of me at both of the churches in my parish (we both like to sit on the Mary side). Sometimes he needs a little help finding the right page in the daily readings missal. When I slide into my pew, whether it’s 5 minutes before Mass or 5 seconds before (depending on how early I got up from my desk to go there) he’ll turn around and give me a little wave.

After a while, if I got there early, he’d give me an update about his dog or his recovery from surgery or tell me that he’d fallen over the weekend. Sometimes he’d happily comment that he has wonderful kids and grandchildren who help him and his wife in various ways. That’s always good to hear.

A Lesson in Community

Last week, my Mass buddy told me that his wife is in the hospital. It’s clear that he misses her dearly. The other day, another gentleman sat next to him at Mass, and asked him how he was. Upon hearing that my Mass buddy’s wife is in the hospital, this man said, “I’ll say prayers for you both.” After Mass, he took out the hymnal, which has prayers in the back, showed a page to my Mass buddy, and the two of them knelt down to pray together.

Community is a powerful thing indeed. And thanks be to God for that.

Barb’s Substack

Discussion about this post