TheCorner: Paul Ryan at Prayer

St. Petersburg, Fla. — Regular 12:10 Mass-goers at Our Lady of Grace parish church were greeted by a bigger crowd and a different kind of security than they’re used to. The morning after accepting the nomination of the Republican party, Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan joined fellow Catholics at Mass.

Sitting with his wife, mom, and other members of his family, Ryan appeared at home in the front row in front of the tabernacle, seeming to hold his wife, Janna, a little closer, and dig into the pew a little deeper with every word of the responsorial psalm. “Jesus urges us to realize that the life God gives us is finite and fragile,” the church’s pastor, Father Damian Amantia, said in his homily, preaching on the gospel of the day, as he would in front of any 12:10 congregation. “May God help us to understand the preciousness of the time he has given us,” so that we may live lives of “love, generosity, and reconciliation,” “compassion and peace,” he prayed.

The Mass, along with the prayers of people across the country, are “renewing and sustaining,” Ryan said in the church basement after Mass. “Really sustaining,” he repeated, as if preparing himself to go forth with this sacramental sustenance.

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