It was late Saturday afternoon, late enough for Sunday Mass.
I didn’t think we were that late, but given the no-nonsense approach to liturgy in this parish and the fact that they recite the Gloria rather than sing it, a “little late” brings you right into the middle of the Responsorial Psalm.
We squeezed into a side pew, underneath one  of the Stations, titled in German as they all are, in this historically German parish, lovingly cared for but never “renovated” out of its original, late 19th century Gothic splendor. Everything is at was from the elborate altarpiece to the Communion rail to the painted borders to the mid-century addition of lights edging the altarpieces, lights that are turned on at Communion time, glowing as the congregation steps, shuffles and edges forward.
In the pew ahead of us were mother and son. The woman was in her 40’s, the boy about 13. Never has a boy looked so sorry to be in church. He slouched, put his head down on his arms, stared up at the ceiling. During the times we were to stand, he leaned against the wall so that he was facing sideways, not forward, and put his foot up on the pews.
The mother looked at him occasionally, but never corrected him. She seemed nervous, and was perhaps simply glad he was there with her, at her side.
He maintained this posture of externally insolent indifference almost to the end.
Almost.
And then, as his mother opened her book for the closing hymn, he edged closer to her and still closer until their shoulders touched. She pointed to the words and sang. He never opened his mouth, but his head remained bent, his gaze focused on the words.
I sing the goodness of the Lord, who filled the earth with food,
Who formed the creatures through the Word, and then pronounced them good.
Lord, how Thy wonders are displayed, where’er I turn my eye,
If I survey the ground I tread, or gaze upon the sky.
We parents, we live on hope.  Any excuse we can find, we drink it up, thirstily. Who knows the story of the mother and boy in front of us.  There could have been anything – from grief to simple resentment – at the core of the boy’s apparent misery during Mass. But there was just one thing at the core of that slight move at the end, that willingness, if not to sing, to simply read the words of God’s goodness and care for him and to close the space he had put between him and the one who embodies that care for him right here and now: Grace.