Give us this day our daily Mass: these creatures of habit are dropping in numbers, but not if they can help it.

ON AVERAGE, 33 PEOPLE ATTEND THE DALLY 6:30 A.M. Mass at my parish. On holy days of obligation and during Lent, the average jumps to 47. I know the numbers because I sit near the back of church and count. We are unswerving. For all the years I've been going to daily Mass, the same people have been sitting in the same places. Daily Mass-goers, I've found, are a consistent bunch--like Swiss watches, but whose batteries, sadly, are running out.

I never expected to be one of these Swiss watches. Back in high school I was normal, sneaking off to Dunkin' Donuts before grabbing an alibi bulletin from the back of the church on the way home. Some time in my 30s, a jolt of doubt hit me. Sitting through an Easter Vigil, I began to think that it was all superstitious nonsense. I considered leaving but remembered the words of a priest friend. "You have to work at your relationship with God," he said. "It doesn't just happen." I decided I would try daily Mass for a while and see what happened.

Though doubts reappear, after many years I still go. My kids, I'm afraid, think I'm holy-crazy, and my brother calls me the "Church Lady" behind my back.

Besides counting heads every morning, I study the regulars. There are a few eccentrics, to be sure, but most are earnest people seeking strength and hope. I spy the woman stealing a glance at the Blessed Mother. I know she is a good mother. I know she is recovering from cancer. I hear the men--quiet, dignified giants who stock the food pantry and generously fund the St. Vincent DePaul society--muttering prayers they muttered 20 years before me. Some of the guys serve at Mass, and they remind me of Thomas More, prominent lawyer and statesman from King Henry's England, who walked to the local church near his estate every day to humbly serve at Mass.

I want to be Thomas More. I want to be one of these giant, holy men I see at Mass every day. But the Church Lady has a long way to go. I drag my sins, like Jacob Marley's chain, into church every morning and pray for a miracle. But just when I think I'm getting it right, I spot an eccentric and pass quick judgment. Then I glance down at the chain around my feet, shut up, and listen. Church can do that for a guy.

There are some dark clouds. A few years ago the church announced it was the "Year of the Eucharist--Source and Summit of Our Faith." The words, like so many of Rome's words, bounced off my ears. "Source and summit"--what does that mean? Has anyone told Rome that no one goes to church anymore? I look around and see that I'm one of the younger people there. At 49, this concerns me.

I listen to our regular priest, an inspiring and intelligent young man, and wonder, "Who is behind him?" I write this from a cabin in northern Wisconsin, where the local parish is rightly called "St. Peter the Fisherman." When I checked the bulletin for a Mass schedule, I found there were just two weekday Masses offered each week. Who will preside at Mass when all the priests are gone? What do Catholics in Montana do? Regulars everywhere, I've noticed, petition for vocations--and really mean it.

At other moments, the clouds completely dear. In Washington, D.C. recently, I wandered over to St. Matthew's Cathedral, past the homeless guys sleeping in the back pews. The beauty of the place took my breath away. As I walked to Communion, I noticed an inscription in the marble floor, marking the spot where President John F. Kennedy's body was placed for his funeral. I stopped. JFK, cloaked in all St. Matthew's lace-curtain splendor, in communion with the homeless guys snoring in the back. One Body of believers, in the presence of God. The divisions of politics and social class and race and sexuality dissolve inside the walls of this moment: the Eucharist. "Source and summit" indeed, I thought, and began to understand.

AT HOME, I LEAVE CHURCH EVERY MORNING, PASSING A statue of St. Joseph on the way out. I glance at Joseph, patron saint of guys who have a lot of bills to pay. I ask for his help with the stock market today. I smile at the regulars. I feel a bit lighter and wonder if maybe one link of my chain has fallen behind.

By TED ROSEAN, a securities broker from St. Francis Xavier Parish in Wilmette, Illinois.