First a Disclaimer: This essay explains why ordered worship works for me as an autistic Catholic, not a claim that it must work the same way for everyone.
I have always been fascinated with the liturgy from a young age. My first memory of Mass was thinking, “Why does this priest love 1970s green so much?” I grew up in a pretty nominally Catholic family. We went to church on Sundays and at Christmas. I do not recall ever going on holy days of obligation. I remember hearing the priest chant the final doxology, “through him, with him, in him,” and wondering what it must have sounded like in medieval times to hear monks chant it. Then I discovered my mom’s 1965 transitional hand missal. I was shook. The Mass as I knew it was vastly different from what my mom had grown up with.
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