Father Joseph Naill
In June 1997, Father Joseph Naill was tapped to be the celebrant for the TV Mass by Bishop Thomas Doran.
He had been ordained to the priesthood in May, and he remembers even all these years later “having moments of panic,” he says. “I was new to (celebrating) the Mass, and now I was to be televised!”
Two Sunday Masses were taped every other week at NBC’s WREX-TV station west of Rockford. The young priest would celebrate the weekday’s morning Mass at the Cathedral of St. Peter where he served as parochial vicar, then “dash off” to WREX to tape two Sunday Masses.
“It was quite the experience,” Father Naill says, describing how he would go along until the cameraman would suddenly hold up a handmade card telling him he had five minutes to finish. “I learned to do a brief homily,” he says, adding that the skill helped him “in those early years of priesthood and continues to help me …
“I was always working on homilies. They couldn’t meander or get lost in the message. I had to make sure what I was saying was exactly what needed to be heard … clear and concise.”
When asked if he ever had trouble with the timing, Father Naill laughs and says, “Oh, sure!” noting his biggest concern was having extra time at the end of the 28.3 minutes and winging it with a little “homillette” before the ending song and credits.
“As the celebrant,” he adds, “you were really conscientious. You had to do it in one take.”
He concelebrated one Easter TV Mass with Bishop Doran as the celebrant. They weren’t moving fast enough, and he remembers whispering in the bishop’s ear that he had five minutes left.
“By gosh, we got it in,” he says.
Father Naill also recalls a time when the first Mass they taped was from Ordinary Time with green vestments, but the second was to be celebrated in white vestments. He began the second Mass still wearing the green vestments. When the camera turned to the lector, Father Naill did a quick change and was in the appropriate white vestments when he again was pictured.
He recalls “all the things behind the scenes,” including the “dedicated people” who volunteered to lector and provide music. “Behind the scenes we were always changing our clothes,” he says, noting that the volunteers would change a scarf or suitcoat between Masses. “I thought that was very kind of them to think of how they were going to be perceived,” he says, adding that it was a “ministry of service to the whole diocese … we were really investing in celebrating this Mass for them.”
Viewers, Father Naill said, were not just the homebound. They included “people who were getting up and getting ready for the day … young, old, sick, healthy.
“I was a big storyteller in my early priesthood (and) people would come up to me and say, ‘Oh, I liked that story,’ and they’d repeat it. … You had a good sense you were talking to so many people in the diocese.” As a substitute Master of Ceremonies who traveled at times with Bishop Doran, people from across the diocese came up to him about the Mass. Even Bishop Doran told him one time, “I watched your Mass this morning, and it gave me an idea for a homily.” That day, Father Naill says, was a happy one.
“But, boy, if (the Mass) got preempted, boy, did you hear about it!,” he says. “People relied on that Mass and got really upset” if it wasn’t on, especially since there was no internet or EWTN at the time, and “there was no other way to see the Mass.”
“It struck home to me how people were hungry for that Mass,” he says, noting that the recent pandemic brought that hunger again to his mind.
Father Naill’s special ministry ended when his work assignment changed in 1999, but he remembers how “wonderful” it was to do the TV Mass
“There are a lot of memories with that Mass. … It was just a very beautiful time, a very good experience (that was)
very rewarding.”
Father Robert Blood
Father Robert Blood has been asked to celebrate the TV Mass both times he’s been assigned to Rockford. The first was from 2019 to 2021 while he served at Holy Family Parish. His second time of TV Mass service began in 2024 to the present.
In those first years, the Mass was celebrated at WREX TV station, which he says was fine. But being in the Diocesan Administration Center’s chapel (see photo on page 11), he feels, is a positive difference both for the priest and the people watching the Mass.
It is obviously, he adds, “a sacred space set aside” for Mass and prayer. Additionally, the priest says he appreciates having everything for Mass right there so he as the celebrant doesn’t have to make sure all the Mass supplies are available. It’s all ready for him to come, vest, and begin.
There are, of course, a few things even at the chapel that are challenging for the priest.
It can be tough to think ahead and be mentally ready to celebrate the two Sunday Masses ahead of time, he says, for example to be celebrating the Christmas season when Advent isn’t quite over.
Additionally, in a parish a priest gets to know his parishioners, but with the TV Mass much is unknown to him about his TV Mass congregation, Father Blood says. They are not sitting right there before him like at Mass at the parish.
However, Father Blood is happy to hear from people about his TV Mass. Some of his parishioners watch the Mass on TV before coming for the Mass at the parish, and they’ll mention to him something from that televised Mass or his TV homily. He’s had people contact him from as far away as Dixon to follow up on something he said.
That “fruit afterward,” Father Blood says, is the “cherry on top” of the TV Mass. That connection shows there is “some movement of the Lord” operating through the TV Mass, he says, and it is not just a convenience for those watching.
And that makes a big difference.
