`` now don , i do n't put much stock in that no more '' and of course blaise put no stock in it but don lived near the church and had pushed his own boys through that catholic school and still went to mass if just mechanically ( or from the outside , as so many of ones movements might seem , even to the participant ) , and daily mass was at noon to let the business folks attend , and he insisted with every rigid fiber of his crew cut that they do so and so the father and the son acquiesced , especially after don interjected that `` at noon padre keeps it under thirty minutes or it 's free '' and so they went to that big brick church with italian marble inside , the one near but not quite at downtown , that had been the bishop 's seat before the bishop moved one notch further north and west as the money pushed out further , but here it was , a fine old church , and so they went into its semi-darkness at noon time and the air was cool and the attendance was sparse and they were able to sit near the back with no one in front of , behind , or beside them , and the priest - a young priest farmed out to an old neighborhood to cut his teeth and get them cut by one of the most conservative parishes in the diocese , said the mass with mechanical alacrity ( he had tried a few lofty sermons in his early days before the pastor informed him that the spirit had informed him that folks at daily mass liked things short and simple ) , and blaise and his father went through the motions from muscle memory though don was more filled with a sort of quiet reverence , his tough greyness humbled and softened in a way he would let few people ever see outside of the presence of the lord .