They're far easier to measure than "curial reform", that's for sure.

And yet there are ways to sense the vitality of the interior life of Catholics, including the lay.

Here are some:

- Higher Mass attendance; people asking for an earlier Daily Mass than 9:30!
- Longer confessional lines
- Full prayer intentions for every Mass
- Priests commmenting to each other...eventually working back to the local bishop...that the "confessions have been unusually frank, sincere, specific, earnest, "abandoning", but still not "scrupulous".
- Fewer Mass attendants chewing gum as they receive communion (no kidding)
- Fewer people doing mail on their phones prior to Mass
- Less complaints to the pastor, less 'critical spirit' among the lay
- More volunteering
- Greater financial giving
- Few parent teacher conferences (teachers and parents on the same page) in the parish school
- Happily tired priests, rather than burned out priests.
- A certain cheerfulness and higher tone at all other Church events