UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE OF ATTENDING THE HOLY MASS
Who are these lines for?
In the Apostolic Letter Novo millennio ineunte, John Paul II points out the pastoral priorities of the Church for the beginning of this new millennium. Among them is the Sunday Eucharist: “it is necessary to insist (…) giving particular prominence to the Sunday Eucharist and to Sunday itself, understood as a special day of faith, the day of the risen Lord and of the gift of the Spirit, true Easter of the week” (n. 35).
You may fall into one of three categories of people:
a) Catholic who went to Mass with your parents when you were little and one day, during adolescence, you stopped going. It was because you entered a crisis: it was time to stop going just because your parents were going and you didn’t understand why you had to go. These lines are for you.
b) Catholic who never went to Mass consistently. Maybe you didn’t even know about the obligation to attend every Sunday. You even find it curious or exaggerated that the Church intends this practice for everyone. These lines are also for you.
c) Catholic who goes to Mass and, following the call of the Pope, wants to help many to feel again the need for this practice that is so essential to Christian life. You are aware that if every Catholic managed to get a non-practicing Catholic to return to the practice of the Sacraments every year, we would achieve a true revolution in the Church. These lines want to give you some ideas to help you in this task.
Please read the following text slowly, meditating on it.
The basic reasons to go to Mass
Establishing the basis that almost always starting to miss Mass on Sunday responds to a capricious attitude, which is very difficult to refute -precisely because of its lack of rationality- here are some considerations about the Sunday obligation and the importance of Mass in your life. It is written for people with faith.
1. Because God is your Creator and you must dedicate a weekly time to Him.
It is the manifestation of living centered on God and on salvation: living the year centered on Easter; the week, on Sunday; on Sunday, at Mass. No matter how bored you get, your Creator has arranged that one day of the week be for Him: “Remember to keep the Sabbath day holy. Six days of the week you will work and do all your chores. But the seventh is Saturday, consecrated to the Lord.” your God” (Exodus 20:8-10). And it seems that he is entitled to your obedience. Missing would be an obvious and frontal disobedience (saying to God “I don’t want to give you my time”). And beyond obedience… God deserves it.
2. Because as a member of the family of God, you must worship God according to your nature, together with your brothers.
This requires that the worship of God not only be internal (in your heart) but also external (that others see your faith) and community (worship together with your brothers). That is, that you meet with others to worship God together. Regardless of your personal tastes, you attend Mass not for yourself (because you like it) but to show your reverence to the Almighty in communion with others. Our relationship with God has a community dimension. It is not enough to pray alone, nor as a family, it is necessary to do it together with our brothers in faith. In this sense, it is an act of communion with our brothers in faith: sharing the most important thing we have: the Eucharist, that is, Christ himself. In this sense, missing Mass would be contempt for your brothers and a lack of unity.
3. Because you have to obey the Church.
It is not a question of a whim of the Pope, but of a necessity. In the fourth century, the Church was forced to impose this precept to guarantee its faithful the minimum of Eucharistic life they need. You are aware of the importance that Sacred Scripture gives to obedience (cf. Adam and Eve, flood, Abraham, Saul). From this perspective, missing Mass is an act of rebellion.
4. Because if you were not, you would commit a mortal sin
And I don’t think you want to go to hell for this. As you know, there is a precept that obliges the baptized to attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation. It is a serious obligation, so its breach is a serious fault. Do not forget that one day you will die and you will find that God whom you are now tempted to ignore, to give an account of your life.
5. Because you need the Eucharist to live a truly Christian life.
It is a vital need, so that without the weekly Eucharist, you would not be given the spiritual strength to live as a child of God.
6. Because without the Eucharist you would not have access to eternal life.
Jesus left no room for doubt: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; if anyone eats this bread, he will live forever”; “truly I say to you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of God and drink his blood, you will not have life in you”; “He who eats my body and drinks my blood has eternal life” (cf. John 6:30-58)
7. Because Jesus invites you to his table and sacrifice.
He explicitly commanded his disciples when instituting the Eucharist: “Do this in memory of me.” Attending Mass is nothing more than fulfilling this mandate of the Lord. And it is not only a historical memory, it is a memory that makes it present. Jesus invites you and gives himself to you. Not responding, being indifferent to his call, would be quite a contempt.
8. Because living in a society that, in many aspects, is not Christian, the Mass is the first way to defend, strengthen and manifest our faith.
It is necessary to “protect” your spirit from the suffocating materialism that surrounds us: that your spirit can at least once a week “breathe” a spiritual air. Furthermore, it is the first Christian witness: others need your example. Do you realize what testimony of faith he gives to those who do not believe, who says he believes and shows that he does not value what he believes?
9. Because it is much better to go than not to go.
It may seem silly, but for those who aspire to the best, this reason alone would suffice. I do not believe that there is a more holy and sanctifying plan for Sunday.
The contradiction of the non-practicing Catholic. And how do you get to be
Few things are more inconsistent than the so-called “non-practicing Catholic.” It is practically a contradiction in terms. Sometimes, one hears someone say it about himself, even with a certain accent of pride, as if he were defining his way of being Catholic with a normal qualifier, as if he were saying a “Spanish-speaking Catholic.” That is to say, as if it were a normal variety of Catholic, one more option, as if one could be a non-practicing “good Catholic”.
But if you think about it, it is actually quite a negative term, which has little honor for those who attribute it to themselves, since it means “a Catholic who does not live as a Catholic”, “a Catholic who is not a good Catholic”, “a Catholic who does not look Catholic”, “a Catholic who does not live what he believes” or “who thinks that what he believes is not worth living”, “whose faith is not great enough to overcome his laziness”, ” a Catholic who thinks his faith is not important enough to live it”; “who thinks that he doesn’t care whether he lives or not lives his faith”, etc.
A Catholic who lives as if he were not, who remains a Catholic only in the theoretical field, also loses his faith, his adherence to Catholic doctrine. And these are so, first of all, because he is forgetting her. He is less and less Catholic. St. Augustine is fulfilled: “he who does not live as he thinks, he ends up thinking as he lives.” His relationship with God will come to be reduced to social commitments (baptisms, weddings, first communions, confirmations, funerals…) and needs (health, money, work) that are so imperative as to make him remember that God exists and that one must go to the.
A serious problem with stopping going to Mass is that it means the beginning of a religiosity centered on oneself, in which what God commands ceases to be the rule, to be replaced by what I feel, think, and like. , etc. A religiosity in front of the mirror. One has stopped facing God to face oneself. As a consequence of abandoning this weekly appointment with the sacred, a process of spiritual desensitization begins: spirituality dries up, the terrain of the soul becomes increasingly arid for the things of God, which move less every day, bore more, etc. Sins that used to worry, stop worrying, there are more and more days that he does not pray at all. The soul becomes indifferent, loses spiritual sensitivity. And this happens little by little. Who stops going to Mass, at first may have the impression that nothing has happened, that everything is the same, but it is not. He has ceased to be theocentric, to live centered on the weekly Eucharist. He has displaced God from the center and this is paid. He is like the sinner to whom it may seem that his sin is inconsequential, but sooner or later he discovers that God is not mocked. That it does have serious consequences to leave God.
On the path to being a non-practicing Catholic, the central point is the abandonment of Sunday Mass. You will never find a positive reason to stop going to Mass, that is virtuous, that is, that comes from something valuable, that gives value to the act of not going, that shows that it is better not to go than to go.
Unfortunately, almost no one has stopped going to Mass because of a serenely considered decision, after having thought and studied the matter, rationally deciding that it was better not to go. That is to say, hardly anyone decides to stop going to Mass. What happens is that in fact you stop going, without really knowing why.
The mistake is quite common: one stops going on a Sunday due to laziness and laziness, or because he was ashamed to go to confession; and since he did not go to confession, he could not take communion; and since he did not take communion he felt bad at Mass; and since he felt bad and gave him I don’t know what not to take communion, he stopped going. And then another Sunday, and one gets used to not going, almost without realizing it, and in the end some try to justify the breach of this basic Christian duty. The final and definitive argument to cover the mouth of the mother who insists that you go to Mass is “Leave me alone, old lady!”, which does not seem like a very convincing argument. You don’t want for anything in the world to be reminded of the subject… It’s normal for many to want to not comply and forget that they should…
Seriously, have you ever thought about what God wants you to do? If on Sunday an angel appeared to you and you asked him what I do, do I go to Mass or stay watching a movie? What do you think I would answer you?
It is clear that the one most interested in you not going to Mass is the Devil… There is no doubt about this.
Reasons commonly given for not going to Mass
1. Sloth.
“I’d rather stay asleep.” Actually the reasons that follow are just excuses to cover this first. It does not seem to be a very rational, worthy or valuable reason.
2. I don’t feel like it/I’m not sorry.
Since when is your desire a law that must be obeyed? Is it that your desires are more important than the will of God? Besides, you don’t go to Mass because you like it, but to please God. People go to Mass to honor God and not to honor you. And if it costs you… Doesn’t God deserve that sacrifice that even makes the act more valuable and meritorious?
3. I get bored.
The…