Why go to Mass?
WHY GO TO MASS?
A person who always went to Mass wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper complaining that there was no point in going to Mass every Sunday. “I’ve been going to church for 30 years, he wrote. In that time I’ve heard something like 3,000 sermons. But I swear on my life, I can’t remember a single one of them. That’s why I think I’m wasting my time and parents they are wasting their time giving sermons.”
To the editor’s delight, this started a real controversy in the “Letters to the Editor” column. This went on for weeks until someone wrote this note:
“I’ve been married for 30 years. During that time my wife has cooked me over 32,000 meals. But I swear on my life, I can’t remember the entire menu of all those meals. But I do know one thing: Those meals nourished me and gave me the strength to do my job. If my wife hadn’t given me all those meals, I’d be physically dead today. Likewise, if she hadn’t gone to church to nurture me, I’d be spiritually dead today! When you’re up to nothing… .. God is in something! Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible! Thank God for our physical nourishment and simply say:
Jesus, could you answer the door please?
I believe in God as a blind man believes in the sun, not because he sees it, but because he feels it.”
Below you can read the catechesis given by Pope Francis on December 14, 2017 focused on the question why go to Mass on Sunday?:
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
Returning to the path of catechesis on the Mass, today we ask ourselves: Why go to Mass on Sunday?
The Sunday celebration of the Eucharist is at the center of the life of the Church (Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2177). We Christians go to Mass on Sunday to meet the Risen Lord, or rather to let ourselves be found by Him, listen to His words, nourish ourselves at His table, and thus become Church, that is, His living Mystical Body. in the world.
The disciples of Jesus, who celebrated the Eucharistic encounter with the Lord on the day of the week that the Jews called “the first of the week” and the Romans “day of the sun”, have understood it from the first moment. because that day Jesus had risen from the dead and had appeared to the disciples, speaking with them, eating with them, giving them the Holy Spirit (Cf. Mt 28,1; Mk 16,9.14; Lk 24,1.13; Jn 20,1.19), as we have heard in the Biblical Reading. Even the great outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost happens on Sunday, the fiftieth day after Jesus’ resurrection.
For these reasons, Sunday is a holy day for us, sanctified by the Eucharistic celebration, the living presence of the Lord among us and for us. It is the Mass, then, that makes Sunday Christian! The Christian Sunday revolves around the Mass. What Sunday is, for a Christian, the one in which the encounter with the Lord is missing?
There are Christian communities that, unfortunately, cannot enjoy Mass every Sunday; however, on this holy day, they are called to gather in prayer in the name of the Lord, listening to the Word of God and keeping alive the desire for the Eucharist.
Some secularized societies have lost the Christian meaning of Sunday illuminated by the Eucharist. It’s a sin, this. In this context, it is necessary to revive this awareness, to recover the meaning of the festival – not to lose the meaning of the festival – the meaning of joy, of the parish community, of solidarity, of the rest that replenishes the soul and the body. (Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 2177-2188).
Of all these values, the Eucharist is our teacher, Sunday after Sunday. For this reason, the Second Vatican Council wanted to reaffirm that “Sunday is the primordial feast, which must be presented and instilled in the piety of the faithful, so that it may also be a day of joy and freedom from work” (Const. Sacrosanctum Concilium, 106).
The Sunday abstention from work did not exist in the first centuries: it is a specific contribution of Christianity. By biblical tradition, the Jews rest on Saturday, while in Roman society there was no weekly day of abstention from menial work. It was the Christian sense of living as children and not as slaves, encouraged by the Eucharist, to make Sunday – almost universally – the day of rest.
Without Christ we are condemned to be dominated by the weariness of everyday life, with its worries, and the fear of tomorrow. The Sunday encounter with the Lord gives us the strength to live today with confidence and courage and to go forward with hope. This is why we Christians are going to meet the Lord on Sunday, in the Eucharistic celebration.
The Eucharistic Communion with Jesus, Risen and Alive in eternity, anticipates Sunday without sunset, when there will be no more fatigue or pain or mourning or tears, but only the joy of living fully and forever with the Lord. Sunday Mass also speaks to us of this blessed rest, teaching us, in the flow of the week, to entrust ourselves to the hands of the Father who is in heaven.
What can we answer to those who say that it is no use going to Mass, not even on Sunday, because the important thing is to live well, to love your neighbor? It is true that the quality of Christian life is measured by the capacity to love, as Jesus said: “By this all will know that you are my disciples: in the love you have for one another” (Jn 13:35 ); but how can we practice the Gospel without taking the energy to do it, one Sunday after another, from the inexhaustible source of the Eucharist?
We do not go to Mass to give something to God, but to receive from Him what we really need. This is recalled by the prayer of the Church, which addresses God in this way: “For although you do not need our praise, nor do our blessings enrich you, you inspire and make our thanksgiving yours, so that it may serve us as salvation” (Roman Missal, Common Preface IV).
In conclusion, why go to Mass on Sunday? It is not enough to answer that it is a precept of the Church; this helps to take care of the value, but this alone is not enough. We Christians need to participate in Sunday Mass because only with the grace of Jesus, with his living presence in us and among us, can we put his command into practice, and thus be credible witnesses of him. Thanks.
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