Apologetic Tract Why go to Mass?
I do not receive anything out of Mass,
why go?
As we look at the trends in our own
country, it seems that
about 25-33% of Catholics attend Mass regularly on Sundays. There are many reasons given for
non-attendance:
· From not getting anything out of Mass
to being bored;
· From other things come up to Sunday is
the only time I have to do things with the family;
· From once I missed a couple of Sundays,
it was easy for me to miss to I no longer think that it is important or
necessary.
Some people feel that they can just as easily worship God
in nature rather than in Church. Others
say that they stopped going because of the hypocrisy of church-goers. Anyone who wishes can justify their actions.
The question is why should we go to Mass on Sunday? It is God’s call to us!
The first, central reason is that God commanded us to
worship Him as a sign of our relationship with him. The Third Commandment
states: “You shall keep holy the Sabbath.”
In the understanding of the Old Testament People believed that God gave
us time to work and time to rest, time for ourselves and time for God. So, on
six days of the week they worked, but on the seventh day they rested from work
and focused their attention on their relationship with God through worship and prayer.
They were responding to God’s direction
and expectation.
For the observant Jewish believer, such as Jesus, the
Sabbath rest centered on the prayer service at the local synagogue in which
psalms were sung, writings of the Law and Prophets were proclaimed and
interpreted, and petitions were offered.
The remainder of the day was a time of relaxation and reflection. Then on certain festivals they would go to
the Temple in Jerusalem to worship and offer sacrifices, according to the
prescriptions of the Law. Jesus took this commandment and gave new meaning to
it, when he celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples. In anticipation of
his death on the cross and his resurrection by which we are saved, Jesus
changed bread and wine into his Body and Blood and commanded the apostles to
“do this in memory of” him. This was the new sacrifice which replaced the
sacrifices and offerings of the Old Covenant.
This was the new sacrifice of worship, giving thanks to God for his many
signs of love. It is the sacrifice of the Son of God to the Father in the
Spirit on our behalf, which makes present in the here and now what Jesus did at
the Last Supper and on Calvary. This is the sacrifice that Jesus referred to
when he told the Samaritan woman: “The hour is coming, and now is, when the
true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the
Father seeks to worship him.” (Jn 4:23)
The first Christians, following the lead of the Apostles,
recognized that, because Jesus rose on Easter Sunday and the Spirit of God
descended on them on Pentecost Sunday, the Sabbath rest had changed and had new
meaning. They began to worship as Jesus commanded
on the first day of the week instead of the Jewish Sabbath. They would gather together to praise God
through psalms and other songs, listen to the Word of God from the Law and
Prophets, listen to the teachings about the life and ministry of Jesus, say the
words of Jesus over the bread and wine and share it with one another. All the time, they awaited the promised
return of Jesus.
This is
reflected in Acts of the Apostles: “They devoted themselves to the teaching of
the apostles (the scriptures) and to the communal life (the assembly of believers),
to the breaking of the bread (celebration of Eucharist) and to the prayers.”
(Acts 2:42)
In time, the Third Commandment to worship God was
specified as one of the commandments of the Church. “You shall attend Mass on
Sundays and on holy days of obligation and rest from servile labor.” What the
Church does is identify that the day of rest for the Christian dispensation is
Sunday, not Saturday. It also clarifies the “Sabbath rest” according to the
Christian tradition.
Some people say they are bored during Mass or get nothing
out of it, so they go irregularly or not at all. Why are we commanded to go to
Mass? We are commanded by God not that
God needs us to worship him but that we need for our sake to express our relationship
with God through worship. If we are not
worshiping the True God we will worship some other god.
The command to worship God follows the command to
recognize that there is only one God and not to have any strange gods before
him (First Commandment). It also follows the command to respect the holy name
of God (Second Commandment). In other words the way we recognize, properly
acknowledge and honor God is through authentic worship.
When we go to Church, it is to give God the worship,
adoration, praise, thanksgiving, honor and blessing that are due to him as
Creator from the creature. This is the
primary purpose. Our focus is God not ourselves, how we feel or what we
receive.
But herein is the paradox.
If we have worshiped God freely and totally, focusing on him, in turn
we will be open to whatever God desires us to experience. We are only secondary. And in fact, if we have given our best to God
in worship, we will experience the love of God and the presence of God in ways
that only can come from God.
Our worship of God on earth is to anticipate our worship
of God in eternity. There the focus of the angels and saints is God himself,
not on themselves. Listen to the Word of God found in the Book of Revelation.
“They sang a
new hymn: ‘Worthy are you to receive the scroll, and to break open its seal,
for you were slain and with your blood you purchased for God those from every
tribe and tongue, people and nation. You made them a kingdom and priests for
our God, and they will reign on earth.’ I looked again and heard the voices of
many angels who surrounded the throne and the living creatures and the elders.
They were countless in number, and they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Worthy is
the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches, wisdom and strength, honor
and glory and blessing.’ Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and
under the earth and in the sea, everything in the universe, cry out: ‘To the
one who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor, glory and
might, forever and ever.’ The four living creatures answered, ‘Amen,’ and the
elders fell down and worshiped. “
(Rev 5:9-14)
If we enter into worship of God for God’s sake, we will be
filled with an awareness of his presence.
In this scenario, the priest celebrant/homilist is not the focus. He is only an instrument. The environment and the music are not the
reasons we go to Church. They are only possible tools to bring us closer to
God. We go to Church for God and him
alone.
If we go to receive for ourselves, to feel good, then we
risk coming up empty handed. In this
scenario, we are looking for self-gratification. We are looking to have our ears tickle and
our emotions affirmed. What did Paul say about this? “For the time is coming
when people will not endure sound
teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own liking, and will
turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths.”
(2 Tim 4:3-4)
Another central focus of the Mass is the Eucharist, “the
source and summit of our faith.” True,
the Mass is a sacrifice of thanksgiving, in which we participate in the
offering of Christ to the Father in the Spirit. True, we continue to hear and
to be nourished by the Word of God. But we are also called to participate in
the sacrificial banquet meal, in which we share in the Body and Blood of Jesus. It is our faith that bread and wine are
changed into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ through the
words of consecration, then offered to
the Father in thanksgiving, then given to us to be eaten and drank, in accordance
with the command of Jesus at the Last Supper.
The importance of sharing in the Body and Blood of Jesus
was stressed “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats
this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for
the life of the world... Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of
the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever
eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the
last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
remains in me and I in him. Just as the living
Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds
on me will have life because of me. This
is the bread that came down from heaven.
Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread
will live forever.” (Jn 6:51-59)
By participating in Mass, we give God the worship which is
his due, according to his direction; we hear and are nourished by his Word; we
offer the Sacrifice that Jesus told us to do in his memory; we share in the
Body and Blood of Jesus, our food for the journey towards eternal life, as
commanded by Jesus. This is the will of
God for us.
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