Dear Friends,
The British spiritual writer, Timothy Radcliffe, tells the
story of “a mother, who on a Sunday morning, shook her son awake, telling him
it was time to go to church. No effect. Ten minutes later she was back: ‘Get
out of bed immediately and go to church.’ ‘Mother, I don’t want to. It’s so
boring! Why should I bother?’ For two reasons: You know you must go to church
on a Sunday, and secondly, you are the bishop of the diocese.” That’s a good one to tell around, isn’t it!
Skipping Sunday Mass is the current approach of many older
adults as well as millennials. Many declare
they “don’t get anything out of it” or “they are mad at the church because of
the sex abuse scandal.” As some tell it, they have not left the church. They
have simply distanced themselves from its hold on their daily lives. They are
content to be “believers without belonging,” as Grace Davie put it in a
publication that came out in 2000. They are part of a virtual community.
It not a matter of “going to church” that they are talking
about. These same people would go to funerals, weddings, baptism and other
ritual events, when family relationships, friends or special occasions call for
it. More to the point, it’s not going to Sunday Mass.
Most of the time, Sunday Mass doesn’t rise to the level of
an emotional experience, or some sort of huge event which captures us for the
moment, but then it’s over. Mass is when and where we receive the gift – the
gift – of Christ’s body. We can’t
receive what we are not present for. We receive it and grow in subtle, barely
perceptible ways. Over a lifetime, we become what we receive.
Many of us were taught the framework of the Eucharist when
we were children, and we’ve left it there. Perhaps we’ve done no reading or
study to deepen our understanding of this holy gathering when the community
comes together to listen to the Word of God, be inspired, experience again the
Last Supper and receive the God who had come to generation after generation of
believers. He is the vine upon which we
are grafted, he is the faithful one who remained faithful even when Judas
betrayed him and Peter denied him. He said Yes to us long before we said Yes to
Him.
Perhaps, we’ve never taken away from Mass a phrase from a reading
or a line from a hymn to savor all week long. Here’s an example. Last weekend, at the 4.30 Mass at St. James Church
(Peace of Christ Parish), these phrases from the opening hymn turned our attention to
what was happening:
God is here! as we his people meet to offer praise and prayer. May we find
in fuller measure what it is in Christ we share.
Here are symbols to remind us of our
lifelong need for grace. Here are table, font and pulpit. Here the cross has central place. Here in silence and in speech, God the Spirit
comes to each.
We seek in worship to explore what it
means in daily living to believe and to adore.
This Sunday, every Sunday at Mass, let God touch the core of
our humanity even if we have a hard time being there.
~Sister Joan Sobala
