Posted on 02/05/2015 2:50:39 PM PST by NYer
Most Catholics know we are supposed to attend Sunday Mass every week and observe various holy days of obligation throughout the year. It’s an obligation, however, that many do not observe. As my parish priest joked years ago when the pews of our sleepy rural parish were unexpectedly full, “There must be nothing going on in Tweed [Onterio] today.”
I suspect part of the reason so many Catholics ignore the Sunday obligation is, counter intuitively, the very word “obligation.” Our culture is not one that deals well with concepts like duty and obedience. The words “I was just following orders” is synonymous with mindless compliance, while the character of the “dutiful wife” or “obedient child” tends to be the subject of ridicule or pity.
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As a result, we end up with a divide within the Church. On the one hand, there are those who attend Mass only when there is an important event, when it happens to be convenient or when they are especially in need of divine help. On the other, you have Catholics who dutifully obey the precepts of the Church — but who too often look down on those who don’t.
For a long time, I was a member of the latter camp. When I was first received into the Church, I was an enthusiastic, often daily recipient of the sacrament. I went to Mass because I loved the liturgy and found great consolation in receiving Christ in the Eucharist.
Over time, however, I become scrupulous about ever missing Mass even for the best of reasons, and my perfect attendance record increasingly became an opportunity for self-congratulation. Worse, it became an opportunity to judge others who attended only on occasion.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church acknowledges that there are conditions that validly excuse a person from their Sunday obligation. Illness, isolation, lack of access to transportation, the obligation to care for ailing relatives, and the care of infants are among the reasons why a person might be unable to attend (cf. No. 2181).
If we think of Mass attendance as a kind of spiritual badge of honor, these excuses can seem to be just that: excuses. Loopholes for the lax. After all, any really dutiful and faithful Catholic would find a way to get to church unless they were taken hostage on a Saturday night or found themselves unconscious in the back of an ambulance Sunday morning.
Only when I found myself in a situation where attendance at Mass every Sunday become a practical impossibility did I realize how absurdly presumptuous my judgment had been. In a subtle way, I had come to see my reception of Christ’s gift as a personal accomplishment, almost as a favor I was doing God.
The Sunday obligation is not a chore the Church exacts from her faithful children but a manifestation of her maternal concern. We are called to Mass every Sunday in much the same way children are called to the dinner table every evening.
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| * The shift in attendance between 1995 and 2000 reflects a change in the method used to collect the data. |
When the Church tells us that we are obliged to attend, she is telling us how often we need to receive sacramental nourishment in order to remain spiritually healthy. Choosing to skip Mass for trivial reasons is a mortal sin because it is a kind of willful self-neglect. It’s like a businessman who chooses to deprive his body of adequate food because meals cut into the time he has to maximize his profits. Being unable to attend for good reasons is not sinful, but it is a privation, like a mother who skips meals because she only has enough to feed her children.
Christ’s body is true bread, and the sustenance which we receive in the Eucharist is even more important to our well-being than physical food. Indeed, physical hunger is ultimately a sign that helps to illustrate our spiritual needs.
After Christ feeds the multitudes in John 6, the people he has fed go looking for him the next day. When they finally track him down, Christ reveals their motives: “You are not looking for me because you have seen the signs, but because you had all the bread you wanted to eat” (Jn 6:26).
The experience of being satisfied with food after a long day clearly made a deep impression. No doubt some of these people were poor and rarely had enough to eat. Others were dreaming of a world in which the Jewish people would once more be fed directly by the hand of God, as they were in the wilderness under Moses (cf., Jn 6:31). For them, the multiplication of the loaves did not merely point toward the relief of physical hunger but also toward political liberation from the power of Rome. The manna of Exodus had freed the Jewish people to escape the flesh-pots of Egypt. Thus, bread represented both nourishment and freedom.
When Christ answers them, he tries to guide their thinking away from short-term physical and political hopes. “Do not work for food that perishes,” he tells them, “but for the food that endures for eternal life” (Jn 6:27). Later, he clarifies: “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” (Jn 6:51).
Everyone knows it is necessary to eat in order to stay alive, and if we don’t have enough food, it causes health problems. It is the same with the Mass. This is where we come in order to receive the life-blood that nourishes our souls and prepares them to be born to eternal life.
When a person misses Mass for serious reasons, Catholic Tradition offers ways of observing the Sabbath until it is possible to return to the sacraments — emergency rations for the soul, if you will. Individuals and families are encouraged to participate in the Liturgy of the Word and to set aside time for Sunday prayer. An act of spiritual communion can also be made anywhere and at any time by turning one’s heart toward the tabernacle and inviting Jesus’ real presence in the sacrament to spiritually nourish and sustain the soul.
Parish communities should also help absent parishioners return to the Mass. One of the risks of seeing attendance as a personal accomplishment is that it can blind us to the fact that access to the Eucharist is achieved through community.
Consider, for example, the story of the Wedding at Cana — a Gospel passage redolent with Eucharistic symbolism. Here we find that there isn’t enough wine to go around. Some of the guests are going to be excluded from full participation in the joy of the wedding celebration.
Mary’s solicitude at Cana shows us that we can enable others to participate by being aware of their needs and offering assistance. The hosts of the wedding know they are running out of wine, but they don’t know who to ask for help. They have no idea Christ is on hand, able to work a miracle.
People within a parish community might want to attend Mass regularly, but they might be unsure how to ask for the support they need. An older person who has lost their driver’s license might feel uncomfortable asking for a ride. A single mother caring for a chronically ill child might be embarrassed to admit she can’t afford a babysitter Sunday mornings.
Parishioners can imitate Mary by taking a friendly interest and getting an idea of what obstacles are preventing folks from attending more regularly. People who are afraid of asking for help are often grateful for a simple, gracious offer of assistance.
If we see the sacrament as a gift, and ourselves as conduits through which others are enabled to receive it, we can both avoid the silliness of spiritual pride and also help to build vibrant Eucharistic communities where everyone is able to enjoy the bounteous generosity of God.
Oh; I imagine you are quite right!
What if I ping them?
THEN are they required to?
Yup; I DID remember correctly.
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Re: Is Prayer/Veneration/Worship to Mary Biblical? Do NOT add my name to distribution lists, without my consent.
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I'm trying to get some OUT!
Which ones, that you have evidence for, show me trying to put IN?
Oh what a tangled web they weave.......
That's between God and me, His decision, when I die and my particular judgement takes place. The general judgement takes place at the end of the world. I never take my Salvation for granted. I pray for the grace to do God's Will in my life, and trust in His Mercy, that I may one day attain Heaven.
Oh my!! Perhaps they could work it out between the two of them or should intervention by Catholic Clergy be called in? If there is lack of personal freedom to decide, which is an area I am unfamiliar with, I'll have to leave it to those who subject themselves to their own higher masters I suppose.
In the ecclesiology of the Eastern Church, the Laos tou Theou, the People of God, are the guardians of Orthodoxy, whether at the parish level, the diocese or metropolitan level or that of a Patriarchate. We have been called upon to exercise that obligation even in my lifetime, Elsie. It’s different from the ecclesiology in the Western Church.
This sounds like a mighty fearful life to me!
Follow these learned men's teachings and you can rest assured!
Bonaventure: …the gates of heaven will open to all who confide in the protection of Mary. Blessed are they who know thee, O Mother of God, for the knowledge of THEE is the high road to everlasting life, and the publication of thy virtues is the way of ETERNAL SALVATION . Give ear, O ye nations; and all you who desire heaven , serve, honor Mary, and certainly you will find ETERNAL LIFE.
Ephem: …devotion to the divine Mother…is the unlocking of the heavenly Jerusalem.
Blosius: To the, O Lady, are committed the KEYS and the treasures of the kingdom of Heaven.
Ambrose: …constantly pray ‘Open to us, O Mary, the gates of paradise, since thou hast its KEYS.
Fulgetius: …by Mary God descended from Heaven into the world, that by HER man might ascend from earth to Heaven.
Athanasius: …And, thou, O Lady, wast filled with grace, that thou mightiest be the way of our SALVATION and the means of ascent to the heavenly Kingdom.
Richard of Laurence: Mary, in fine, is the mistress of heaven; for there she commands as she wills, and ADMITS whom she wills.
Guerric: …he who serves Mary and for whom she intercedes, is as CERTAIN of heaven as if he were already there…and those who DO NOT serve Mary will NOT BE SAVED.
Anselm: It suffices, O Lady, that thou willest it, and our SALVATION is certain.
Antoninus: …souls protected by Mary, and on which she casts her eyes, are NECESSARILY JUSTIFIED AND SAVED.
New there ya went and done it. Saying I don't have a human mind are ya? Oh....wait,,,,,
1 Corinthians 2:16 for, "Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.
Never mind! Carry on.
And if I wish to complain when what I hold dear is treated thus, yes, I will indeed complain.
“This sounds like a mighty fearful life to me!”
Not at all. I wouldn’t give it up for anything!
That’s your interpretation, including the fodder about the Blessed Sacrament being a “cracker.”
Yes, you do play internet theologian and for all the reasons previously stated on this thread.
You reject the fact that before the Bible there is the Church as supported by the writings of the early theologians, we call the Church fathers and by Catholic theologians whose teaching are enshrined as part of the theological curriculum in prestigious universities.
You dispute that there is ONE truth, since everyone and their grandmother, and as Luther would say the milkmaid, can open a Bible and supply their own interpretations. Go try telling Jim Jones and David Koresh that they were wrong? Or Rev. Wright? You don’t have the intepretative authority given exclusively St. Peter ad his successors and to the ONE Church that is universal in its CREDO, its beliefs, and its forms of veneration and worship.
This is evidently by the fact that throw out a swamp of quotations with no clue how these must be read and understood in context of the whole fabric of Christology as others have done and, upon seeing how absurd the interpretations given those quotes you cite have led them to convert to Catholicism.
You refuse to examine the works of those Protestants who have spent a lifetime studying scripture, including early historical sources, those learned in Greek and Hebrew and have found Bible-Christianity not only shallow but absurdly wrong to the point of being illiterate.
By your lights, the early Church fathers, Catholic and Protestant theologians who converted, the saints, the martyrs, the stigmatists, and all those thousands of others from Bobby Jindal to Tony Blair to Jewish Rabbis, and Nobel Laureates, were all wrong.
Can’t you see the sheer preposterous nature of the arguments you advance that they have become a caricature.
Yes, none so blind as those who refuse to see.
You should have been around to school Jesus on that. You have taught Him a thing or two.
Matthew 23: you hypocrites!, hypocrites!, you hypocrites!, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are., blind guides!, You blind fools!, You blind guides!, Blind Pharisee!, You snakes!, You brood of vipers!,
Those were all taken from just one conversation!! You could have shown Him how He should have been more polite.
How so? You quoted Scripture, but how do you choose to interpret it? I know what the Church teaches. What do you interpret, and how do you put it into practice?
It's a matter of taking personal responsibility, not only for what you interpret, but for what is proselytized in your posts.
Discuss the issues all you want but do not make it personal.
Nope, God always condemned making images of Gods including images of Him.
Leviticus 26:1 'Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the LORD your God.
Acts 17:29 And since this is true, we shouldn't think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone.
Yeah, and maybe it’ll stop snowing by then.
But then again, it’s only April so probably not.
We have almost a foot on tap for the weekend.
>:(
Peace be with you, Bear!
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