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Written by Fr. Pete Rossa
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Tuesday, 07 July 2009 01:00 |
 Looking over the smiling fidgeting faces of children and seeing their keen awareness that you have taken an interest in their well-being often fills a priest with a renewed vigor and hope that faith is alive and well. In a moment of unguarded frankness, priests will often say how much visiting a school brightens their day, and I, as a priest, completely agree with my brother priests.
Honesty, frankness, sincerity, and a genuine interest in the faith contributes greatly to building up the kingdom of God. Celebrating the sacraments of the Church with that same liveliness transcends, spills-over, and energizes the Church in a way that makes us proud to be Catholics and deepens our desire to come to Church.
Typically however, many of our celebrations, though not all, reflect a painful disinterest, lack of understanding, and unwillingness to invest the time and effort needed to realize the splendor of the celebration taking place. Sadly, many of the people coming on Sundays leave disappointed and unfulfilled; sometimes those who leave are actually angry at their presider for giving either a homily that was too long, or rambling, and uninformative; sometimes we get all three. The people look to the presider for a reason to believe, they look to the priest for a reason to hope, and they look to the priest to show a personal investment in the celebration of the Mass that reflects its importance.
I often ask myself these questions, “Does the manner in which I celebrate the mass, as a priest, reflect the great dignity of the Lord’s Day?” “Do I make the necessary investment reflecting the belief and faith of the Church? A day, so holy, that God has deemed it an obligation?”
Obligation.
Wow, if ever there was a word that defines our common attitude, it is the word obligation.
Too often, obligation, is spoken and received as a “dirty word” and an “inconvenience.”
Excuses abound for poor celebrations and a lack of attendance. None of them reflect the honesty, frankness, sincerity, and genuine interest seen in those fidgeting young souls who many believe do not understand what we celebrate. Jesus reminds us to become like little children if we seek the Father, but what does he mean?
Perhaps the Lord is suggesting to us that we have become “too busy.” This applies to the priests and to the laity (generally speaking, those who sit in the pews during our celebration of the mass) alike.
“I’m too busy,” is often used as a reason to not attend mass let alone to join in its active celebration. “Father, you just don’t understand; I have so much going on and if I don’t get this done things will fall apart.”
“Things will fall apart,” how true!
“Things will fall apart.”
Let’s face it, "too busy" leads us to being overwhelmed, which lead us to exhaustion and eventually to fall apart or collapse. Most of us in the western world are on the verge of collapsing physically, but what we fail to recognize is that those who have given up going to mass on Sunday have already collapsed spiritually and are on the verge of a death that is eternal.
“Did you just say ‘eternal death?’” Yes, I did.
“How dare you.”
“How dare I not.”
If I don’t then I fail to be compassionate. “Compassion” means to suffer with; to suffer with another person, and as Pope Benedict reminds, has its roots in the word “consolatio” - consolation.
No one wants to remain in a “funk” or spiritual “dead zone.” No Catholic wants to come to mass on Sunday and be bored- not even the priest.
Honesty, frankness, sincerity, and genuine interest are essential in providing a quality experience at Church on Sunday, but they are not the essential element! Belief and Faith are.
“Belief” is the willingness to choose to accept that which is offered as true. In the case of the sacraments, we could say “belief” is the willingness to accept that which is offered as true and holy by God. “Faith” is the willingness to accept that which has been revealed by God but is not completely comprehended by an individual.
The irony today, is that those of us who are on the verge of collapse because we are overburdened and lack energy are in fact, fertile ground for spiritual renewal. Often, hardships and stress force us to get back to the basics by evaluating what is most important in life. Taking care of the basics provides us structure and stability, and repeatedly committing ourselves to building on a basic foundation allows us to begin to grow as a human, and especially as a member of the body of Christ.
Any effective counsellor must help the person who is suffering to overcome a disordered attachment to “excuses” in order for a person to identify reasons for their suffering. But this is not enough, identifying the reasons for their suffering only gets a person part of the way to becoming whole again. True healing requires the counsellor to not only help the person see the causes of their suffering but true healing requires the afflicted person to appropriate, or embrace, a remedy for their pain.
This spiritual apathy that we sometimes experience on Sundays, or maybe continually experience depending on where you worship, is caused because our commitment to living the faith is under duress or has been damaged by sin, either ours or the sins committed by another. In short, this spiritual apathy has been caused because our relationship with God has been allowed to take a back seat to daily life.
Our daily lives are out of order because our spiritual lives are out of order.
Cleaning up the temple of the Holy Spirit will lead us to an orderly life, think confession, though not a life free of suffering. Going to Confession and giving the Lord His day are the keys to enjoying a vibrant faith.
St. John of the Cross tells us,
"One human thought alone is worth more than the entire world, hence God alone is worthy of it."
If this is so, and I believe it is, if our time is so valuable, then isn’t God alone worthy of it?”
How compassionate is God that He would oblige us to be consoled by participating in the Lord’s Day. Now that should bring smiles to us all.
May the Lord, when He comes, find an abundance of faith in us and in our celebration of the Lord's Day.
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