A Word from Your Pastor - July 26

Dear Parishioners:

Jesus calls all of us to live in communion with Him and one another.  The place we learn how to do this is the Liturgy.  Literally, “liturgy” means “the work of the people.”  It refers to the work that is done by a people in common for the sake of the common good.  In our time, we are clearly called to take what we receive from the Lord at the Liturgy and to share it with the world.

There is a major problem with this “setup” in our current experience.  I am sure that you can easily recognize what it is….  Many of the people among those “called to serve” are only rarely present at the Liturgy.  Families used to structure their lives around the weekly effort to live in relationship to the Church.  They would come to confession together on Saturday afternoons and have one particular Mass that they attended together as a family on Sunday mornings.  I offer praise and encouragement to the families that still follow this custom.  I realize that it is not always easy to arrange.

There are families who can be found at Mass each weekend, even if not all together at the same Mass, nonetheless at one or the other.  A number have taken up my invitation to bring me a bulletin from another church if they go to Mass somewhere else.  This too is worthy of praise.  Getting to Mass is the most important thing you can do as a family to keep yourselves Christ-centered.

For those who are not at Mass regularly: we welcome you when you are here and are happy the Mass is still on your radar of things to do.  We also invite and encourage you to put it more at the center of your routine.  Let the Mass determine your schedule rather than your schedule determine whether you go to Mass at all. 

Culturally, it seems to be in vogue that once or twice a month is good enough.  It is not.  The call of Scripture, Old and New Testament, is to put God first by weekly attendance at the Liturgy.  “Keep holy the Sabbath” means every week – for us as Catholics, Sunday Mass.  The Letter to the Hebrews (10:25) reminds us that we ought not to absent ourselves from the assembly (that is, gathering for Mass) as some do.  We are told that it was Jesus’ own custom to go to the synagogue every Sabbath and that whenever He was in Jerusalem, He would go to the Temple.  The Apostles and disciples of the Lord did the same and that is where our own Tradition began.

At Mass, we learn to welcome.  We hear God’s Word through Scripture.  We are fed and nourished by the Sacrament of the Eucharist.  And we hear the call to go out to all the world.  The tools we need to share Jesus with the world are available to us in the most complete form always and only at that the Mass.