I’ve been struggling for a while with the practice of Sunday worship.
As a Catholic I am supposed to go to Mass every Sunday. I don’t. I cannot find a local parish whose celebration of Mass I experience as sacred. If I’m staying at Turvey Abbey, I go to Mass there, and occasionally I visit on a Sunday just for Mass (a half-hour drive). But I try also to keep my Sabbath experience as simple, slow and reflective as possible, which for me ideally includes walking, not driving.
What makes the experience of Mass sacred? Am I expecting priests to be perfect? Am I putting too much emphasis on the aesthetics of the experience when I should be concentrating on my commitment to it? To what extent is duty a factor? The Catholic church regards neglecting weekly Mass as grave sin, do I really believe it is?
What it comes down to is that I do not experience the quickly-gabbled assembly-line Mass at my local parishes as sacramental. I don’t think others do either, to judge by the glancing at watches and the hasty exits either hot on the heels of the priest or without even waiting for Mass to end.
I feel closer to Christ walking down the street and exchanging a smile with my neighbours than I do in those parishes.
But I don’t want to be a Mass-snob, and I understand that we are all part of imperfect communities. It’s just that I don’t experience those parishes as communities at any level.
I’m not sure what the answer is, but I’m wrestling with this at the moment.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I feel your pain and I share your struggle with this. A part of what drew me into the Catholic Church was the deeply sacred that I felt in the liturgies here at Saint John’s Abbey. I have only a handful of occasions felt that anywhere else at Mass. Before we moved here, I had stopped going to Mass weekly. Now that we are here, I’m going to Mass daily. Quite a difference. But what happens after we leave Saint John’s? I really cannot say….
Do I believe its a grave sin to miss Sunday Mass? Not for a second do I believe such a thing. What kind of God are we serving? A small and petty God who doesn’t bother to look into our hearts, but only checks attendance as if a schoolmaster? Ah, but that’s the message such a “law” sends, in my opinion, that God is more concerned with adherence to the exact letter of the law than with a truly holy life lived for others, which may actually not look exactly like what the Church says it ought to.
Given the message that the Church often sends, subtly and otherwise about what kind of God God is, is it any wonder that the Church is largely irrelevant to most of society including the people who show up in her pews out a sense of guilt and duty and not much else/
Antony, it means so much to me to read these words of yours. I feel enormously comforted. Thank you.
thank you, tess and antony–i join you both in this struggle. crazy but i realized this morning how many catholic bloggers i am involved with and the question popped into my head “do you still love me even though i’m not catholic?” and then …”if i’m not protestant?” “jewish?” “muslim?”
are we guided by a “small and petty God”? or one who is expansive and loves us even when we skip mass or church in favor of walking down the street and exchanging a smile with our neighbor instead?
glad you are here. maybe we should start our own little virtual worship. i would love to break bread with you some day!
Thank you Lucy, ditto. Your question about “do you still love me if…” has lots of resonance for me.