Q. Why do we have to Go to Mass every week?
A. Is Mass every week really too much? I do appreciate your question so let me address it.
First, let me address the question of going to Mass every week wherever there are enough priest to have it every week (or perhaps even every day!). I think the best perspective is not so much why we have to go every week but rather how fortunate we are to be able to go every week. To some, the Mass can seem dull, dry and boring. It can seem like the same old thing over and over. Perhaps you don’t seem to get much out of the homily, perhaps you don’t like the music, perhaps it’s cold in church, perhaps we’ve simply had a long week and we feel like just sleeping in. Whatever the case may be there will always be things we could point to that make us feel like skipping. But what we must understand is that the Mass is the Mass regardless of anything else. And when we truly understand what the Mass is, in faith, we will never want to miss!
The Mass is the number one way God feeds us each and every week. In the Mass we are invited to encounter the True Presence of God in a way more profound and real than in any other way. It truly is the source and summit of our lives on Earth. When we approach the Mass with a deep faith and understanding of the great mystery we encounter, we will be left with a longing and desire for more. When we receive Holy Communion in faith and with an open heart we enter into communion with Jesus in the depths of our soul. He enters in, gives us Himself as our sustenance for life and transforms our hardships and struggles into joys. The Mass has an unlimited amount of power to change us and draw us closer to God. It has an unlimited amount of power to help us in life to become all that God intends us to be. In the Mass we are made one with Christ so that we can say with St. Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).
Perhaps that’s hard to understand but I encourage you to learn more about the Mass. I think it’s important to study it and to learn what so many of the great saints said about it. I’ve never met anyone who deeply understood the Mass who also didn’t want to attend it.
(Taken from Catholic Q & A)
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