JUDGMENT

3--How explain the small number of those who hear Mass regularly?

The reasons are several:

1. A sinful life: Take a person who goes to confession once a year (when he bothers to go at all) to fulfill his Easter duty; after which he begins again to offend God seriously. A whole year passes without a fresh approach to the sacraments. The person will say to himself, "After all, one sin more or less isn't going to make much difference!"

2. Loss of faith: A sinful life leads to loss of faith. Now when a person no longer believes in the mysteries of our holy Faith, the next step is to abandon his religious practices altogether. The sheerest pretext now suffices to silence the not overly-tender conscience. For example, he can't go to Mass in the summer because his summer cottage is three or four miles from the church! . . . When one considers that the Holy Family walked three days to reach the Temple of Jerusalem, in order to fulfill their religious obligations! (St. Luke 2:46) Some people (who have only themselves to blame) are certainly storing up plenty of trouble for themselves on the Day of Judgment.

3. Saturday night parties: Christian parents should never permit their children to attend or organize one of these interminable vigils, where drinking and dancing go on till the "wee small hours" of Sunday morning. Nobody, under similar circumstances can hear Mass in a truly Christian manner. One simply does not give one's "leavings" to God!

4. Ignorance about the Mass: If attendance at Mass is such a boring affair for some people, it is because they do not understand their Mass. For a great many persons, the Mass represents some sort of bitter pill which Catholics are obligated (reluctantly) to swallow on Sundays to keep their souls alive! For Catholics like this, the Mass is meaningless: they are concerned only with the serious precept. Were the Church to withdraw the grave obligation of attending Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of obligation, our churches would suddenly be deserted, and attendance would drop to the level of the six other days of the week.

[From 'Your Mass and Your Life']