Take A Deep Breath

This weekend (July 24-25) is the expiration of the dispensation from the Sunday Obligation. Last week, we covered what a Catholic’s obligations actually are. As a refresher, the “indispensable minimum” to fulfill our yearly liturgical/sacramental requirements amounts to:

1. Attending the 58-ish obligated Masses (Sundays plus Holy Days of Obligation)

2. Going to the Sacrament of Confession at least once, preferably during Lent

3. Receiving the Eucharist at least once during the Easter Season
   *for a full list, from the source, go to Paragraphs 2041-2043 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church*

Why so many Masses? Because the Mass is where we directly encounter the Eucharist, our God. The Eucharist is the Source and Summit of the Christian life; It is what binds us to the God with Whom we hope to spend eternity and It is what nourishes us and keeps us alive on the way. Only going to Church twice a year is like thinking you only need to breath once every three minutes: there’s a slight chance you could survive like that briefly or in dire necessity without immediately suffering permanent damage or death, but it is not a thing you want to make a norm. The Mass and the Obligation are there to help make sure that we don’t drown in the cares of daily life. Sunday is the Lord’s Day so that no seven days go by without us having the chance to surface, take a deep breath, be restored in the Presence of our God, and remember that being with Him is the only thing that matters in the end. Otherwise, when a week turns into two, turns into twenty, it gets easier and easier to forget that we are made for something more than a 40-80+ hour/week grind until we retire or die. To reject the Mass is to reject the greatest gift we’ve been given as well as the God Who gave it. That’s why missing or skipping Mass just because I don’t feel like it, its inconvenient, or because I have other priorities always constitutes a grave sin.

One last thing to remember: our God doesn’t ask the impossible. These obligations hold for all who are capable of fulfilling them and are dispensed for those who are not. If you are sick (actually sick), you are a parent of a young child who is sick, you’re in a hospital or care facility, you’re not old enough or too old to drive and cannot find a ride to Church (and tried to), or you have been kidnapped and can’t manage to chew through your restraints to get to the 6:00pm Mass in time, you are not guilty of that deliberate rejection of God and His grace. Last year taught much of the Church what it was like to be incapable of going to Mass, but that didn’t mean we were cut off from God. It is not the same as being in person, but when there are no options, it is amazing what the Lord can provide when we offer to Him what little we have, even if it is just half an hour to pray through the Sunday’s Readings and make a prayer of Spiritual Communion.

The world will tell you there are a lot of other very important things you need to take care of, but let every Sunday and every Mass be your chance to say to the world, “You know what, you’re very important to me, but you’re going to have to excuse me for a bit; I’ve got something that I really can’t miss.”

God bless,
Fr. James