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Why
I Go to Mass
by Thomas Richstatter, O.F.M.
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How many of the things you did when
you were 10 years old do you still do today? A lot of things I used to do I don’t do anymore. This is
especially true of physical activities—football is a thing of the past for
me. Even my prayer life has changed.
There are some prayers and devotions that I no longer pray. However, Mass
remains constant—in my life and in the life of the Church. After 2,000 years,
God’s invitation to the banquet still stands. Humans have long asked these
questions. The whole Book of Job in the Bible is about the question of
suffering. Christians have tried to discover meaning for suffering in
studying and praying about the suffering and death of Jesus told in the
Gospels. Some of the more violent biblical perspectives, however, fail to
satisfy fully. Hearts and minds long for the God of compassion revealed by
Jesus. In this Update we’ll look at
five reasons why I go to 1. I need others to pray
well. It is hard to do difficult things
alone. And following Jesus can be tough work. One of the reasons why
Alcoholics Anonymous, Weight Watchers and other similar programs work is
because they are group efforts. To change our lives—in Biblical terms, to repent,
to convert—we need the help and support of others. At Mass I join with
others who are also trying to live the gospel and follow Jesus. Sometimes when I try to make good
decisions—decisions based on gospel values—I get overwhelmed by the extent of
social evils in the world. How can I live justly in the midst of so much
injustice? How can I live gospel poverty in the midst of so much conspicuous
consumption? How can I forgive in a world that seeks vengeance? At Mass I am reminded and assured
that I am not alone in my efforts. I am a member of the Church. I am a member
of the Body of Christ. I share in the Spirit of Christ and I am empowered by
that Holy Spirit. At each Eucharist I hear the words: “Take this, all of you,
and drink from it: This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and
everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be
forgiven.” Together we can make a difference in this world. Together with
Christ we can make a tremendous difference. And at Mass we are truly gathered
with Christ: “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I
in the midst of them” (Mt 2. The Mass enables me to pray with
my whole body. When I pray by myself, at home, I
pray mainly with words. I “talk to God”—that’s what I was taught prayer is,
talking to God. But when I go to Mass, I pray with more than words; I pray
with my whole body. I pray with bread and wine, water and oil, coming
together and going apart, standing still and processing forward, lighting
candles and smelling flowers, even dust and ashes! At Mass I acknowledge that I am
more than just my head or my soul. I am saved body and soul. I am saved body,
mind and spirit. And I am saved by a God who is more than just spirit. I am
saved by a God who “became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (Jn Jesus knows about our daily life
because he lived here among us. And he knows about us not just in his head,
but in his body. Jesus knew the strain of lifting a heavy table, the sweat of
working in the desert sun, the pain of hunger, the embrace of friends, the
joyful taste of rich red wine! Consequently, I can pray with earthly things,
I pray with symbols. Symbol is the language of the Symbols don’t always come easily
for us. Our bishops remind us that American culture “which is oriented to
efficiency and production has made us insensitive to the symbolic function of
persons and things” (Environment and Art in Catholic Worship, 16). If
symbol is the language of the Mass, people who are schooled in the
scientific, the practical and countable may find it a foreign language, and
may find the symbolic nature of the Mass as difficult as speaking a foreign
language. They may think that symbols are not real, yet symbols are very
real. A kiss between lovers is real communication. It says more than words. Symbolic language is essential to
my prayer life because there are times when mere words are just not enough.
Symbols can mean more than a declarative statement or scientific formula or
theological dogma. For example, what does the Mass
mean? When I received Holy Communion for the first time at the age of six, I
did so with great reverence. I knew what I was doing. I knew what the Mass
meant. Today, I certainly know more about the Eucharist than I did then. But
the experience of sharing this sacred meal remains the same experience. It is an experience that is beyond
words. I knew what it meant when I was six; I know what it means now; yet the
Mass is beyond all those meanings. That is the beauty of the Mass: It means
more than we can ever understand it to mean. A symbol says more than mere
words could ever say. The Mass is more than words. At Mass I pray with my
whole body. 3. Besides talking to God, I need God to talk to me. I often think of prayer as “talking
to God,” but I have learned from other situations that when I talk too much,
I don’t learn anything. A real conversation needs not only talking, but also
listening. I go to Mass to listen to God speaking to me. I hear Christ’s
voice in the readings since “it is he himself who speaks when the holy
Scriptures are read in the Church” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,
7). I hear Christ’s voice in the homily. I hear his voice in the other members
of the worshiping assembly— in their devotion, their petitions, their sacrifices. And most especially I hear his voice in
the prayers of the The Mass is the prayer of the Body
of Christ, head and members. The priest always prays in the first-person
plural—“we, us”—because it is our prayer, all of us together. We pray
“through Christ our Lord” because it is the prayer of Christ united with his
Body, the Church. I hear the voice of Christ in the prayers of the At each Mass I hear Christ’s words,
“This is my body...this is my blood...do this in memory of me.” God speaks to
me in these words. I hear proclaimed the reality of the central mystery of
faith. I believe that Christ died for our sins, rose from the dead and gives
us his body and blood to eat and drink. “For my flesh is true food, and my
blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me
and I in him” (Jn But the bread does not become just
any flesh—it becomes the flesh of Christ, the Christ who gave himself up
totally for us. It becomes the flesh of Christ who gave his life for the
poor, the flesh of Christ who gave up his very life to reveal how much God
loves us. When I hear the words, “Do this in
memory of me,” I hear God’s voice not just challenging me to go to Mass but
also challenging me to that self-giving love that the Mass celebrates. We are
to become the Body of Christ. We are to live as Christ lived and act as
Christ would act. This is the hard part of the Eucharist. The difficult thing
is not only believing that the bread and wine become
Christ’s body and blood; the difficult thing is accepting the challenge to
“do this”—to live with that same self-giving love. After 2,000 years, God’s invitation
to the banquet still stands. We still hear the words “do
this....” Yet that challenge is continually modified by the culture
and the historical situation into which it is proclaimed. Think about our
challenge in Christ’s words, “Do this in memory of me.” Here in At Mass, when we get up and leave our
pew at Communion time and come forward to receive the Bread and drink the
Cup, our “Amen” to the words “Body of Christ, Blood of Christ” implies that
we accept Christ’s challenge. 4. Being born again once didn’t
quite do it. I know that Baptism is a new birth
and that in Baptism all of my sins are taken away. But I continue to sin and
I continue to need to hear the words, “Your sins are forgiven.” When I go to
Mass, I am continually assured of God’s ongoing love. Consider how many times
during Mass we seek God’s mercy! “May almighty God...forgive us our sins”
(Penitential Rite); “You take away the sin of the world: have mercy on us”
(Glory to God); “Though we are sinners, we trust in your mercy and love. Do
not consider what we truly deserve, but grant us your forgiveness”
(Eucharistic Prayer I); “Our Father...forgive us our trespasses as we forgive
those who trespass against us” (Lord’s Prayer); “This is the Lamb of God who
takes away the sins of the world....Lord, I am not worthy...but only say the
word and I shall be healed” (Invitation to Communion). At the heart of each and every Mass
we hear Christ’s command to “Take this, all of you, and drink from it: This
is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It
will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven.” While I was born again in Baptism,
I feel a need to be born again, and again, and again. This is why I go to Each time I enter the church for
Mass, I sign myself with water from the baptismal font, or holy water font,
to remind myself of my Baptism. Mass is the way I renew the promises of my
Baptism. Mass is, as one of my friends put it, “the repeatable part of
Baptism.” When I go to Mass I am assured
again of this truth: “We were indeed buried with [Christ] through baptism
into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of
the Father, we too might live in newness of life” (Rom 6:4). New life: That’s
what I want from 5. The Mass helps me find the
sacred in the ordinary. Do you receive those Christmas form
letters where your friends tell you all the exciting things they have done in
the past year? I get lots of those letters. I send them out myself! But while, in a good year, there
may be a couple exciting events, most of my life is ordinary. We can talk
about “new life” and “life in the risen Lord,” but most of my life is simply routine. I get up, go to work, come home, go to bed. If Christianity is going to have
any real influence on my life it must touch me in the ordinary and the
routine. At Mass we use ordinary things: eating and drinking, standing and
sitting, shaking hands and keeping quiet. In this ordinary stuff, I find God. Once, when parishioners asked St.
Augustine (354-430 A.D.) what had happened to all the miracles they read
about in the Gospels—feeding thousands with a few loaves and raising the dead
to life—St. Augustine asked them to think of the grain of wheat falling to
the ground and producing stalk and blade. Where can you find a greater
miracle than that! Often the greatest miracles are to be found in the
ordinary.
The Mass is the principal element
in my life that has helped me develop a “spirit of wonder and awe” in the
presence of the ordinary. At the Mass my ordinary life is
taken up into God’s great plan for the world. The Second Vatican Council says
that Mass “is the outstanding means whereby the faithful may express in their
lives and manifest to others the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the
true Church” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 2). At Mass we not
only hear of God’s dreams for us, we act them out: We are taken up into those
dreams.
I hear of God’s dreams of justice
for all peoples of all nations. In Holy Communion I see how the Body and
Blood of the Lord are broken and shared and how everyone receives enough—the
rich and the poor, young and old, hungry and weak. I am forced by the
contrast between the Table of the Lord and the table of this world (where
very few have enough—indeed millions are starving!) to rethink my ideas of
justice and charity. At Mass, we don’t just pray, “Thy kingdom come,” we
experience what the kingdom promises. We don’t just talk about Holy Thursday,
we eat and drink. We not only talk about Good Friday, we are
sacrifice. We not only attend Easter liturgies, we are risen in the promise
of Christ. At Mass, our lives are taken up into the paschal victory of
Christ. At Mass our ordinary daily lives
are taken up into eternity. What we do at Mass is but a hint of what we will
be doing forever in heaven when, “freed from every shadow of death, we shall
take our place in the new creation” (Eucharistic Prayer, Reconciliation I).
In the new world where fullness of God’s peace will be revealed we will be
seated at table with “people of every race, language, and way of life to
share in one eternal banquet with Jesus Christ the Lord” (Eucharistic Prayer,
Reconciliation II). That’s why I go to Mass! Thomas Richstatter, O.F.M., has a doctorate in
sacramental theology from Institut Catholique of
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