St. Mary of the Assumption

Maple Park, Illinois

June 2019 Parish Calendar

 

Something I have expressed many times over the years is my belief that Pope St. John XXIII would have died of a broken heart if he had lived in the years following the Second Vatican Council.  When he called the council together to “open the windows and allow fresh air to come into the Church,” it was not his intention to open the door for the rejection of Catholic teaching and the collapse of the commitment of priests, nuns and monks to their vocations.  I suspect he would have been deeply hurt by the huge numbers of priests and male and female consecrated religious who left their vocations.  In the same way, I can only imagine the pain he would have felt to see the enormous drop in Mass attendance by those claiming to be Catholics.

This weekend we celebrate Corpus Christi, the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ given to us in the Holy Eucharist.  The Church has taught from the beginning that when the bread and wine are consecrated at Mass they become, each entirely, the very reality of Jesus Christ.  His Body and Blood, the same elements born from the womb of Mary and crucified, died and rose for our salvation, is what is present on our altars and given to us in Holy Communion.

A number of years ago I heard of a Protestant pastor in New England who said that if he believed what Catholics believed about the Holy Eucharist, he would crawl on his hands and knees to come to receive Communion.  On the other hand, surveys tell us today that 70% of Catholics do not attend Mass and receive Communion regularly.  If they believe what the Church teaches about the Eucharist, they are giving Christ the most despicable insult imaginable: “Yes, I believe that it is You who are present in the Eucharist, but it’s not all that important to me.”

I’m sure there are many reasons why Catholics neglect Mass attendance on weekends.  There are legitimate reasons why a Catholic would miss Mass: the Church recognizes that illness or being home bound is an acceptable reason for not attending Mass; sometimes a person might be in a situation (e.g., on vacation) where it would be a real hardship to be able to attend.  It is also an acceptable reason if someone had to be present in caring for someone who is ill or in serious danger.  The requirements of the virtue of charity (self-giving love for the benefit of another) always take first place in our Christian living.

One of the saddest things I came across was a newspaper article a number of years ago that told of Catholics and Mass attendance.  In the article a young Catholic boy who was usually busy on weekends playing on a sports traveling team said, “I would like to go to Mass on Sunday, but we can’t go because of the ball games.”  Another occasion which broke my heart was when one of our second graders in the grade school in my former parish said, “I like to go to Mass and receive Communion, but my mom says we don’t have to go every week.”  Lord, have mercy on “mom!”

The Vatican II document Lumen Gentium ( “Light of the Nations”) said the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life” (¶ 11).  The Code of Canon Law tells us On Sundays and other holy days of obligation the faithful are bound to participate in the Mass; they are also to abstain from those labors and business concerns which impede the worship to be rendered to God, the joy which is proper to the Lord’s Day, or the proper relaxation of mind and body (Canon 1247).  This is a serious obligation, and to consistently disregard it is a serious sin against the authority Christ has given to the Church.

Isn’t it said that we need to appeal to an obligation under penalty of sin, when it should be our privilege and joy to come into the presence of Jesus at Mass?  How much we need to pray that God will soften the hardness of the hearts of those who can’t be bothered to give the Lord the worship proper to Him on the Lord’s Day!  Our Lord once told the Apostles how fortunate they were to see His coming when Abraham, Moses and others longed to see it and did not.  How fortunate we are today to see what they longed for.