Today is the Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time.
One of the precepts of the Church is to attend Mass on all Sundays and Holy Days; many people see this as a burden - and an irrelevant one at that. Hence, they believe that they need not go to Mass on all Sundays. But they are missing the great, sublime mystery that is inherent in the celebration of Sunday Mass.
Against such people, many amateur apologists will say something like "can't we give the Lord one hour out of all the one-hundred, sixty-eight that there are in a week?" They mean well, and are correct in their intention. Before His death, Our Lord was in pain in the garden as He meditated on what was to come - but His closest friends fell asleep, oblivious to His suffering. In this pain, then, He sadly declared "so you could not keep watch with me for one hour?" (Mt. 26:40). The analogy is that by willfully refusing to go to Mass, we are disregarding the desires of the Lord.
The above is true, but incomplete. After all, the person who believes that going to Mass is unnecessary may very well "keep an hour with the Lord" on his or her own; the point is not the time spent in prayer, but rather the dynamism of a concept called "Sacred Time."
In the Catholic Church, our celebrations are at the intersection of two important concepts; Sacred Space, and Sacred Time. Sacred Space is pretty easy to understand. While God is everywhere, He is specially present in certain ways such as in the Eucharist. Since the Eucharist is a physical presence of the Body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ our Almighty God, it makes sense that we would call the sanctuary of the Church a "Sacred Space."
Sacred Time is more elusive, but even more beautiful than Sacred Space. Sacred Time is a mystical reality where we as the People of God do not just look back on events in the life of Christ and think "well, that's a nice thing that happened so long ago;" instead we actively and sacramentally enter into the events in the life of Christ and in the history of Salvation. Sacred Time is a belief that, just as God is specially present in certain places (the Church, the words of Scripture, the Eucharist, etc.), He is also specially present in certain times.
In the Mass, we enter into Sacred Time by becoming united to the "little Easter" - the weekly commemoration of the Resurrection of Jesus. Sunday was, of course, the day that Christ rose from the dead; well, we do not just passively remember that Christ rose from the dead (like we'd somehow forget); rather, we actively enter into the mystery of His Resurrection by taking the Resurrected Flesh of Jesus in the Mass. Jesus is present in the same way in the Eucharist as He was to Mary Magdalene at the side of His tomb, and He graciously comes into our bodies and souls; marking us for Heaven, and giving life to our souls which had previously been dead in sin. In a sense, we rise with Christ every time that we go to Mass, particularly Sunday Mass, and rising with Christ is our salvation: "you were buried with [Christ] in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead" (Col 2:12). When Jesus said: "Take and eat; this is my body" (Mt. 26:26), He was not just saying it to the Apostles; if He were, then why is it important enough to include in the Gospels? By partaking of the Eucharist, we enter into the mystery of the Last Supper, and take that Body which Christ says "is tue food, and my blood is true drink" (Jn. 6:55). The same Body that was given at the Last Supper is given also to us, and the words of Christ to the Apostles are the words of Christ to us. And we experience them actively every Sunday, when the Church enters into the Mystery.
By attending Mass, then, we're actively living past, present, and future in the mystery of Sacred Time. We come to the altar as the table of the Last Supper, and become united in One Body not just with all Catholics throughout the world, but all Catholics throughout time. The Apostles, martyrs, and our blessed ancestors, as well as our friends and neighbors all united through a mystical union. That is the past and present aspects of the Eucharist, but there is also a "future" aspect. By participating in the Mass, we look forward to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, described in the Book of Revelation. In this feast, the Church as the Bride of Christ celebrates with her children forever in Heaven. Therefore, the Eucharist is a fore-shadowing of the blessed celebration of Heaven. In his book "Light of the World," Pope Benedict XVI says "The Mass was originally celebrated facing east, toward the returning Lord, who is symbolized in the rising sun. Every Mass is therefore an act of going out to meet the One who is coming" (180).
Itaque, we must go to Sunday Mass - not because it is a dutiful requirement, but because we must "go out to meet the Lord." Meeting Him in the Mass we are united to the mystery of Christ's dying, and then we rise with Him again; it is much more powerful and sublime then just spending some time in private prayer. To willfully refuse to go is to ignore the powerful reality of Jesus' Resurrection - which is an event which must be experienced sacramentally in our own lives in a great Catheral of Time. That is why the Church requires attendence at Mass on Sundays; we need to experience the events of our Salvation. Christ is the Light of the world; let us let Him enlighten our souls and raise us up from our spiritual sicknesses.
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