In today’s generation, attending the Holy Mass on Sunday (or Weekday Mass if your job falls on a Sunday) is not a priority anymore. The Holy Mass becomes an optional event in our lives. The main question for those who don’t attend the Holy Mass is why do we need to? And many people have different answers for this.
We need to attend the Holy Mass because it fulfills the third commandment “Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.” Attending the Holy Mass on Sunday is the Sabbath Day, the Lord’s Day. The Holy Mass also holds one of the Seven Sacraments that our Lord Jesus Christ instituted, the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, where the bread and wine and becomes the Body and Blood of Christ. And then we unite with Christ in the Holy Communion. Not attending the Holy Mass is a mortal sin. So, we should attend the Holy Mass. Sadly, some of the priests are not teaching this to the people including the children. This is the result of the Vatican II Council where some churches and schools removed the Cathechism.
These are one of the most common words that people who don’t attend the Holy Mass. We must remember, we are all sinners including the priest, the altar servers and the people who help and attend the Holy Mass. May be most of us are not doing the mortal sins but we are more capable on doing the venial sins. If you feel are not worthy to attend the mass, you should not be. If you done any sins, you have to confess it to the priest, receive absolution and never to sin again. The church told us to take a sacrament of confession once a year, but there is no rule not to take this sacrament often.
“Confession is the soul’s bath. You must go at least once a week. I do not want souls to stay away from confession more than a week. Even a clean and unoccupied room gathers dust; return after a week and you will see that it needs dusting again!”
— St. Padre Pio
Some people don’t like the priest in their parish because of the personality or some other reasons like political, where some priests are against to a certain candidate in an election. What they forgot is that the priest is not the reason why you attend the mass, it is our Lord Jesus Christ, on the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. The priest is doing his job on leading the mass, hate him or not you must attend the mass because this is also your job as a faithful servant of God.
Some people when they encountered the Traditional Latin Mass or the Tridentine Mass had a negative expression including those who do not know that the Tridentine Mass is the original form that was celebrated many centuries ago, including the saints and Some are modernist who likes the Novus Ordo Mass. Most of us are grown up to the Novus Ordo Mass, it is normal for us that we will have a culture shock because it is in latin language and it’s very solemn that some modernist thought it is boring. But we must not judge the mass because we do not understand the language or it is outdated for, This Mass is a true Holy Sacrifice, it doesn’t matter if you are happy or sad. What matters is we make a sacrifice during the Holy Mass. Christ sacrifice His life on the cross to save us, so we should us make sacrifice for Him in the Holy Mass.
If there are modernist hated the Traditional Latin Mass, some traditionalist hated the Novus Ordo Mass. Because they think that the Mass is invalid and God is not there. Yes, let’s accept that there is something wrong in the Novus Ordo Mass. But it doesn’t mean it is invalid and God is not present. God is still present in the Novus Ordo Mass in the form of the Blessed Sacrament. Even the Traditional Socities never called this mass invalid. We cannot say that those people who attend the Novus Ordo Mass are sinners because they attend the mass that has more errors. Remember, that most of the generation today are not aware of the Traditional Latin Mass because they don’t live before 1960’s and there are no Traditional Latin Mass nearby.
