Perfect Sense: A Common Sense Explanation of Why Each One of Us Needs to Attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days

Introduction

It seems to be a common trend these days to think that attending Mass on Sundays and Holy Days is not really something that we as Catholics need to do.

“Why do I need to go to Mass every Sunday and Holy Days? I’m a pretty good person. I believe in God. I pray and give money to the Church. I send my kids to CCD. I’m responsible. I’m sure God is not going to hold it against me if I don’t show up every Sunday and every Holy Day. Besides, I attend Mass often during the year. That’s not that bad. There are many Catholics who don’t attend at all.”

Sound familiar?

This way of thinking demonstrates that we don’t understand the true meaning of the Mass, what’s at stake, and why we need to be there. And it’s understandable why this way of thinking is as prevalent as it is. The explanations of these things most likely have not been articulated to us so we have formed our own opinions about what is necessary and what is reasonable.

This article will explain the why and show that the Mass is a necessity for each one of us. Once understood, the Mass will become something we look forward to.

Adam and Eve and Sin

Understanding the Mass must start with an understanding of sin. If we think back to the days when we were first learning about the Catholic faith, we were taught, “Sin is an offense against God.”

We also learned that Adam and Eve, our first parents, committed the first sin. But what does that tell us about our first parents? If Adam and Eve committed the first sin, then God must have created them without sin. If they were created without sin, then they were created perfect.

Through their own free will, they chose to offend God and thereby lost their perfection. Once they did, they fell from grace and, now being imperfect, could no longer dwell with an all perfect God. Imperfect begets imperfect; Sin propagates from generation to generation with the human race continuing in its separation from God.

We need to pause for a moment here and examine why it is that God could not simply return Adam and Eve to their former state of perfection.

A Question of Justice

In order to understand this, we must first examine the makeup of God. From the time we were young, we were taught that God is All Knowing, All Loving, All Powerful, All Merciful and All-Perfect. But there is another very important aspect of God that is often overlooked. It is that God is All Justice.

And what does God is All Justice mean? It means that God must demand that for every offense there is fair reparation to compensate completely for the damage that was done. For God to do otherwise would be to deny an essential part of his very makeup.

We should understand this concept well since we live in a world where we seek to accomplish this with our own system of justice. We put laws in place in order to impose fair penalties for every situation where an offense is committed against the state; the more serious the offense, the more serious the penalty. All of this is set into law in an attempt to compensate completely for any damage that is done.

We as law-abiding citizens want a fair system of justice. We think it just that when an offense is committed, the proper penalty is imposed. We wouldn’t want it any other way. Any reasonable person would push for this. Without it our world would be chaotic.

So that brings us back to the situation with Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve commit a sin, an offense against God. God is All Justice so fair reparation must be made. But what is fair reparation in this case?

Perfect Reparation

Sin, being an offense against God, is an offense against Him who is All Perfect. In the case of Adam and Eve, their sin destroyed the perfect human nature that God created. So what can we say then about the reparation that must be made in order to properly restore what was lost?

IT MUST BE PERFECT! Why? Because Sin destroyed our perfect human nature and offended God who is All Perfect.

Where must the reparation come from? It must come from the human race. Why? Because Adam and Eve were human and they brought sin into the world. The generations that followed, being flawed by sin continued to sin.

So what do we have here? We have an offense where reparation is required in order to restore what was lost. This reparation must come from the human race and must be perfect.

But wait a minute. Now that the human race is flawed by sin, it is no longer perfect, and, since it is no longer perfect, there is nothing that it can offer for sin that would qualify as perfect.

We have a dilemma.

We were created to dwell with God, but now because of sin we are separated from him and have nothing sufficient to offer to repair what was lost. So how do we solve this problem?

God Steps In

Well, that’s the beauty of the story. We don’t solve this problem, God does.

Reparation must be made to God for sin because God is All Justice. But God is also All Loving. So what does he do?

God solves the problem for us! How?

He sends the second person of the Blessed Trinity, his only Son, Jesus, into the world to be born of Mary. And what does Jesus do? He offers himself on the cross at Calvary as reparation for sin!

Does this solve the problem? Yes. Why?

This solves the problem because Jesus is True God and True Man. Being God, he is perfect. Being born of Mary, he is human. So his Sacrifice on the Cross comes from the human race and is a perfect Sacrifice. Problem solved!

So what does this mean? This means that we can once again dwell with God. Where? In heaven. How? Because now the human race has a perfect Sacrifice to legitimately offer as reparation for sin. One that fully repairs all that was lost through sin. And it comes from one of our own – Jesus.

This is why Sacred Scripture says: “God so loved the world that he sent his only Son, so that whoever believes in him will have Eternal Life.”

Just in case you needed proof of God’s Love for us. That was it!

The Mass as Reparation for Sin

Now that finally brings us back to the point where we can answer the question, why does each one of us need to attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days?

Each one of us needs to attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days so that we can re-offer to God, the Father, the once-for-all Perfect Sacrifice that Jesus, True God and True Man, made on the Cross at Calvary almost 2000 years ago in reparation for sin.

Why must we do this?

We must do this because of OUR SINS; each one of us. When we attend MASS, the Sacrifice that Jesus made for sin is re-presented to God the Father for our sins. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says in paragraph 1366 where it quotes the Council of Trent:

“[Christ], our Lord and God, was once and for all to offer himself to God the Father by his death on the altar of the cross, to accomplish there an everlasting redemption. But because his priesthood was not to end with his death, at the Last Supper "on the night when he was betrayed," [he wanted] to leave to his beloved spouse the Church a visible sacrifice (as the nature of man demands) by which the bloody sacrifice which he was to accomplish once for all on the cross would be re-presented, its memory perpetuated until the end of the world, and its salutary power be applied to the forgiveness of the sins we daily commit.”

Through the power of the Priesthood, the Priest brings the Living Presence of Jesus, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity to us on the Altar under the appearance of bread and wine. And then all of us present in the Church, as a congregation, re-offer Jesus and his once-for-all Perfect Sacrifice made on Calvary to God the Father, and apply its power to the forgiveness of the sins that we commit on a daily basis!

Once this offering is accomplished, we then bind ourselves to it in Holy Communion by receiving Jesus in The Holy Eucharist, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity and allowing his Precious Blood to wash over us and cover us. Remember that this part of the Mass is called The Liturgy of the Eucharist and its foundation comes directly from the Old Testament Passover. Recall that Jesus was celebrating The Seder Meal of The Passover at The Last Supper when he transformed the “natural” elements of the Passover Lamb and of the bread and wine into the “supernatural” presence of The Lamb of God, Jesus himself truly present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity and then soon after offered himself on the Cross to God The Father for the sins of the world. This is why Jesus is both truly Priest and Victim. The Priest saying the Mass takes the place of Christ the Priest; “in persona Christi” meaning in the person of Christ, but Christ the Victim remains the same!

So just as at the very first Passover the Israelites sacrificed a lamb, offered it to God, roasted its flesh, covered the doorpost of their homes with its blood and received the flesh of the lamb so that when the Angel of Death came to their door, he would Passover their home, they would be freed from the slavery of the Egyptians and taken to the Promised Land;so too we then offer the once for all sacrifice of the Lamb of God, Jesus, to God The Father, receive him Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity and cover ourselves with his precious blood so that when the Angel of Death comes to us, he will Passover us, we are freed from the slavery of sin and taken to the Promised Land of Heaven!

Do you see how Jesus transforms the “natural” elements of the Passover into his “supernatural” presence in The Mass and then the incredible power it has? So the Mass is like a lightning bolt through all of Salvation History.

Also remember that the Sacrifice that Jesus made is the only perfect Sacrifice available to the human race. Therefore it is the only acceptable offering that we have that makes perfect reparation to God the Father for our sins. Once again, when and where do we do this? We do this during the “Holy Sacrifice of the Mass”. Nowhere else is the living presence of Jesus made available to us for the very purpose of allowing us the opportunity to offer perfect reparation to God, the Father, for our sins and the sins of the whole world. Don’t miss the opportunity!

Final Reflection

Since we are people that pursue justice, we must recognize that, with regard to the sins that we commit, we must make proper reparation in order to repair the damage caused by these sins. We confess them and are forgiven of them in the Sacrament of Penance precisely because perfect reparation is made for them in the offering of the “Holy Sacrifice of the Mass”.

When in our every day lives we see someone commit an offense while refusing to take the necessary steps to compensate for the damage that was done, we are the first to insist that they obey the law and pay the penalty. In the same way then, we should recognize that we need to make reparation for the offenses that we commit against each other and against God. After all, God is the Father of us all and when we offend each other we offend him as well.

Why then do we need to attend Mass every Sunday and Holy Day? Because we fall into sin often and we need to continually re-offer the once-for-all Sacrifice of Jesus to God the Father and apply its power to the forgiveness of our sins. It’s an on-going work.

If you think about it, God did all the hard work for us. He solved the problem! Now it’s up to us to show up and participate. That’s not much for God to ask after considering what he went through for us. It’s a perfect solution and he expects us to use it!

So attending Mass is something we do for our own good. I have often heard people refer to attending Mass as though they were doing God a favor. We are not doing God a favor; we are doing ourselves a favor.

By the way, the Church makes attendance at Mass every Sunday and Holy Day an obligation. This means that we must be there in order to maintain “a state of grace”. But this obligation is not put there by the Church to make our lives difficult. On the contrary, the Church is concerned for the salvation of our souls. The Church simply wants to ensure that we make it to Heaven. God has entrusted our souls to his Church and it is the Church’s obligation to administer the Sacraments to us and help us maintain this “state of grace”. So the Church makes these obligations for us to follow for the purposes of keeping us on track.

One last point to consider; you’ve undoubtedly heard the words, “Spread the Good News!” Well the Good News is that God has solved our problem for us by sending his Son Jesus into the world and allowing him to offer himself as a perfect sacrifice for sin. The debt has been paid! It is now left up to us to use our own free will to show up, participate, accept and use this great gift. Don’t let the opportunity pass. There is so much at stake. God and Heaven are waiting!

Hard copies of this article are available in pamphlet form. For anyone that would like to receive copies of this pamphlet, please send an email to the author at mjmccormick@optonline.net.