The Catholic Weekly’s Facebook page has lit up over the last couple of weeks in response to my articles on reasons why Catholics don’t attend Sunday Mass anymore.
Some of the responses were a bit stark and not terribly helpful. I think we all know that people can make wrong choices in life. That’s the whole idea of free will.
But we need to think about how we respond to that. So I’ll start by saying: If you’re still a Sunday massgoer, you should be singing God’s praises in gratitude.
Be grateful every day to God that you’re working on that loving relationship with the one who has lavished blessings on you.
Maybe try to avoid thanking God that you’re not like those tax collectors down the back, or the people who aren’t there at all (Lk 18:9-14).
Don’t get tickets on yourself for being part of the remnant. More is expected of you. You must have a bigger heart than this if the church is going to survive at all.
I’m not saying “love the sin” of not going to Mass. I’m saying, “Try to understand the sinner a bit better so that you can love them and pray for them.”
No one should be shocked that people don’t go to Mass anymore. Remember that Jesus explained all this to us over two thousand years ago.
The parable of the sower and the seed is an important one—important enough to appear in Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s gospels.
Some seed fell along the path. Let’s think of that as the hearts of young children whose parents didn’t go to Mass very often, but who sent them to a Catholic school.
Unfortunately, other children at the school soon teased their tiny faith out of them like a little flock of birds gobbling up the seed.
Then some seed fell on rocky ground. Perhaps that was the hearts of young adults who got involved in parish youth ministry or were altar servers.
Once they got to university or into the workplace, the hot sun of a secular society shrivelled up those roots very quickly.
Then there were those who hung on into adulthood. The seed grew and flourished. But then they got older and richer.
Affluence, distraction, and comfort all gradually choked out the faith in their hearts, replacing it with scrolling on social media, sport, and shopping.
None of them come to Mass. And why should they? They have better things to do with their time than come to the wedding feast of the king (Matt 22, Lk 14).
Jesus misses these people. He misses them terribly, and if he misses them, then so should we.
Jesus is the great lover of our entire beings. He longs to see us at Mass and to receive us in Holy Communion.
It’s a spousal relationship. If you don’t talk to your spouse and stop being intimate with them, then the marriage can quickly become a very cold place.
The trouble is not that so many Catholics have fallen out of love with Jesus in the Eucharist. It’s that they’ve never fallen in love with him in the first place.
He’s always been something, not someone, bolted on to their lives, or their education, or squeezed into a small space on Sunday mornings. He has quickly become a bore and a burden.
If that love is missing from Catholic hearts, then no amount of stopping clergy sexual abuse, ordaining women, or moving the furniture around will save the church from steady decline.
An hour a week with God can’t do much if your soul is shrivelling in the vinegar of social media for the remaining 100 or so waking hours of the week.
Going to Mass will be too challenging if you know that your sex life is completely at odds with what God wants, but you have no intention of changing things any time soon.
Going to Mass will be too boring if your life goals have become the pursuit of ambition, money, comfort, and pleasure.
I would be so happy if I thought these people were reading the Scriptures instead and finding Jesus there. They’d also learn that you can’t have Jesus without his church or his sacraments.
But they’re not, and so we’re left with #ThingsJesusNeverSaid.
I’ve had some beautiful emails as well from readers. Thank you for helping me to hammer out my ideas for this week’s column.
I know you are all praying for the missing Catholics, and for me too.