“The Holy Mass should be your priority, use the Mass as an excuse to miss everything else, not the other way around.”  

Newsroom (12/04/2022 06:00 PM, Gaudium Press) Things have been changing at a dizzying speed, and we no longer cultivate certain values that used to make us better people. Many don’t even know what their own values are, and are lost out there, following any wind of doctrine that brings them some novelty or promise of personal gain.

Today, everything is very general and very generic, and there are almost no parameters to differentiate good from evil, right from wrong, right from wrong. Even the use of the terms “good and evil,” “right and wrong” may not sound right, so we are led to live on eggshells all the time.

It seems that the world has forgotten that duality is an inherent condition of life: light and dark, night and day, hot and cold, sweet and sour, dry and wet, heavy and light, death and life, man and woman, open and closed, new and old, early and late, and so many other pairs of opposites that have always existed, and will continue to exist, despite those who wish to have a one-way street in life. And speaking of a highway, it can give us a very clear example of the need for duality.

Let’s consider a two-way highway. Every driver knows that the driving direction on North American public roads is to drive on the right and passing on the left. It is not difficult to imagine what would happen if drivers decided to disobey the signs and drive in the direction that suits them best at the moment. Without this, there are already so many accidents, imagine, then, if some started going where they should go back, or coming back where they should go…

This example is just to illustrate that some things are as they are and cannot be changed. Right and wrong have not and will not cease to exist, because the rules of life and the laws of God do not change to adapt to us, it is we who must adapt to them.

Priority: The Holy Mass

Until some time ago, it was common for people to have a “Sunday Best” which meant their best clothes, because going to Mass was a solemn, very important and unavoidable act. As modernity advanced, there was a relaxation in customs and many people stopped having “Mass clothes” simply because they stopped going to Mass. And these changes have affected even many of those who go to Mass, because, today, one enters a church to attend Holy Mass as one enters a bar, a grocery store, a beach… And this is very serious, because we should dress well or, at least, decently, to go to the house of God. Above all, we should continue to go to God’s house.

These days, I read a sentence that caught my attention a lot: “The Holy Mass should be your priority, use the Mass as an excuse to miss everything else and not the other way around.” But, unfortunately, we don’t act like that. We always have excuses for not going to Mass. And that’s if we only consider Sunday Mass. In the morning we don’t go because it is too early and Sunday is the day to rest, to sleep late. We don’t go to the second Mass either because it is almost lunch time, so it will be too busy, after all, Sunday lunch is something special. We leave it until the afternoon, because then we will already be rested and in a good mood. But, when the afternoon comes, we are either immersed in some entertainment or sleeping, or with a visitor at home… “Oh, but I’ll go next week! And will you?

Meaning of Mass

It seems that people have forgotten the importance and meaning of the Mass. It has become just a religious event that people attend when it is convenient, on special occasions, or when things are not going well. And of those who attend, do they all prepare well? Or do they attend the Holy Mass in any way, just to fulfill a commitment?

The Holy Mass is the Eucharist itself, the perpetual memorial of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is the celebration of the Paschal Mystery. It is not a ritual created by men, but a Sacrament instituted by Our Lord, who said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves.” (Jn 6:53).

About this Divine Sacrament, St. Leonard of Port Maurice teaches that “the experience of the Holy Mass provides us with the graces of our redemption, for the sacrifice offered at each Holy Mass is the same as that offered on the Cross, the only difference is the manner.”

In his beautiful book The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ, Saint Alphonsus Mary de Liguori reminds us that “Our Savior, knowing that the hour had come for him to depart from this world, before dying for us, wanted to leave us the greatest possible proof of his love. It was precisely this gift of the Blessed Sacrament, in which he wanted to pour out all the riches of the love he reserved for men.”

The Sacrament of the Eucharist is superior to the others, because it does not possess just one grace, but the real presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ in body, blood, soul and divinity, under the appearance of bread and wine. Although it is a memorial, it is not a simple remembrance. The Holy Mass is the experience of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. So says the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in question 1367:

“The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one sacrifice. It is one and the same victim and He who now offers Himself through the ministry of priests is the same as He who once offered Himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different. And in this Divine Sacrifice, which is accomplished in the Mass, that same Christ, who once offered Himself cruelly on the altar of the cross, is now contained and immolated unbloody.”

Mass and missile

Today, due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, it is very fashionable to use the word missile, which bears a close resemblance to the word Mass in some Latin languages, (Missa
Míssil, for example in Portuguese, and Masa and Missile in Italian). Both originate from the Latin verb mittere (to send, to send, to dispense). From mittere came missilis, which means “to throw, suitable to be thrown”. The term missile, directly originating from this word, was used for the first time in 1738, as a synonym for rocket or self-propelled bomb and, in the Second World War, the war artifact called missile that we know today emerged and has been improved over time, increasing its range and destructive power.

In the early days of Christianity, worship was divided into two parts, the first, composed of prayers, songs and a sermon, was open to all; the second, the Eucharist, was reserved for baptized Christians. That is why, at the end of the first part, the formula “Ite, missa est” was said, which meant that the prayer had been sent to Heaven and the congregation was dismissed. Little by little, the word that marked the moment of dispensation came to designate the whole ceremony.

Now, let’s think about the similarity between the two: Mass and missile. Both send, command, dispense. The Mass is guided from on high, in it, God sends again His Son, who gives Himself completely to us, through the Holy Eucharist. The missile is guided, that is, it is prepared by someone to follow a certain direction and carries with it death, through its high potential of destruction.

The target of the Mass is our soul, which is renewed, and in it we receive the command to follow God and live for His love. The missile’s target is our body, and its threat gives us the command to run and hide.

The Mass instills us with courage, the missile arouses our fear. At Mass, the priest becomes another Christ and dispenses divine grace upon us. The missile comes from the hands of those who have become anti-Christs and want only to sow the end, death, and devastation.

The missile sacrifices lives, inflicting death. The sacrifice of the Mass rescues us from death and gives us the life of Christ, who comes to live in us, through the mystery of the Holy Eucharist.

Participating in the Divine Sacrifice

However, today unfortunately, we seem to be more interested in the missiles than the Mass. We want to have as much information as possible, to know everything about the war, and yet we ignore the simple answers that we should give, during Mass or the moment of getting up, sitting down, kneeling. And, unfortunately, many times, being at Mass, we are more concerned about its length than its content – the shorter the better!

At a time when missiles can travel thousands of miles to reach their targets, and so many lives are cruelly taken by a terrible war that moves the world – and puts us on alert for a greater evil – we should simply go back to having a Mass-going garment that, much more than a decent attire for going to God’s house, means to have our soul clothed with love and adoration for Him who came from Heaven into the world, becoming man and giving His flesh and blood and life for us – for the victims of the missiles and also for the creators and dispersers of the missiles.

The least we can do, even if only once a week, is to participate in the Divine Sacrifice, so that the Holy Mass may renew in us the miracle of redemption.

It is good to be prepared, because just as Ukraine did not expect this destructive invasion, we also do not know at what moment we might become targets, because there are enough missiles to be sent to all parts of the world?

How much the residents of Kiev would not give, today, to be able to attend a Holy Mass, they who had the sadness of seeing their magnificent Saint Sophia Cathedral, which is one of the most beautiful churches in the world, being transformed into a museum, becoming “patrimony of humanity” and, lamentably, no longer being patrimony of God, in a paradox between the sofia (wisdom) of God and the agnoia (ignorance) of men.

Take your Mass clothes out of the closet of your indifference, sacrifice your laziness and your bad will, throw away your worn-out and repetitive excuses, and go to Mass! Live intensely the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist and let God do for you what you cannot do for yourself. In that way, no missile will be able to destroy you.

By Afonso Pessoa