In this video, Matt Rice talks about our Sunday obligation. How does Sunday Mass make you & your family feel? Why is the Mass such a central & important part of our faith? Matt answers these questions & more!
Welcome back to Beyond the Pew. My name is Matt Rice with Ablaze Ministries and this series we’re talking about the Mass. Why the Mass? Specifically today, I want to talk about why do we go to Mass? What is Mass? And, all of this begins with God like who is God?
So, we believe as Catholics we believe that God is infinite. He’s omnipotent. We also believe that he is good. He is all goodness, and with the infiniteness and the goodness of who God is that says a lot about what we need to do in response to who he is. So if God is good, then he is deserving of worship. We owe it to him to worship Him. Looking at what he’s created here, the fact that he created me, that he loves me, that he wants me to be with him forever, that is worthy of worship.
He’s also infinite. So how do we worship Him? We absolutely can worship him through song, songs that we write. I’m not gonna write any songs cause I’m not creative like that, but I love singing praise and worship songs. Every one of those songs though was written by a finite human person, and as such it’s just it’s gonna be a finite form of worship.
So no matter what we come up with on earth is gonna be a finite form of worship of this infinite God. What God did though was he sent his son and his son established an infinite way of worshiping him. At the Last Supper, Jesus Christ instituted the Eucharist for us to be able to worship Him infinitely in his body and his blood and his sacrifice of the Cross. What we believe as Catholics, it happens at the Mass, we are made present again at the sacrifice of the cross, and that worship is infinite. That is the infinite worship of an infinite God, an infinite good God.
So no matter what we come up with on earth is gonna be a finite form of worship of this infinite God.
So if you have any doubts about what it is that we’re doing there, Jesus in John 6:50 tells us about this, specifically in John 6:53-55. “Jesus said to them, ‘Amen amen I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of the man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.'” I don’t know about you, but I want that life within me. He says, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him on the last day, for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.” That is what we get to participate in Mass, that is what we get to do every single Sunday.
Now as humans we typically say, “Okay, what’s the least that I have to do?” And the Catholic Church said, “Okay okay. Everyone’s gonna ask this what’s the least I have to do, and they said you know what you have to go to Mass at least once a week,” and so that’s what they call the obligation. We’re obliged to go once a week and receive the Eucharist, if we’re in a state of grace to do so. So a lot of us see that as an obligation, oh it’s a requirement, but think about it this way, Jesus like we’re supposed to be closer to Jesus than we are our spouse. Do you think loving your spouse is a requirement? Is that an obligation that you just don’t feel like you should do.
So that’s a way that I think we need to look at this obligation is what’s the least that I can do to love Jesus, to spend time with him. What’s the least amount of worship that he deserves, that this relationship deserves. That’s why the Church said that this is the obligation.
Do you think loving your spouse is a requirement? Is that an obligation that you just don’t feel like you should do.
So my hope is that you’re able to enter into the Mass a little more fully with what it is, this sacrifice of the Mass, and that you’re able to just love Jesus through that. God bless. We’ll see you next time.
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