When we come to Mass, we bring our own preconceptions, attitudes, and ideas with us. But often these attitudes and ideas come from the world, come from our surrounding culture rather than our faith – and these attitudes and ideas are actually obstacles to truly receiving the graces of the Mass...
even if we never felt we got anything out of Mass, it would still be the most noble, holy, amazing, and important thing we could ever do – because the Mass isn’t about us. The Mass is about giving the perfect honor, glory and worship to God, through making present to us here, on this altar, the eternal self-offering and sacrifice of Christ. The Mass is about Jesus, not about us.
The temptation is always to try to make the Mass about something else, rather than God. It’s a temptation that has been there from the beginning of the Church. If you read the letters of St. Paul you’ll see the problem is there already. And the temptation to make the Mass about something else is really just a cover for the real underlying temptation, which is to make the Mass about us. That’ the old man, that’s the damage of original sin, working in us. So, for example, another thing that has gotten tossed around a lot over the last 20-30 years is the idea that the Mass is a “celebration of community”. Now that’s one of those things that sounds good when you first hear it: a “celebration of community”. But once you start to look a little more closely, you realize, well, no... it isn’t. The Mass isn’t the community celebrating itself. Making the Mass about “community” is just making the Mass about us. And the Mass isn’t about the community of us. It’s about offering the perfect honor, glory and worship to God, through making present to us here, on this altar, the eternal self-offering and sacrifice of Christ. The Mass, once again, is about Jesus, not about us.
And then he offers this really excellent example:
Now, imagine we have never met before. Suppose I came up to you and introduced myself, and, after you introduced yourself, I were to do this: ( I put my arm around parishioner.) Would you be my friend? Please would you be my friend? Won’t you please, please be my friend? (etc.) If I did that, would you be likely to become my friend? No, of course not. Indeed, you would probably try to avoid me. Why? Because that’s not how friendship works.
Friendship doesn’t happen as a result of trying to get it directly. It comes about “along the way” as the result of doing some other good thing together. It’s the same way with the good things that we receive as a result of participating at Mass. We receive them because we’re doing a far more important good thing – giving God honor, glory, and worship through Christ His Son. We don't receive them because we seek them in and for themselves.
