How would you encourage someone who is apathetic about attending Mass?
I went to a Broadway show with a group of friends when I was in college, and the hearing aids that I wore at the time left a lot to be desired regarding their effectiveness. I wasn’t familiar with the premise of the show’s story, and I couldn’t catch much of the dialogue. The instrumental music sounded great though! Looking around, I could see everyone’s reactions as they followed along with what was going on, but I felt totally lost and gave up halfway through and just enjoyed being in a beautiful theater with some nice music. Leaving the theater after the show, I didn’t have much of a desire to go back to another one. I’m thankful that I can look back on experiences like that now and know that Jesus was there with me in the midst of that.
I share this because I think that many Catholics may have some similarities to my Broadway experience as they attend Mass. Maybe “hearing” the dialogue isn’t the issue, but maybe we struggle with the context of what is going on in the readings or the prayers of the Mass. Sometimes when looking around the church, we imagine that everyone else is connected to what is happening while we’re unable to focus on what the priest is saying or doing. I don’t pose these as things to make us feel bad, but rather as something to motivate us to enrich our ability to experience what God is doing through His priests at Mass and desires to do in each of our hearts.
So, if you or someone you know finds that they are less than enthusiastic to go to Mass, we must ask: why is that? If someone is struggling to understand the context of the readings or prayers of the Mass, I would encourage them to read through them beforehand. Mass readings can easily be found at bible.usccb.org, and there are some great explanations of the different parts and prayers of the Mass available online as well. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops offers the General Instruction of the Roman Missal online. At first, it might not sound like a very exciting document, but it’s chock-full of great explanations, scriptural references and catechesis of each part of the Mass — why we do what we do as Catholics at Mass.
The more that we learn about the various parts of the Mass, the deeper we can enter into this Holy Sacrifice that Jesus offers for us; we are less likely to see ourselves as mere spectators, but we hopefully will have a better understanding of our own role as participants in the Mass. When we come to a deeper understanding of the Mass being where heaven and earth meet in the Eucharist, the source and summit of our faith, the more likely we are then to go and share the truths of our Catholic faith with our brothers and sisters. It is this call to conversion of heart and to evangelize that has been given to each of us through our baptism.
If your experience of leaving Mass has been one of apathy and bewilderment, like my experience after that Broadway show, then I wholeheartedly encourage you to offer up a prayer to the Lord that He may help set your heart aflame with His love through a deeper understanding of our call to be an active participant in the Mass!
Father Dan Kavanagh is director of the Catholic Deaf Ministry in the Archdiocese of St. Louis.
