Nov 7 Thu
Why should I attend the Sunday Mass?
The third commandment of the Decalogue states: “Remember to keep holy the Lord’s day.” It commands us to honor God with acts of worship on prescribed days.
In the Old Testament, God commanded the chosen people to keep holy the Sabbath day (Saturday), to remind them that God rested from his work of creation upon its completion on the seventh day, and that God blessed and sanctified that day.
In the New Testament, Sunday is the Lord’s day. On that day we celebrate the new creation—the re creation—of man as a son of God by grace. This supernatural new creation is far superior to the material creation of the world.
To assure and facilitate the proper sanctification of Sundays and other chief feasts, the Church prescribes attendance at Holy Mass during these days. The precept to attend Holy Mass obliges us to hear a complete Mass either on the same Sunday (or holiday) or in the afternoon of the previous day. Attending a complete Mass entails following at least its essential parts with bodily presence and pious attention.
“The Son of God, by becoming flesh, could become bread and in this way be the nourishment of his people journeying toward the promised land of heaven.
“We need this bread to cope with the toil and exhaustion of the journey. Sunday, day of the Lord, is the propitious occasion to draw strength from him, who is the Lord of life. The Sunday precept, therefore, is not a simple duty imposed from outside. To participate in the Sunday celebration and to be nourished with the Eucharistic bread is a need of a Christian, who in this way can find the necessary energy for the journey to be undertaken. A journey, moreover, that is not arbitrary; the way that God indicates through his law goes in the direction inscribed in the very essence of man. To follow the way means man’s own fulfillment, to lose it, is to lose himself.”
We read in the Acts of the Apostles (20:7 12): “On the first day of the week we met to break bread”. The verb used for “meeting” has for its noun synaxis, the Greek for Eucharist.
The Second Vatican Council reminds us: “By tradition handed down from the Apostles which took its origin from the very day of Christ’s resurrection, the Church celebrates the paschal mystery every eighth day; with good reason this, then, bears the name of the Lord’s day or Sunday. For on this day Christ’s faithful should come together into one place so that, by hearing the word of God and taking part in the Eucharist, they may call to mind the passion, the resurrection, and the glorification of the Lord Jesus, and may thank God who ‘has begotten them again, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto a living hope’ (1 Pet 1:3).”
No wonder, then, that the Church requires us to go to Mass at least on Sunday under the pain of mortal sin.
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