I am so frustrated with the members of the Church! I think we must be the most uneducated church out there. I mean, if you profess to believe something, shouldn't you know WHAT you believe and WHY you believe it? I am so sick of the lukewarm! Priests, Sisters and laity all teaching and doing whatever they feel instead of educating themselves and others about the beauty that is our faith. People trying to turn God into who they want Him to be instead of working to turn themselves into who God wants them to be. Do people think they will stand before the Lord at the end of their earthly lives and He'll say, "Oh, it's okay that you never bothered to learn about me, build a relationship with me, and serve my people?" No, He'll say, "Why didn't you love me with all your heart, mind and soul and love your neighbor as yourself?"
Mass has been such a challenge for me (for longer than I want to admit). Not because of my wonderful daughter, she still allows us to enjoy Mass. But that's the problem, I am not enjoying Mass! I am constantly distracted by bad liturgies, bad homilies, bad music, REALLY bad music, bad ushers, announcements between the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist and parents allowing their kids to play video games during Mass! Seriously people! The Lord has given us the most beautiful and complete form of worship and we butcher it every week. So I spend Mass being annoyed, frustrated and sometimes downright angry and I waste the time for reflection, prayer and grace that I am given. The problem is clearly me. My soul is the one not seeking the Lord with all my heart, mind and soul. My heart is the one harden to hearing the Holy Spirit's message to me and seeing Christ in others. I am the weak one. The Lord didn't die for perfect sheep. He died for us 'no matter how hard we try (or don't try) and don't get it right' sheep. He is truly the GOOD SHEPHERD. His job is probably more like herding cats rather than sheep.
Dearest patient Jesus, please please please help me to not waste any of my life with a hardened heart. Please help me not be distracted and to see the grace that showers from heaven during Mass.
If anyone has any words of wisdom I would really appreciate it. I have been praying about this for a long time and I am not getting any better. Praise the Lord for loving us as we are and constantly calling us to holiness.
First, it's completely understandable that you'd be so bugged by the abuses and the complete lack of understanding and destruction of liturgy that you see. Jesus became angry when He saw people turning the temple into a marketplace, so I think it's not unreasonable to want to chase the choir (or the liturgical dancers, etc.) out of the building when they turn it into a circus, performance hall, rock concert, Protestant worship service, whatever.
ReplyDeleteI think the key is what you said here:
"Praise the Lord for ... constantly calling us to holiness."
Aside from the draw to be a more holy example yourself, do what you know is right, and use that fire to effect what change you can, one way to see this is a constant call to grow in holiness, to learn patience, and to pray that it can become a force for growth in your appreciation of the central mysteries of the mass (the Eucharist and the sacrifice of our Lord on the cross).
Patience is the obvious one, and being able to remain joyful and at peace is second, but I don't know if the part about allowing it to help you grow in appreciation makes sense or not, so I'll explain what I mean. It's easy to feel connected during a beautiful liturgy, but it's difficult to appreciate anything during a horrible liturgy. But the ugliness can help you to truly grow in appreciation of the beauty that is at the center of the mass and can't be taken away by people who have no idea what they're doing or even what the Catholic Church teaches (unless the priest screws up the consecration, but that's different).
This kind of thing can also extend to the world outside of mass, which is also a horrible mess. If you can grow to completely focus on the center of mass, Christ, and the central mysteries, and carry it with you to lift your spirit up to Heaven during mass, then you can carry this through to the rest of your life as well. The weekly (or daily) practice can really be a blessing (though under heavy disguise, I fully admit :) ).
I've recently started trying to keep God in my mind constantly, and it's really different than how I was living before. It's like walking through the world with you mind in Heaven; it's a completely different outlook (and something I still almost always forget to do). It also helps me to realize that much of the time I'm really not thinking about God or even aware of Him. I'm trying to take my own advice and use the terrible music at mass to help me with this as well... It does help.
Another way that this kind of thing helps is to aid on conquering disappointment, which ultimately (I think; at least, in me) comes from pride. I have an ideal, and something or someone fails to live up to it, and it bugs me. There's a saint quote on my Facebook wall about this, but I can't remember what it is and don't want to check at the moment, but it gives the ideal that I'm striving for and that I think these problems can help with.
This is different than what I used to do and still do sometimes, which is to simply shut off and get distracted for the rest of the mass when someone does something horribly wrong. It's the difference between positioning yourself to allow these things to push your focus (rather forcefully) toward the important things and simply being pushed away, if that makes sense. It's similar, I guess, to how physical suffering can drag you down or draw your mind to Heaven and connect you with Christ's suffering on the cross.
Anyway, I wouldn't be hard on yourself. Having children will also help you to learn to maintain your proper focus, peace and joy no matter what happens, I assure you, and that will probably carry over to help with the mass issue as well. :D