The Mass

Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible.-Stanislaw Lem.

I woke up early this morning and decided to go to the 7 AM Mass-the one I like to refer to as the “golfer’s mass”. ( Which isn’t really true-dedicated golfers either worship at our holy mother of the 1st fairway at 7 AM or they go to 5:30 Mass on Saturday-after playing golf). So leaving the S.O. snuggled under the covers-out I set into the rain and the lightning.

Listen up kiddo’s-here is the only nice thing you are ever going to hear me say about my ex-wife: I’m glad she introduced me to the Catholic Church.

Now mind you, as I have pointed out before a couple of times, there is a lot the Catholic Church has to answer for-and its attitudes about sex, birth control, and a whole host of other things are not in line with my own beliefs whatsoever. In my youth, I also spent a fair amount of time sitting in Methodist and Baptist services-where the thinly veiled contempt of Catholicism is never far away in the words of the sermons.

Despite what my posts may convey or fail to convey, I do believe in God, his Son Jesus and the miracle of the resurrection. Most probably because no one has given me a palpable reason NOT to believe it.  Unlike Mr Hitchens, I cannot go into that dark place that says there is no God. To believe that way is to make life itself so totally futile-and pointless. I just cannot accept that. If the universe is so ordered that it allows death and suffering-then there has to be something beyond this mortal existence.

At the same time, I do think that Mr Hitchen’s book captured well, that anger that any believer has to get past in order to be comfortable in his faith-namely that if the Deity is all powerful and loves us all -why then does He allow such unfair and indiscriminate suffering to go on and on and on? I call that the Job paradox, and I am in agreement with those who say that it is the one area that all religions, the monotheistic religions in particular, do a poor job of explaining. Because there is a corollary: If God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son to save us from our sins-then it means he also so ordered the laws of the universe to unfairly require the sacrifice of a sinless being to atone for those sins. Which when viewed from a certain viewpoint can be seen as just more than a little mean-and quite unfair-to us and to His Son. That’s the point Christopher Hitchens makes. Where he and I part company is that just being angry at the Deity for being mean and unfair, does not necessarily mean that He does not exist. It just means that you do not like his ordering of the universe, is all. Problem is, He is still God……and we are not.

Which brings me back to the Mass.  God still needs to be honored-even if there are some “issues” that need to be worked through on my end.  I enjoy the mass and think its a far superior way to go to a church service than anything found in Protestant churches. Why do  I like the Mass? Several reasons actually.

1) Protestant services are built around the sermon. In a protestant church-sometimes fully 30+ minutes are given over to be alternately lectured to, or being cajoled and/or threatened.  The Mass is not so ordered and its to its benefit IMHO. Sure there is the Homily-but you will never hear a homily from a priest that has the same verve that protestant preacher can bring-nor does it have the volume. The Mass, on the other hand is built around the Eucharist-and I think that’s a very good thing.

2) The Mass has different parts-and it’s ritual. Contrary to the views of some evangelicals who see that as a drawback- I find the ritual parts of it, to be a feature, a benefit. Furthermore, unlike in protestant churches, the Mass is interactive and there are roles for the priest, the readers of the Word, and the congregation. The order of the rite of penitence, the reading of the word, the offering and the sharing of the sign of peace, followed by the liturgy of the Eucharist is a logical flow that makes a lot more sense to me.

3) Finally, the Catholic Church is, despite all its flaws,  more of an everyman church than most of the evangelical churches,  focused as much as on the here and now-as well as the hereafter.  That too is a benefit.  The ” we got ours-so to heck the rest of you attitude” has never set very well with me.

If you go to a mass, recite the various parts, kneel, rise, and sit when required it can be a refreshing experience. Even if, as Billy Graham once said: ” it is like the effects of a bath; they don’t last long-but its good for you and you need it“.

Do I go every week? No-but since coming back to the states I’ve gotten back to going more than I did in Asia-primarily because I was on the go so much while I was in Asia. Plus while I’m here-it helps me deal with the anger about not being in Asia.

This is solely my own opinion and what works for me. Recommendations for alternatives are neither required or desired. As always,  your mileage may vary.