So how did I do?

One of the things I love about being here in Omaha is the opportunity to go to Mass and sit & kneel in the pews, rather than be up front presiding, much as I enjoy that too.

I think we all, when visiting a new parish, can tend to praise or criticise the way Mass is done there, be it the music, the homily, the proclaimers of the Word, the priest or other people in the congregation. Indeed, sometimes these are the reasons people change parishes or make decisions about which Mass they'll go to. It's particularly easy as a priest to be critical of other priests' ways of preaching and presiding at Mass, perhaps as a chef might critique other people's cooking.

On weekdays I usually go to the 5pm (there's 7am and midday as well) and on Sundays I go to 10.30am. You never know which priest you're going to have, because there is a whole community of Jesuit priests here who take turns, each with their own unique style.  So it's easy here to be distracted by the differences in priest's styles.

However I learned an important lesson years ago from reading CS Lewis' The Screwtape Letters which is fictionalised advice from Screwtape, a senior demon to Wormwood, a junior demon, on how to better tempt a human. At one stage Wormwood has to confess to Screwtape that his human has now started going to church. Screwtape's advice is to make sure that the man becomes a connoisseur of liturgies, rather than a consumer of them, to ensure that he remains distracted and doesn't allow anything that is said or done to get to his heart.

It's Sunday morning as I write this and I'm about to head off to the 10.30am Mass on campus. I guess the only question I should ask afterwards then is not how good was the homily? how good was the music? or did I like the priest's presiding style? The only question I should afterwards is how did I do? Did I engage in prayer? Did I  listen attentively to the homily, not to get ideas for future use, but to apply it to my life? Did I enter into the Eucharist and meet Jesus there, who loves me and died for me?

Screwtape would not be pleased.

Comments

  1. Unknown25 July 2017 at 15:49

    Love this Jim. Thanks for reminder. We are all thinking of you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dominic26 July 2017 at 13:38

    Wow, you are so right. It is easy to get caught up on the fit and feel or attending mass and loose sight of experiencing the sacrament the way it was intended.
    Thanks mate.

    ReplyDelete

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