“The World Needs the Mass…… How can we respond to those who say that it is of no use going to Mass, even on Sunday, because the important thing is to live well, to love our neighbor? It is true that the quality of Christian life is measured by the capacity to love … but how can we practice the Gospel without drawing the energy necessary to do so, one Sunday after another, from the inexhaustible source of the Eucharist?....... We do not go to Mass in order to give something to God, but to receive what we truly need from him……So, why do we go to Mass on Sundays?.... It is not enough to respond that it is a precept of the Church; this helps to preserve its value, but alone does not suffice. We Christians need to participate in Sunday Mass because only with Jesus’ grace, with his living presence within us and among us, can we put his commandment into practice, and thus be his credible witnesses.”

Gospel Text: (Mk 2:23-28)

As Jesus was passing through a field of grain on the sabbath,
his disciples began to make a path while picking the heads of grain.
At this the Pharisees said to him,
“Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the sabbath?”
He said to them,
“Have you never read what David did
when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry?
How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest
and ate the bread of offering that only the priests could lawfully eat,
and shared it with his companions?”
Then he said to them,
“The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.
That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”

 

Reflect, today, upon the way you celebrate the Lord’s Day.  Do you see the call to worship and rest as an invitation from God to be renewed and refreshed by His grace?  Or do you see it only as a duty that has to be fulfilled.  Try to take on the right attitude, this day, and the Lord’s Day will take on a whole new meaning for you.