Active Membership Pillar: Faithful Participation at Sunday Mass and Holy Days

Because Easter moves each year, if you are not paying attention, Lent can easily come as a surprise, and it is this week! What are the rules again? I should give up something. What should it be? Candy? Soda? Beer? Social media? The possibilities are many, and it can be tough to choose our own meaningful Lenten experience, especially at the last minute.

Faithful Mass attendance can help us with that. We’ll be in touch with Jesus, building a relationship with Him. Mass is communal, not individual. Even if we are sitting alone in our pew, we are celebrating and learning as a community.  Jesus talks today in the Gospel about a spiritually blind person not being able to guide another spiritually blind person safely—both will end up in a pit. Faithful attendance will help us all learn from Jesus, so that we may be that well-tended tree that bears good fruit. We do that as a community, both inside and outside of church. We encourage each other in Mass and in daily living.

Attending Mass faithfully connects us with Jesus and the community. It will spiritually prepare us to discern and choose wisely our disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving over our imminent Lenten journey. May we arrive at Easter as well-tended trees bearing good fruit.