WHY ARE SOME CATHOLICS SUCH LACKADAISCAL CHRISTIANS ??..........

Several times in recent days the topic of why many Catholic families are increasingly finding reasons not to attend Sunday Mass on a weekly or even regular basis, has come up in my circle of friends and fellow believers. The most common responses we are hearing include Sunday sports to be played or watched; traveling and not bothering to find a church; attending social events with family and friends; shopping; because going to Church is boring; and the one I consider the number one excuse, "we are too busy" !.....Never mind that Sunday is the Lord's Day, the Day of the Resurrection, and a Day of Rest, and celebrating Sunday Eucharist is the essential touchstone of our Catholuc-Christian Discipleship. Yet presently in the United States weekly Sunday Mass attendance hovers below fifty percent of all Catholics, in some instances as low as thirty percent. And many of those non-attending Catholic families are not totally detached from the Catholic Church, but are cultural and conditional Catholics. They enroll their children in parish schools and Catholic high schools, but the Catholic-Christian Faith is not their priority or concern, - if anything it is little more than minimal concern to them. Everything else in their overcrowded and busy lives : work, school, sports, leisure; are more important to them than is religion and the practice of their faith in the community of believers. The response for not attending Sunday Mass, "We are too BUSY", is the real chestnut. If in a 7 day, 168 hour week, any Catholic-Christian is, TOO BUSY, to give back to God and the Church, one hour or so, to pray, worship, minister, in the gathered community of believers and the celebration of Word and Eucharist, then their lives are off the rails and they are selfishly rationalizing away, their baptismal obligation and discipleship opportunity, to fulfill Jesus' Paschal Mystery command, "Do This In Memory Of Me". Calling ourselves Catholic, or professing to be a Christian, is not sufficent in themselves. We must be true to practicing our Faith and participating in living as Disciples of Jesus the Christ. Today's Gospel Reading for Monday of the 8th Week in Ordinary Time, underscores my point about our values and priorities as Catholic-Christians. Our wealth, possessions, or worldly pleasures, will not suffice to get us into God's Kingdom. Over reliance on these temporal things make them a true obstacle to getting into Heaven. The institutional Church must challenge conditional, lackadaiscal, Easter / Christmas, special occasion, Catholics to fully embrace and practice their Christian Faith. Parish communities, parochial schols, and Catholic high schools, must uphold the standard that Sunday Mass is not an optional extra, but an essential component for participation. Otherwise we shall continue to witness the minimalizing of the Body of Christ and give license to allowing the Community of Believers to be used for selfish gain and not the common good. Building up God's Kingdom by the faithful and fruitful witness we bear daily and weekly, as Catholic-Christians,-not status, privilege, or misplaced priorities, are who we are meant to be, as members of the Church Jesus founded..........
Fr. Troy