Why Do We Come to Mass?

Why are we here?  Why do we gather for this liturgy we call Mass?

We come together, week after week, to celebrate the Sunday Eucharist, just as the early followers of Christ did, something which involved risking their lives.  Even though there was often great personal danger in gathering, the faithful were urged, by the Holy Spirit and by one another, to gather.  One bishop in the early years of the Faith wrote, “Let no one deprive the Church by staying away; if they do, they deprive the Body of Christ of one of its members!”

Today, at least in the United States, there is no persecution of the Church.  But the statement of this third century bishop is still true: the community of believers suffers when members are missing from this communal gathering.

There are many reasons that we come together.  Some of us are here because it’s a habit.  Others come out of obligation.  Some come because their parents insist on it.  Others come to seek the Lord.  Some come because they are burdened with problems and find comfort here.  Others are here because they are grateful for God’s gifts.  And many of us are here for a combination of those reasons.

More basic to all of these reasons, however, is that we are here because God Himself has called us here.  It was God who called us to share His own life through Baptism, and it was God who called us to be disciples and to carry on the mission of Christ in the world today.  

And we come for Eucharist, which comes from the Greek word for thanksgiving.  We gather each week to offer God thanks and praise, and to express the joy and happiness that come from being a people loved and saved by God. Sometimes we forget that.  

The most important thing we find when we gather is the presence of Christ Himself:  Christ who is in each of us gathered; Christ in the Word of God proclaimed; Christ in the presider of the liturgy; and Christ, present in a special way, in the bread and the wine, which become the Body broken and the Blood poured out for our salvation.

We come to remember who we are as Church, the Body of Christ.  At Mass, we are reunited with one another and with Jesus Christ, our Head.  God himself has called us to be here, to feed us and strengthen us so that when Mass is over and we are sent, we can fulfill our mission: to be Christ to everyone we encounter.