4 minute read
Questions of Faith
Father Wilmer Todd
Back pew Catholics
I am a Protestant who attended Our Lady of the Isle Church in Grand Isle with a friend this past summer. We arrived about five minutes before Mass and I noticed that people filled the back pews before the front ones. The priest invited those standing to sit in the empty front pews. Very few did. Why do so many Catholics prefer the back seats instead of sitting in the front pews?
I believe there are four reasons why many Catholics do not choose “the best seats in the house” of God – Motivation, an Insufficient Understanding of the Mass, an Inadequate Work Ethic, and Personal Reasons. Let’s look at all four. 1) Motivation: Like in all things, “it’s not what you do, but why you do it.” If someone’s motivation for celebrating the Eucharist is, “I go to Mass because I do not want to commit a sin,” or, “Let’s go to the early Mass to get it over with,” then they are spectators and not worshipers. The Vatican II document on the liturgy says, “So that the liturgy can produce its full effects, it is necessary that the faithful come to it with proper dispositions, that they should attune their minds to their voices, and that they should cooperate with divine grace lest they receive it in vain.”
“Mother Church earnestly desires that we (pastors) should lead all the faithful to that fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations that the very nature of the liturgy demands. Such participation by the Christian people as ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people’ (1 Peter 2:9) is their right and duty because of their baptism.”
2) An Insufficient Understanding of the Mass: The Eucharist can be complicated. We listen to the Word of God; we apply it our lives. We profess our belief in the triune God. We pray for the needs of our world. We enter a holy place with the saints and angels. We ask the Holy Spirit to change the bread, wine, and us into Christ. We identify with Jesus being “broken for us” and “poured out for us.” We remember what Jesus did to save us. We offer ourselves with Jesus to the Father. We remember the members of the church living and dead, and we sing the great “Amen.”
Just because our Mass is in English does not mean that everyone understands what is going on at Mass. Pastors need to instruct their people on what is happening at Mass. Again the church says, “When we celebrate the liturgy, we require something more than the mere observation of the laws governing a valid and lawful
celebration; it is the pastor’s duty to ensure that the faithful take part fully aware of what they are doing and so they can actively engaged in the rite. 3) An Inadequate Work Ethic: To pray well takes hard work. It takes hard work to listen to the Word of God, the homily, and to apply it to our lives. Our minds can easily drift off to what we are going to do after Mass. It takes hard work to be a worshiper and not a spectator. The Mass is not the “priest’s” Mass. It’s the church’s Mass and everyone is a potential celebrant. 4) Personal Reasons: The Mass is difficult for those who have been away from the church and are who returning but are afraid of being judged. The Mass is difficult for the single mom who could be surrounded by families that seem perfect. The Mass is difficult for people who feel they are never good enough. Mass is difficult for the person who looks like they have it all together, but they don’t. Mass is difficult for the woman who can’t find her way out of an abusive marriage.
Mass is difficult for those who have an addiction and who don’t know how to break the vicious cycle that they are experiencing. Mass is difficult for the teenager who is struggling in a world full of temptations and judgements. Mass is difficult for the persons struggling with bladder problems or other physical disorders. Mass is difficult for a young child who sits with his/her family in back of church and who can only see the backs of the people in front of them.
Pastors need to teach their people that the church is a gathering of sinners who are all loved by God and who want to become more like Jesus. We gather not as individuals but as a body of believers bound as brothers and sisters in Christ, all equals before God. If everyone believed and acted on these principles, people would be “fighting” over the first pews in church. BC
