DRE, Ibadan Archdiocese

Faith Series, Episode 116

 

In John 2:13-2, Jesus rebuffed those money changers and those selling in the temple, speaking about the sanctity of the house of God in these words “Stop turning my Father’s house into a market place.” It is against this background we are challenged to reflect on our attitudes and actions within the Church, our place of worship. And the questions are:

Do we still see our Churches as place of worship?

Do we reverence the Church any longer?

Do we pay attention to decorum and solemnity?

Let us begin with our preparation/preparedness; to start with; one of the Commandments of God states “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it Holy”.

• When do you start to prepare for the Sabbath Day?
• What is your Saturday like?
• Are you conscious of the day after Saturday? In other words, do you attach any importance to the day after Saturday?
• What is your state of preparedness/preparation?
• Do you think you are in the right state?
• Are you cleansed? Are you washed?
• Are you well disposed to climb the mountain of the Lord?
• What is your Saturday night like? (Clubbing, partying, lovers’ night, sexually filled, pornography night, blues film, late night movie, football, Midnight calls. etc. you may add to the list of things that aid inadequate preparation.

All of these have a way of affecting our preparation for Sunday Mass and other days– it will either make us go late to Mass or spend a good percentage of the period of Mass sleeping.

On the Sunday itself, we should ask ourselves before we leave our homes what we are going for.

A knowledge of what we are going for, gives us a better preparation.  Some still call it service but what we celebrate is Mass. If you come to terms with the word MASS, then what is Mass to you? A good understanding of Mass enables us to perfect our preparation and enables us to clinch the entire grace of the Mass. However most of us decide the percentage of grace we want depending on our preparation level of participation, conduct and comportment.