Mass is something really boring? (II)

Is the Mass boring? This is not a bad question to be asking you should not feel guilty asking it.  If we are asking this question then we are realizing that there is something wrong. We have been told that we go to Mass to experience the love of Christ. We want to experience the love of Christ in our lives. But when we don’t experience anything but boredom at Mass, we know that we are missing something.  This realization that we are bored is in fact the first step of many whereby God is calling us into deeper relationship with him.  If we are bored then it must be because we want more than what we are getting. We get bored of things that are repetitive and stale. We want things that are fresh, vibrant, and alive. This is not a bad thing; the Mass is not meant to be dry, repetitive, and boring; it is meant be alive, life giving, and powerful. We become bored with something when we it stops growing; when we have exhausted something we grow tired of it and move on to something new.  Rarely do you read a suspense novel twice or see a horror movie twice; the mystery and excitement often wears off after the first or second time.  But a romance movie or a good biography is sometimes worth seeing or reading several times because you often see things that you didn’t see before and you are pleasantly delighted.  But once you have exhausted them you move on to new things.  This is the natural order of things. Let me use an example.  A child who is learning to do math does not continue with addition and subtraction when he has already mastered it; the child moves on to multiplication and long division, otherwise he becomes bored and starts to disrupt the class.  We all want to learn new things, discover new things, and experience new things. Let us ask ourselves today in the presence of God and in the presence of our own conscience what we are looking for when we come to Mass, and what we are missing. I get enough attention to the Word of God? I know well each part of the Mass? I know when to begin the Eucharistic Prayer? Today we might say something: perhaps the Mass is boring for me because my love is small. Oh Lord give us a big heart that falls in love more and more with You! ■ Fr Agustin