You ought to go to Mass


Yo i Ou jhtTo

GO TO MASS



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You Ought to Go

to Mass

By

Rev. John J. Neylon

Missionary Apostolate

Diocese of Buffalo

No. 41

Ninth Edition, 45,000

Published In U. S. A.

July 1, 1955

By

OUR SUNDAY VISITOR PRESS
Huntington, Indiana



Nihil Obstat:

REV. EDWARD A. MILLER
Censor Librorum

Imprimatur:

Hh JOHN FRANCIS NOLL, D.D.
Archbishop, Bishop of Fort Wayne

DeaefeJiffe*



You Ought to Go to Mass

Y/OU ought to go to Mass. I write this
as one of Christ’s priests to you, one

of God’s children, not in any spirit of
fault finding but in a spirit of interest

and love. When I raise aloft the Body and
Blood of Christ, you ought to be there,
adding your participation in the worship
of God.

You used to go to Mass every Sunday.
Remember! Perhaps you were very fer-
vent then and you appreciated the Mass
with the simple, direct knowledge of a
child. Perhaps you were there only be-
cause you were sent; and, lacking much
instruction, you didn’t understand very
well what was going on.

Anyway you did attend Mass regularly
once upon a time and you don’t go very
often, if at all, now. Your presence at
Mass then pleased God and earned His
blessings; your absence now offends
Him. Will you take a few minutes now
with me to see if we can do something
about that?

In the first place, there is a God on
Whom you completely and entirely de-
pend, from Whom you came, to Whom
you will one day answer for all you
think or say or do.



4 YOU OUGHT TO GO TO MASS

Yes, I know that the world is in a
mess, nations hating other nations, men
murdering and stealing from other men,
husbands and wives being unfaithful to
each other, children being abandoned and
abused. And I know that the evil in the
world is often given as a proof that

there isn't any God or that God doesn't
care.

But that isn't true. Rather is evil a
proof that God does care. God cares
about us so much that He made us free,
with an ability to choose modeled after
His own freedom.

The sun and moon in the sky serve
God. The horse and cow in the pasture
serve God. Just by being what they are,
they reflect God's purpose in making
them. But theirs is not a conscious ser-
vice, not a service of respect and love.
They don't serve God because they de-
liberately decide to. “To will" or “to will
not" doesn't belong to them.

In the case of you and me, men, it is
different. God wants us to serve Him,
not blindly, automatically, but because
we know and love Him, because we
choose to. God wants us to appreciate
Who He is, who we are. He wants us to
choose Him out of our regard for
Him.

And so God made man free.
That very gift, of course, introduced



YOU OUGHT TO GO TO MASS 5

the possibility of evil. Freedom is two-
edged. I can use it or abuse it. Many
men abuse their God-given freedom and
cause evil. God does not immediately
interfere. But one day they will answer
to the justice of God. You do not want
to be among them.

Other men use their freedom as God
planned for them to use it. Their ser-
vice, given freely out of love, is precious

in God's sight. It outweighs the evil
that is done by others. Your service is
precious to Him too.
The evil in the world, then, is far from

being a proof of God's indifference to us.

It does, however, prove the indifference

of many men to a loving God.
There is a God and you owe Him wor-

ship or adoration, both private and pub-
lic. To adore God is to acknowledge His
supreme importance, your complete de-
pendence, and to approve, as it were,
that state of affairs; be glad that it is as

it is.

That word “owe" expresses an obli-
gation not of physical force but of the
moral order. No arm is going to drag
you to your knees. But it is right and
fitting and facing the truth to give God
adoration. It is w^rong and unjust and
living a lie for you to deny Him your
worship.

He is God and you are His creature.



6 YOU OUGHT TO GO TO MASS

As an individual, you owe God the
private personal adoration of your own
prayers. Perhaps you fulfill that debt
of honor.

But you are more than an isolated in-
dividual. You are a member of human
society. You live and work and take your
recreation with other men and women.
You have a family, you vote as a citi-
zen, you bowl as a member of a team.
You help and are helped by others in
gaining your living.

This living with others is fundamental
to our human nature. Philosophers bear
witness by defining man as a social
animal. Criminals testify to it by their
dread of solitary confinement. We all ex-
perience it when we are lonely.

If then it is natural for man to live
in society, it is natural for him to wor-
ship God in society

;
giving public expres-

sion of the dependence of the whole of
human society on Him.

And that is why you ought to join
your family, your friends and neighbors
in the worship of God at Mass.

Why Mass?
Jesus Christ was God as well as man.

He chose His death on the cross because
it was the perfect expression of man’s
utter dependence on God, the perfect act
of adoration, the complete surrender, the



YOU OUGHT TO GO TO MASS 7

complete gift of Himself in sacrifice of

adoration to His Father. Because Christ

was God, the gift was infinite, not
merely the offering of man to God but
the gift of God to God.

On the night before Christ died, He
changed bread and wine into His own
Body and Blood, and offered Himself to
the Father in a way that is repeated
every time your priest stands at the

altar at Mass.

The offering of Christ on the cross
was perfect worship of God, divinely
perfect. Because the Mass is the renewal
of that gift, the repetition of that offer-

ing, it, too, is perfect.

The Mass, in all that matters, is the
same as the sacrifice of the cross. The
same Jesus Christ offers the same vic-
tim of sacrifice, Himself, to the same
loving Father. Now He is present
under the appearances of bread and wine
but He is present, really and truly, the
living God-man. Now Christ makes use
of the ministry of a human priest, His
representative, but Christ is still the
principal priest making the offering.
The human priest is but His instrument.

Christ loved us so much that He died
on the cross for us. But His love went
beyond even that. He knew that you and
I in this twentieth century would still
have the need to worship God. That we



8 YOU OUGHT TO GO TO MASS

might perfectly fulfill that obligation,
Christ left us His own adoration of
God. And so you ought to go to Mass.

Yes, I know that you are busy on
Sunday morning; or tired; or going
away; or expecting company; or the
thousand and one excuses that you have
given me or some other priest or your
own conscience.

But let's be sensible about this. First
things come first. And what is more fun-
damental, more pressingly important,
than that you should begin your living
with the service of Him Who gave you
life; than that you should give public
worship to God?

Six days did God labor in the creation
of the world. The seventh God rested
and sanctified it for Himself. “Remem-
ber that thou keep holy the sabbath day.”

That is God speaking to you.

I can't plan your life or your week's
activities. You must do that. But when
you put work or play, trips or company,
or whatever else in the way of Sunday
Mass, your plan just doesn't make sense.
It is putting other gods before God. It is
living a lie. God is first. You must put
Him first in your life.

One day God will call you to report
on your life. The loving Father who
created you to be His child, Who sent



YOU OUGHT TO GO TO MASS 9

His Son to die for you, Who has given
you merciful forgiveness for your of-

fenses as often as sincerely you sought
it; that loving Father will then be a just
Judge to reward or punish you as you
deserve. “It is a fearful thing to fall

into the hands of the living God.”

Every Sunday, you ought to go to
Mass.

What will you do when you get there?
That's a good question because what
you do makes quite a lot of difference.
It is one thing merely to be there; that
is joining in the worship of God but on a
minimum level, so to speak. It is quite
another thing to become part of the
action of the Mass with all your heart
and soul.

Remember that the Mass is a sacri-
fice, an action of giving, of offering.

Christ on the altar is making a present
of Himself to God. And not only Him-
self, He includes in His offering you and
me and all the men and women He died to
redeem. If His offering of you and me
is not to be a meaningless gesture, we
have got to ratify it. In the depths of
our hearts, we have got to make a present
of ourselves to God.

Every moment you spent last week
was a gift from God; every action you
performed you did with his help. Only



10 YOU OUGHT TO GO TO MASS

your sins are not from Him. They be-
long exclusively to you.

Offer that week back to God then,
holding out only the sins you com-
mitted. For them, be sorry; will now
that they had not been ; resolve that with
God's help they will not be in the future.

And then offer that sorrow, too, to
God.

Every moment that you will spend in
the week to come will likewise be a gift
from God, loaned to you that it might
be spent in His honor and glory whether
it be at working or eating or sleeping
or praying or “having a good time."
Dedicate that week to come, then, back
to God. Give it to Him in advance. Ask
His help that it be truly spent in honor-
ing Him. Ask Him in advance for the
help that you know you are going to
need if that week is to be spent without
grave sin.

You don't have to say anything, thus
to take an active part in the action of
giving at Mass. You have only to think
and will and love. But it does help if
you frame your action of giving in the
same words that the Church has framed
Christ's action of giving, the words of
the Mass.

You must have seen a Sunday Missal,
that little book that contains in English,



YOU OUGHT TO GO TO MASS 11

for you to read and make you own, all
the beautiful words and thoughts that

the priest on the altar, in the place and

person of Christ, addresses to the

Father in Latin.

You may have heard that it is very
difficult and complicated to follow the

Mass from the Missal. Don’t you believe
it. It takes a little practice, yes, but you

aren’t going to be beaten by what a child
in seventh grade readily masters, are

you?

Most of the Sunday Missals contain
self-explanatory suggestions for follovr-

ing the Mass. Get one like that (ask
your pastor if you don’t know where)
and study it for a few evenings. You
will learn more about the Mass as you
do and, in this case, more knowledge
just can’t help leading to a greater

appreciation.

Then on Sunday morning, when, after
offering the bread and wine, the priest
turns around and says : “Pray, brethren,
that my sacrifice and yours may be well
pleasing to God the Father almighty,”
you will be praying right back: “May
the Lord receive this sacrifice at thy
hands, to the praise and glory of His
name, to our own benefit and to that of
all His holy Church.”

Yes, and when, after the bread and



12 YOU OUGHT TO GO TO MASS

wine have been changed into the Body
and Blood of Christ, the priest “offer (s)
up to Thy most excellent majesty of
Thine own gifts bestowed upon us, a Vic-
tim which is pure, a Victim which is
holy, a Victim which is stanless, the holy
Bread of life everlasting, and the Chalice
of eternal salvation/’ you will find your-
self echoing Christ’s action of offering

as you echo the words of offering.

And you can’t seriously echo that
offering of Christ in which He includes
you, unless you include yourself. You
are led forcibly and spontaneously from
an intelligent following of the Mass to a
whole-hearted participation in the

action of self-giving to God that is the
hearing of Mass.

Try it and see.

In one sense, this won’t be completely

God’s world, even though He made it,
until every intelligent creature recog-

nizes God as the source and foundation
of the world and gives to God the adora-
tion, love and obedience to which He has
every right.

In a sense, this can’t be completely

God’s world until you, His intelligent
creature, freely and lovingly add your
voice and heart and soul to the action of
worship that God’s Son has given us to
call our own, the Sacrifice of the Mass.



YOU OUGHT TO GO TO MASS 13

Christ came to the world to win all men’s
hearts for His Father and Himself. Isn’t
that a strange position for you to be in,
standing in the way of Jesus Christ.
Go to Mass next Sunday.



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1 So You Think You're Tough?
2 Why Not Investigate the Catholic Religion?
3 Does It Matter Much What Man Believes?
4 Is One Religion As Good As Another?
5 How To Get Married.
6 Why You Should Be A Catholic.
7 Youth and Chastity.
8 The Bible An Authority Only In Catholic Hands.
9 The Catholic Answer.

10

Looking For A Happy Ending?
I 1 Don't Kid Yourself About Drink.
12 Which Is Christ's True Church?
13 Communion Prayers For Every Day.
14 The Catholic Nurse Makes The Holy Hour.
1 5 What Think You Of Christ?
1 6 Our Daily Bread.
17 Is Papal Infallibility Reasonable?
18 Can Our Priests Forgive Sins?
19 Does Confession Make Sinning Easy?
20 Catholic Boy Examines His Conscience.
21 Indulgences: What Are They?
22 Father Quiz Answers Lutheran Slurs.
23 A True Picture Of The Catholic Church.
24 Catholic Women In The Home.
25 The Real Presence: Fact or Fiction.
26 Love For Keeps.
27 What It Means To Be A Catholic Mother.
28 Are You Sincere?
29 The Catholic Student Makes The Holy Hour.
30 The Holy Eucharist And Reason.
31 Can Indulgences Be Bought?
32 Religion's A B C's For The Educated.
33 Is The Church Woman's Enemy?
34 "This Is My Body."
35 Open Letter To A Fa!!en-Away Catholic.
36 Catholic Action: What Is It?
37 A Living Wage Today.
38 Did They Leave Or Were They Put Out?
39 The Holy Hour (4 forms'..
40 Falling In Love.
41 You Ought To Go To Mass.
42 As The Morning Rising.
43 Prayers For The Family.
44 Until Death Do Us Part.
45 Catholic Marriage: How Achieve It?
46 Marriage: Catholic Or Mixed?
47 Why Attend Sunday Mass?
48 Winning Your Friend For Christ.



49 Aids To Purity.
50 The Queen Of Seven Swords.
51 The Way Of The Cross (Bishop Sheen).
52 The Seven Last Words.
53 Bianshard And His Sponsors.
54 The Christian Home: A Nation's Bulwark.
55 Training In Chastity.
56 The United Nations.
57 Stations Of The Cross—Father Conroy.
58 Too Good To Miss.
59 The Framework Of Catholic Belief.
60 Juvenile Delinquency.
61 What About "Mercy Slaying?"
62 Short Prayers For Busy People.
63 So You're In Love.
64 Through Purgatory.
65 Facts vs Fiction About Spain.
66 The Truth About The Trek From Rome.
67 The Church: The Interpreter Of The Bible.
68 Mary
69 The Holy Name: Why Reverence It?
70 Come Back Home!
71 living Or LIVING.
72 Ours Is ... A Man's World.
73 Novena to St. Mary Goretti.
74 Drinking Is Dangerous.
75 Catholic Teaching On Church And State.
76 Why The Fear Of An Envoy To The Vatican?

For Organized Protesters.
77 The Sacred Heart: Why Honor it?
78 Fools For God.
79 God's Law.
80 A Grown Up Altar Boy.
81 Explanations For A Stranger Attending

Catholic Services.
82 Spiritual Guide For The Holy Rosary.
83 Story Of The Bible.
84 The Apostieship Of Prayer.
85 Why Do We Pray For The Dead?
86 Learn Of Me.
87 Who Is Jesus?
88 Frederick Ozanam And Catholic Action.
89 My Name Written in His Heart.
90 Truth About Persecution In Spain.
91 The NODL Code And Its Interpretation.
92 Catholic Liturgy And Catholic Life.
93 When Skid Row Stops Skidding.
94 How Love Helps You.
95 Would You Like To Say Mass, Too?
96 God And Our Government.
97 Now, Hear Our Side!
98 Everybody Has A Vocation.
99 The Converted Jew.
100 Converts: How To Win Them.
101 The Catholic Mother—Her Glory.
102 The Prayers Of The Mass.
103 Devotion to St. Anthony Of Padua.
104 The Priesthood: A Divine Institution.
105 The Wedding Service In English.
106 The Sacred Symphony.



107 Religion . . . Our Most Vital Asset.
108 Jingle, Jangle, Jingle.
109 The Funeral Service In English.
I 10 The Truth About Catholics.
I I 1 Boy Meets Girl.
1 12 The Requiem Mass In English.
1 13 Watch Your Habits.
1 14 Forty Hours For Laity.
1 15 Priest's Manual For Forty Hours.
1 16 Below The Cross.
1 17 The Dignity Of Man.
1 18 When A Woman Is Churched.
1 19 God's Year And The Church's Year.
120 Consoled.
121 Saint Dismas . . . The Good Thief.
122 The Catholic Doctrine Of Purgatory.
123 A Search For Happiness.
124 Youth's Struggle For Decency.
125 Hold High The Torch.
126 The Catholic Girl Examines Her Conscience.
127 The Home Prayerbook.
128 Marriage And Mass.
1 29 The Ideal Nurse.
130 Hail Mary.
131 Shall I Marry A Non-Catholic?
132 Education, True And False.
133 What Methodists Claim To Stand For.
134 God, The World And The Catholic Workingman.
135 The Christian Mother.
136 The Rosary And My Vocation.
137 I Witness A Baptism.
138 Forgiven.
139 Are You Missing Something?
140 The Marian Year.
141 Maternity Blessing.
142 Lets Be Fair.
143 Av Soul Shrine For Mary.
144 Confirmation.
145 What Th ; nk Ye Of Mary?
146 A Guide For Confession.
147 That Backward Collar.
148 Love's Greatest Act.
149 Meditations On The Sacred Passion.
150 Indulgence Aid.
151 Little Prayers With Plenary Indulgences.
152 When You Wish Upon A Star.
153 God's Plan For Your Salvation.
154 The Search For God.
155 The Church of Christ Incorporated.
156 How To Hear Mass.
157 An Open Letter To Friends In Danger On

Unlawful Marriages.
158 The Priesthood & Education.
159 An Easy Way To Win Souls.
160 Prayers To Our Lady.
161 Works Of Charity For Vincentians.

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