Catholic identity begins at Mass

All my life I have pondered Catholic identity. Instead of going to the nearest school, I went to the Catholic school. Instead of going to a church my Protestant grandmother might have liked, my family went to a Catholic church.

I made my debut at Mass when I was five days old, and I was baptized after Mass when I was three months old. The first time I deliberately missed Mass—which, incidentally, is a serious sin—was when I was 17, because I couldn’t bear to face the little monsters whom I catechized afterwards at Sunday school. St. Francis Xavier may have looked down from heaven and sighed at what a wimp I was. Eventually I crept off to Confession.

What struck me most about being Catholic, when I was a child, is how we were told one thing in religion class and experienced another. We were told that we were all supposed to be going to Mass on Sunday, but I very rarely saw my classmates at Mass. I assumed that they were going to another parish church, and in some cases they were. It was a while before I realized that many of them weren’t, and definitely not every Sunday. Their parents had enrolled them in Catholic school, but they couldn’t be bothered to take them to Mass. I found this very odd.

I read recently that only 30 per cent of American Catholics go to Mass once a month and that only 15.6 per cent of American Catholics are at Mass every Sunday. For some reason, that statistic makes me feel frightened. Although I have heard elderly Catholics swear up and down that they are Catholic in the same way that they have blue or brown eyes, Catholicism is not, in fact, a genetic trait. It is not even an ethnic characteristic, a condition necessary to being Italian or Irish or Filipino. It is a voluntary membership, a set of beliefs and religious practices, a relationship to God, lived in close relationship with other Catholics. For a Catholic to say, “I’m a Catholic, but I don’t believe what the Catholic Church teaches” is akin to someone claiming to be a vegetarian while tucking into a veal steak as other vegetarians watch.

As generations better catechized than my own learned at school, there are six chief membership requirements of the Church. They are to keep holy every Sunday and Day of Obligation by going to Mass and resting (if possible) from servile works; to keep the days of fasting and abstinence appointed by the Church; to go to Confession at least once a year; to receive the Eucharist at least once a year, and that at Easter or thereabouts; to contribute to the support of our pastors; and not to marry our closest relations or solemnize marriages at forbidden times (like Good Friday). Yes, we are Christians by virtue of our baptism, but these six things are required of Catholics.

Some may argue that this is a legalistic approach to Catholicism and that it is a lot easier to go to Mass every Sunday than to feed the poor or visit the imprisoned. But if that is so, I wonder why so few Catholics can do it. If it’s terrible music and people who insist on holding the hands of grown men during the Lord’s Prayer, then the shirkers have my sympathy, but not my approbation. If you get up early enough on Sunday morning, you will find a Mass with no music at all. And, let’s face it, no matter how beautiful the music or inspired the preaching or funny the priest, Mass is never going to be a superior form of entertainment. We don’t go because it’s fun. We go either because we love God or because we fear God, and God wants us at Mass.

Readers who enjoyed the Swinging ’60s may feel aggrieved that I have mentioned not only requirements but fear. Opening up the catechism, I see that the seventh gift of the Holy Spirit is the Fear of the Lord. St. Thomas Aquinas had a lot to say about fear; he distinguished filial (parent-loving) fear from servile fear. When a Catholic follows the precepts of his faith only because he fears punishment, he is showing servile fear. When a Catholic follows the precepts of his faith because he loves God, he is showing filial fear. Unsurprisingly, Aquinas rates filial fear high above servile fear. Surprisingly, perhaps, to us moderns, he does not condemn servile fear outright. Following the precepts of our faith out of fear is better than not following them at all.

I mention this not to suggest that we ought to flee in terror to Mass but to pre-empt the usual suggestions that there are things more important to one’s faith than going to Mass. But authentic — as opposed to ethnic — Catholic identity begins at Sunday Mass. Why are so few of us there?