Church attendance and participation in worship has tended to decline in the modern industrial democracies, including the United States. However, there is still reason to have hope. There are more Catholics at Mass on a single weekend than all the fans that go to the major league baseball games in an entire season. Maintaining and even increasing this level of attendance at Mass will be helped by a more fervent and active participation in the Holy Eucharist.
Here are way to help people prepare better for Sunday Mass:
Here are way to help people prepare better for Sunday Mass:
- Go to Mass prepared to worship God.
- Approach the Mass with the intention of participating fully and actively in the celebration, singing the hymns and psalms and reciting the prayers with conviction and faith.
- Enter into the mystery of faith at Mass. The sacrificial self-gift of Christ to the Father is made present through the Holy Spirit. If we unite ourselves with Him in His self-gift, we truly fulfill what is at the heart of being a priestly people.
- Read and pray over the Scripture text for the Sunday liturgy in order to prepare for the Mass. Pray for light from Gods Word on your needs.
- Spend time learning about the Mass: its structure, intentions, and the meanings within the prayers and its rituals.
- Come to Mass with a community-minded attitude. Keep in mind that liturgy is a communal act of worship in which faith is strengthened by contact with other believers in a context where the Holy Spirit is forming the worshippers into the unity of the Church, the Body of Christ.
- Always remember the sacrifice of the Mass in the Church's greatest prayer of praise and thanksgiving to God the Father in which the Lord Jesus is truly present as Savior of the world and received in the Sacrement of the Eucharist as food for eternal life.