2nd Sunday of Lent
March 2007
6) The Mass can be boring
A sense of gratitude is a gift seldom given to young people.
Young people seldom feel gratitude towards their parents. Young people seldom feel gratitude for what their school and teachers do for them. Young people seldom appreciate the care and love they receive within their families and community.
In the very same way young people seldom feel gratitude to God their Father and their creator.
Young people are too preoccupied with themselves, with their friends and enemies, with fitting in with their age group, with their image, with growing up, to be able to experience a sense of gratitude towards anybody. On top of that young people know that they know the answers to the most profound questions and problems, and their parents and teachers are fossils from another age.
How do I know this? I know it because I was that way when I was young. And I was young well into my forties.
Gratitude comes with maturity. Gratitude comes with understanding.
When I show gratitude to parents it is because I finally understand and appreciate what they have done for me.
When I show gratitude for school, teachers, hospital etc. it is because I finally understand and appreciate what they have done for me.
When I show gratitude to God it is because I finally understand what God has done, and continues to do, for me.
The basic motive for my participating in the Mass is one of gratitude. Gratitude to God for His goodness to me. The Mass is the most important way I return thanks to God. To have a sense of gratitude I must understand what God has done for me.
Like school, parents, and family, church can be a bit of a bore. We have to stick with them until maturity brings understanding and gratitude.
If I had had my way I would have avoided school and church, etc. etc. - and I would now be cleaning out a piggery in some part of rural Ireland.