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by Rev. Fr. V.V. Paulose, Toronto, Canada
"Let us not neglect our meeting together, not for it to be just ritual but something beneficial." (Hebrews 10:25)
We lost personal, one to one, contact. We are one among the crowd, so we follows crowd mentality. No sensitivity to the needs, hurts, and cries of the people (individuals). Let alone attitude is wide spreading. In the name of so-called privacy, we kill the joy of family life, community life, spiritual life and, at large, life itself. Does our gathering in the church meets our needs and enriches our spirituality and social life? Or is it just like a club meeting? When we do not take advantage of the genuine Christian meetings, we give up the encouragement and help of other Christians. We gather together as Christians to share our faith and strengthen one another in the lord. When we face spiritual, financial, or mental struggles in life, the togetherness in the church can act as a shock absorber. Difficulties should never be excuses for missing the church services. Rather, as difficulties arise, we should make an even greater effort to be faithful in attendance.
In "Better Together," Putnam and Feldestein furnished a number of case studies about the benefits of togetherness. According to their survey, even simple trust in other people had fallen drastically. What can bring us together in the crisis of a local problem? Valley Interfaith is a community effort that brought basic services such as electricity, road, and health care to the mostly Spanish-speaking residents of one of the poorest regions in USA. The special strength of Valley Interfaith members are drawn from 45 churches and public schools groups representing 60,000 families. The agenda for reform emerged from one-to-one conversations from the top down. Through there, thousands of conversations - individuals joined with one another - "making their private pains public." Organizers followed an iron rule of never doing anything for people that can do for them. The power of personal relationships was translated into a powerful mechanism to meet all the needs of the people in that community.
Sunday mass should be translated into a genuine
meeting to feed all the needs of the aspirants for the coming weekdays and
Saturday.
Jesus, we are not alone. You are with us in all our trials and day-to-day needs. Thank you for your electrifying presence. If we are separated from our community, bring us together again as one family. We need a genuine church that care for our hurts, sorrows, and pains. Let our leaders get the vision and direction to understand and act according to the real needs of our people. We ask this in the name of Jesus.
Amen.
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