By Nicholas Soellner
Connecting Liturgy and Life
Editor’s note: For 2026, the weekly “Connecting Faith and Life” column has been renamed “Connecting Liturgy and Life.” The column consists of reflections on Part Two of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), which focuses on the Liturgy and the Sacraments.
cf. CCC 1356-1368
The other week, my youngest son spoke those dreaded words no Catholic parent wants to hear: “Mass is boring!” The gall. The nerve! And on Pentecost no less! But if I’m being honest, there’s been plenty of liturgies over the years where I felt the same. Providentially, I ran across a YouTube video a few days before, discussing the topic of whether or not it was the parents’ job to entertain their children. Within it, this stroke of genius was shared: “They are not bored, they are purposeless. When purpose is missing, it redirects itself into misbehavior.”
Many of us grew up asking the question our kids still ask to this day: “Why do we have to go to Mass?” If you’re like me, the answer you received probably had more to do with guilt (Think of what Jesus did for you, can’t you give him an hour one day out of the week?) or fear (Skipping Mass on purpose is a mortal sin.) than it did with love or devotion. To answer the first question, we must answer another: What does the Mass actually do?
On the very surface, the Mass is an exercise of gratitude. After all, the word “Eucharist” comes from the Greek word meaning “thanksgiving.” One might also correctly say the Mass is worship, where we give to God what he is properly due, or “worth-ship.” Perhaps most importantly, the Mass is a sacrifice. But unlike any other, as St. Paul says, “When Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God … for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:12, 14). This is arguably the most important moment in history, and the gravity of its significance, like a heavy object in the center of a trampoline, bends space and time towards Jesus, as he said: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself” (John 12:32).
As the Catechism describes, “In all the Eucharistic Prayers, we find after the words of institution a prayer called the anemnesis or memorial. In the sense of Sacred Scripture, the memorial is not merely the recollection of past events … this is how Israel understands its liberation from Egypt: every time Passover is celebrated, the Exodus events are made present to the memory of believers so that they may conform their lives to them.” But with the New Covenant, “the memorial takes on new meaning. When the Church celebrates the Eucharist, she commemorates Christ’s Passover, and it is made present: the sacrifice Christ offered once for all on the cross remains ever present” (CCC 1362-1364).
But what is our role in the Mass? Beyond standing, sitting, kneeling, responding and singing, offer the contents of your week to God. Jesus entered into suffering to transform it. The Catechism teaches, “In the Eucharist, the sacrifice of Christ becomes also the sacrifice of the members of his body. The lives of the faithful, their praise, sufferings, prayer and work, are united with those of Christ and with his total offering, and so acquire a new value. Christ’s sacrifice present on the altar makes it possible for all generations of Christians to be united with his offering” (CCC 1368). God alone can make sense of what seems senseless, and he invites us to place everything before the foot of the cross with every offertory. When we do this, we fulfill an important aspect of our role in the Mass.
When your child or grandchild complains of how boring Mass is or asks why they have to go, share with them these reasons: Jesus offered his life to God out of love and he asks us to do the same at Mass. Jesus said, “Do this in memory of me.” He also said, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23). This is why God created us, to be in a loving relationship with him forever.
When we resign ourselves to simply being spectators of the Mass, we run the risk of losing sight of our purpose, both there and in life. May the Holy Spirit remind us often of this, and grant us a special desire and appreciation for the Mass from this day forward.