"O-oh-h-h . . . O-KAY!

Just getting to Sunday Mass is a big deal for me. Not that it's hard logistically to get to a Mass. I have no physical disabilities or illnesses that prevent my attendance. It's strickly the struggle against sloth.

I stopped going regularly when I was in college, then went on and off sort of haphazardly for years afterward. I never wanted to stop being Catholic. And I knew that Mass attendance on Sundays and Holy Days was a precept of the Church. But in high school, college, and the years following, I didn't "get it" that a precept of the Church had the same moral force as the Ten Commandments. Nor did I make the connection between Mass attendence and the First and Third Commandments.

I was struggling even to just learn the actual Faith well enough to defend it, using second-rate catechisms found at a local Catholic bookstore that sold books authored by modernists, dissenters, and just plain flakes--then, and still today. The Baltimore Catechism and the Catechism of the Council of Trent weren't even on my radar at the time. The current "Catechism of the Catholic Church" was just a glimmer in the papal mind. I was a public school student and all that the parish CCD classes taught us was the "Peace-Love-Joy" pablum from the third grade on up. So a lot of the time, unless I was going with someone else or had a secondary obligation such as singing in the choir, I just didn't make it to Mass.

And yet, I loved being at Mass once I was there! I just wasn't taking the steps to actually get out the front door!

At some point, I learned that intentionally or negligently missing Mass on a Sunday or Holy Day is mortally sinful. I also began to understand why, not just from the standpoint of the Church's authority to command it; but also some of the reasons Mass attendance is necessary: Especially of God's right to our worship; but also of our need to worship, to have our emptiness filled, to have our longings answered, to find the help we can't find anywhere else, to benefit the Church and the world by our prayers, to serve as tools in the distribution of God's mercy and graces, to experience the power of worshiping with other Christians, to know our helplessness even to worship unless we are united with Christ--to receive Him in the Word and in the Eucharist.

You'd think now that I know all of this, getting to Mass would be easier for me. But it's not. Attending Mass regularly is a habit. I had acquired the bad habit of not attending and also found myself struggling against a tendency to be slothful and lukewarm. Twenty-plus long years of hit-or-miss attendance have dulled my conscience to the point where I hardly feel a pang if I skip Mass.

Here is an instance where I am extremely grateful to God for His Mercy in the confessional! I get to call on God's grace as I try once again to establish myself in the routine of attending Mass when I'm supposed to be there and have no good reason not to be there. So often I've been forced to confess that "It's been two months since my last confession. I've missed Mass seven (or five, or eight) times."

By God's mercy and grace, I really am more regular at Mass than I used to be. God has faithfully provided the graces I need to get there: Sometimes He helps me by sending someone to attend with me. Sometimes He gives me the desire and ambition to get to the Church. Sometimes, like this morning, He sends my Angel Guardian to keep "Murphy" from throwing a monkey wrench into my plans. Sometimes, He just reminds Me that the consequence of mortal sin is an eternal stint in hell, so it would behoove me to show up, unless I'd rather be hot than inconvenienced.

This is all leading up to the Mass readings for today. They have really heightened this whole long struggle for me: Joshua's challenge to the Israelites as to whether or not they were committed to serve only God; the love of husband and wife as the illustration of the love of Christ and His Church; and the Lord's challenge to his disciples and the Twelve as to whether they would abandon Him or believe His teaching about His Body and Blood. So that finally clinches it: I choose to serve the Lord. He loves me and I love Him. And besides . . . there is no one else that I can go to. Only Jesus can give me Eternal Life.

[My Lord, I am there without fail from this day forward!]