Why is the Mass so boring?

"Here we are now. Entertain us!" - Kirk Cobain - Smells like Teen Spirit

If you ask why Mass is so boring you are missing the point of Mass. If Jesus intended for Mass to entertain us he would have been crucified at half time during the Super Bowl. 
MTV cares if you get bored (that is why the camera angles on MTV literally change every 3 seconds). God wants you to be happy - but I think a little "boredom" is fine.

When someone goes on a date they are looking to build a relationship with that person, not to be entertained by him/her. What if you sat down at a nice restaurant and your date leaned over the table, looked you in the eye and said, "Entertain me! Make me laugh or something! You're starting to bore me!"?

You'd think he/she was a nut - yet that is so often the attitude we bring to our "date" with the Maker of the Universe at Mass. 
Mass isn't about being entertained. It is about our relationship with God. It is about listening to the Word of God, and encountering Jesus fully and personally in the Eucharist as we offer our lives to the Father in thanksgiving "through Him, with Him, and in Him."

Don't go to Mass looking for entertainment. Entertainment is nothing next to what we can truly find at Mass. 
Go to Mass looking to find God - and yourself in the process.

Jesus is THE Answer!

Chris Stefanick

(Originally posted on the Diocese of La Crosse youth ministry page.)

How can I get more "into" the Mass?

Step one to diving deeper into the Mass is having some clue about what is going on at Mass. You can have front row tickets to the Super bowl - if you don't know what a "down" is, chances are you'll be more into your foot long than the football game.

Check out the stuff about Mass and the Eucharist in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (insert link to Catechism online). It'll blow you away. Reading some of my Q&A's about Mass might help too.

Step two to fully taping into the power of the Mass is pursuing a relationship with Jesus. If we aren't centering our lives in a relationship with God then Mass is probably going to seem less like an encounter with the living God and more like a boring set of motions for us. A date with my wife on Saturday night won't be too meaningful if I've ignored her every other day of that week.

(Continuing the date analogy…) It's also key to show up at that "date" with the right frame of mind. If I'm sitting at dinner with my wife and thinking of what I have to do at work the date won't go too well. 
God deserves your undivided attention at Mass! Nothing on our list of to do's is as important as the Mass. 
Mass isn't something we squeeze between homework and a football game. Mass is the "source and summit" (check out #1324 in the Catechism) of our lives as Christians. At every Mass we put our lives on the altar. At every Mass we offer up everything we do and everything we are to the Father "through Him, with Him and in Him" so that our lives can be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit into something beautiful - into a sacred offering to God. At every Mass we get the food, the sustenance from God that we need to live as His children in our everyday lives. Christians live from Mass to Mass to Mass...

So show up a little early to Mass to clear your mind, quiet your heart, and prepare to participate with your full attention and energy in the most important hour of your week. 
Praying over the Readings before you get to Mass always helps me give it my full attention more effectively too.

The same amazing grace is given at every Mass, but how open you are to that grace makes all the difference.

Jesus is THE Answer!

Chris Stefanick

Why is a priest necessary for Confession?

This is how Jesus set it up for us. Check it out: 
"Jesus said (to his Apostles - the first priests), 'Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.' And with that he breathed on them and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.'" - John 20:20-23

Why He set it up that way isn't as important as the fact that he did set it up that way. If you offend someone you need to reconcile with them on their terms - not your own. When we commit a big sin (mortal sin), the kind that breaks our relationship with God - confession is God's terms for reconciliation.

Now to the less important/theoretical question: "Why did He set it up that way?" 
I'll offer five possible reasons - all of which are probably true and then some…

1. Why not just pray and go "straight to God." Confession is a sacrament. Sacraments are our deepest encounters with God this side of eternity. When go to confession, we are going straight to God just in deeper way. God knew we'd need that deep encounter with Him to heal us when we are hurting our lives with sin.

2. This sacrament takes the stain of sin away and gives grace to sin no more. (That is why it is also good to confess our smaller (venial) sins that we are struggling with.) Jesus knew how hard it is to leave sin behind and knew we'd need that sacramental help.

3. Our sins hurt whole body of Christ, the whole Church. Reconciliation with the whole Church is inseparable from reconciliation with God. In the early Church you had to confess before the Bishop and the whole Church out loud. Now it is just done before the rep of the Church - your priest (thank God!).

4. Mortal sin tears up your membership card to body of Christ. In confession you get it back. Perfect contrition (repenting not out of fear of hell but out of love for God) also sets us right with him after mortal sin - but we can't judge ourselves ("Am I really in Mortal Sin? Was I really Sorry?"). In confession have surety of forgiveness when Jesus' appointed rep, speaking with His authority says, "I absolve you…"- He knew we'd need that surety and nothing less when it comes to eternity! That surety we can get from Confession is a great gift to us!

5. It is psychologically healing. One psychologist said he'd have 50% less cases if Catholics used Confession. Guilt drives us nuts. When something is left alone in the dark (like an old forgotten potato) it molds, festers, and rots. The same is true of our sins. It is one of the 12 Steps of AA to tell someone all of the sins of your life. Even if it weren't a sacrament (which it is!) it is a healing thing to do.

Jesus is THE Answer!

Chris Stefanick

(Originally posted on the Diocese of La Crosse youth ministry page.)

If the bread is really changed into Jesus at Mass would a DNA test show flesh and blood instead of bread?

If the physical properties (form) changed from bread to human flesh that wouldn't be transubstantiation; it would be transformation. 
What we believe in is transubstantiation - a change in "substance".

In philosophical terms "substance" refers to the "what-ness" of something. What makes a thing what it is goes beyond physical properties. That's why, even though humans have arms and legs, even if I lost both of my arms and legs, I'd still be a human. Even if you gave me a tail and pointy ears, I'd remain a human. That's what I am. The what-ness of something is beyond physical. (For those raised in the 80's: When the "Wonder Twins" transformed into a bucket of water and an eagle, they were still Zan and Jayna!)

Can you have two totally different things with the same physical properties? 
Yes. Take a cave and a cathedral for example. Both are made of the same stuff - a bunch of rocks with a space in the middle. Yet the two couldn't be more different as far as what they are.

The Eucharist is as different from bread as a cave is from a cathedral - even though both have the same physical properties. (I know - it's not a perfect analogy. None are.) 
Jesus is substantially present in the Eucharist. Even though the physical properties of bread are still there, the "substance" (the "what-ness") of bread no longer remains. It would be as wrong to call the consecrated host bread as it would be to call Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Denver a cave. It would also be incorrect to say it's Jesus "in" bread, just as it would be incorrect to say that St. Peter's Basilica is really just a Church "spiritually present" in a cave.

It isn't Jesus present in bread...it's Jesus present under the appearance (form) of bread. 100% Jesus - body, blood, soul and divinity.

The Church came up with words like "transubstantiation" long after the Last Supper to try to wrap our small brains around what we already knew was true long before we could explain it in philosophical terms - namely - that this wafer that looks, tastes and smells like bread isn't bread any more. "This is my body..."

They knew it was true in 33 AD because Jesus said so. They knew it was true because he risked losing all of his followers, even his Apostles (see John 6) over that "hard to swallow" teaching (so it had to be intended very literally). It's a teaching that requires total faith in the words of Jesus to accept - though not blind or unreasonable faith. The one who said, "This is my body" proved himself worthy of trust.

Jesus is THE Answer!

Chris Stefanick

What does Alleluia mean?

The word Alleluia is an ancient call to give praise to God. It comes from two Hebrew words Hallelu and Yah ("Yah" is a short form of "Yahweh", the name for God), which literally means, "Praise the Lord!"

Jesus is THE Answer!

Chris Stefanick

What did Mass look like in the first days of Christianity?

Some of the "exteriors" of the Mass can change throughout time - to help people in each time and place more effectively enter into the eternal mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ. That being said, the Mass that the very first Christians celebrated looked a lot like it does today!

The following tidbit was written by a Catholic Christian Martyr named Justin who lived from 100-165AD. We can see readings, a homily, petitions, the presentation of the gifts, a Eucharistic prayer, the great Amen, reception of Holy Communion, and the Eucharist being brought to the sick, and a faith in the "real presence" of Jesus in the Eucharist.

…on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the presider verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray,…when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the presider in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons.

…we have been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh…are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.

Sound familiar?

Jesus is THE Answer!

Chris Stefanick

What does Amen mean?

Amen is a Hebrew word, which literally means "truly". It is a way of confirming something we heard or said. When we say "Amen" at the end of a prayer we are saying "So be it!" or as Paul McCartney so eloquently put it, "Let it be!"

The following is a way you could use the word "Amen" in your daily life (but never would!): 
Person behind the counter: Just to confirm sir, you ordered a 10-piece Chicken Nugget, Coke and Supersize fries.

You: Amen.

When we sing "Amen" it is a highpoint in the Mass. We are saying, "I believe it! It is as you said! Let it be for me!" to everything the priest just said.

Jesus is THE Answer!

Chris Stefanick

Have there ever been miracles that prove that piece of bread (the host) is really Jesus?

The words of a guy who died and rose again are enough "proof" for me! 
That being said - there are countless miracles that attest to the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. If you google "miracles of the Eucharist" you will find tons of them.

I'll share one miracle with you. In Lanciano, Italy in the 8th century a priest was celebrating Mass and started to question if that little host in his hands was really Jesus. As these thoughts were crossing his mind the host took on the appearance of human flesh and began to bleed all over the altar. That host is preserved to this day in a monstrance (a sacred vessel they put the Eucharist in for adoration) in Lanciano.

In the 1980's an atheist scientist was given permission to study the host - hoping to disprove the miracle. He found that although the host was centuries old it was fresh and healthy - living flesh. It was the flesh of a human heart with blood type AB positive. Every part of a heart that is required to function was present in the host. That scientist became a Catholic Christian. (Duh!) If you visit Lanciano today you can see the results of his study posted on the wall of the Church there entitled "and the Word was made flesh".

(You can read more about this miracle athttp://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/lanciano.html.)

Jesus is giving his heart to you in the Eucharist. What does he want back? Something to ponder…

Jesus is THE Answer!

Chris Stefanick