Excuses, excuses, excuses!

"Church is soooo boring"

"They need to make mass more relatable to us young people"

"The little old ladies are scary"

"I have no one to go with"

"I don't like waking up on Sunday mornings"

Raise your hand if you have ever used one of these excuses to "get out" of going to mass?

 I have! (And the old ladies still terrify me so I attend mass on Saturday evenings, which also knocked out the excuse of not being a fan of mornings!)

These are excuses. We need to dig down and find the true reason why we are avoiding mass.

I found mine. I was like Jonah. God had told me what He wanted me to do, but it scared me so I ran! But, we all know how that ended with Jonah

 

Yep, he spent 3 days in the stomach of a whale. Whale, whale, whale, (teehee) Jonah still ended up doing what God had called him to do. 

That is how I feel. The "whale" I spent time in was a feeling of extreme happiness of where I was in life and the feeling that I was on a dead end road leading to no where!

Well, I, like Jonah, have realized that following God's Will leads to pretty amazing things!

I went through stages of coming back to mass. 

First, I would only go to mass at 5pm on Sundays at the Cathedral. This lasted a couple of months. I liked going there because it is a large church that I can easily blend in at. I liked the anonymity. No one was looking at me.  

Second, I became an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion. This gave me a reason to attend my home parish.

Third, I began attending Saturday evening mass at my home parish. I liked this because often the people scheduled to be Eucharistic Ministers don't show up, so I get to do it.

Becoming a Eucharistic Minister has made me WANT to attend mass at my parish.

I have missed 3 Sunday masses and 1 Holy Day of Obligation since July. (I was battling a pretty intense cold/sinus infection over the Christmas season. Sometimes it's better to keep my germs to myself.)

So, are you using these excuses to run from God?