Why Sunday matters #3

The Irish Catholic Bishops Conference issued a short but significant document last year entitled “Why Sunday Matters”.  This Sunday, I address the following question they posed:

Do we need to review Mass times or the number of weekend Masses?

The answer to that, I think, is patently obvious: yes! 

Circumstances have already forced change on this front.  Where Sunday Mass was almost on the hour on Sunday mornings in most busy city parishes when I was growing up, it is now a question of one Mass on a Sunday morning or, at most, two.  The introduction of the ‘Vigil Mass’ on Saturday evening in the early 1980s was, in my opinion, a mixed blessing. While it accords with the strictly liturgical notion of the Sabbath beginning on the evening prior, it inadvertently introduced the notion of Sunday being kept clear for all sorts of others things. It hastened the demise of something very special and sacred – the almost absolute rest of Sunday morning when the vast majority of people went to church and businesses were closed except on grounds of exceptional need. I am not suggesting that the Vigil mass caused this. Rather, it inadvertently hastened the process.  In the driving seat was the collapse in faith and religious practice along with commercial and sporting pressures.

With a rapidly ageing profile of priests and a marked fall in attendance across the country the time for reckoning is long past. In my view one Mass celebrated on a Sunday morning should be the centre and focus of the parish community.  We are already approaching a situation where Mass will not be available except, perhaps, once or twice a month in a given church.  All of this speaks to the need for careful preparation, consultation and education in the value of the Mass and its place in the life of the community.