Mum’s sickness at first never bothered me. I was naively optimistic that she’ll get through it and that was it. This was in January this year. Little did I know that in 7 months, I will not see her anymore. But in those 7 months, I remained optimistic, trusting in God that she’ll recover and that the cancer will just wither away. Afterall if He can move mountains, surely with prayer and faith He could cure her right?
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When mum’s condition worsened, I still held on to God, not out of love or loyalty, but more because I was desperate and I knew only He could do a miraculous act at this hour. Whenever I saw mum in pain, I would often console myself that with pain and suffering comes healing, and that God was physically healing her. Everyone in the family believed that, so I was not alone.
Towards the end, I had moved from hope to a more “Let Your will be done” resigned attitude. Again I stopped going to church, I stopped taking Him seriously, I was slowly being ignorant. I didn’t care anymore – do whatever you want Lord, I don’t care anymore
I guess I must have really disappointed God. So often time we ARE the ones who are disappointed with God, but when I look back now, after more than 2 months, I feel that I’m the one who might have disappointed the Almighty given my lack of faith and trust in Him, even though I knew she was not going to make it, and that she’s going to her eternal home. I guess when I said, “Let Your will be done”, I was feeling more like “whatever Jesus…whatever”. The main point was, she was dying and I was losing someone whom I had a very loving relationship with.
Mum’s death coupled with my disappointment with God led me to abandon the Church for 1 whole month. From mum’s death right up till the 3rd week of August, I practically skipped church. God was far away from me, and I didn’t WANT Him as well. Sure I did listen to praise and worship songs, I did read scripture off and on, but I wasn’t ready to believe Him yet, I wasn’t ready to “deal” with God.
If I ever had a list of the top 10 dumbest thing I have ever done in my life, missing 1 month worth of Mass would probably be there. I was so foolish to miss Mass. And what was my reason? I didn’t feel like it! That’s like the lamest excuse for someone to give when he’s summoned and called to worship Someone who has known him his entire life. We’re not talking about missing your neighbour’s bbq party, or your friend’s birthday party, we’re talking about missing the Celebration of the Eucharist, the celebration of Christ’s sacrifice for us!!
Note : Missing mass is as good as denying God! Period! Yes it’s that serious, and no I’m not over-dramatizing it just to make you feel less inferior or holy just cause you think skipping mass is alright. Skipping mass is as good as not recognizing Jesus as your savior. It’s denying and being ignorant to what He did on the cross. And yes skipping mass is a mortal sin, it’s a grave sin, why? because Jesus commanded us to “Do this in memory of me” when he broke the bread at the last supper. If breaking the 10 commandments is bad enough, breaking Jesus commandment is just as bad! It’s sad and it’s a pity when I hear young adult catholics, especially my own high school friends who only attend mass on Christmas and Easter and don’t revere the weekly Sunday Mass. It’s in the mass where Christ is present, the Eucharist is not just merely symbolic, it’s Christ Himself. When Christ said “I’ am the Bread of Life ” He actually meant it that way, it was not meant to be a metaphor or a symbolic meaning. Christ is present in the Eucharist!
I will admit, it didn’t really strike me at first that missing Mass was such a big deal. When I confessed this to my priest; (I don’t know why, but it felt good to somehow tell my local priest this) to let him know how much God had hurt me, to let him know that the God he preaches about in the pulpit day after day had disappointed me so much till I just had to back out and leave Him completely, I wasn’t ready for His response:
Priest : Are you punishing God?
Me : Why would I want to punish God? I just needed time and space. I didn’t say I hated God or anything, I just needed time away from Him.
Priest : Then you were punishing God
Me : What??? Why would you say that?
Priest : Because God owns you, he owns your life, and when you disobey him, you’re punishing him. Remember what we say in Mass during the Eucharistic Prayer ” Father, You are holy indeed, and all creation rightly gives You praise. All life, all holiness comes from You…” so you when you don’t come for mass, you’re not giving him the praises He deserves, therefore you’re punishing Him. You’re ignoring God.
It didn’t really strike to me at that moment when the priest enlightened my mind on this. And I didn’t think too much about it either.
So what if I missed mass, big deal, meh, life goes on…
The conference was to be held 2 weeks later. Although I had booked my seat for Theology of the Body, (something I had totally no clue about but was told it was about sex, which caught my attention because I was still struggling with this issue of mine), I wasn’t really that keen on attending it. It was going to take place over the long National Day break that was coming up.
The thought of missing 2-3 days of precious rest-time to listen to some talk which probably was gonna talk about sex the same way those fundamentalist preachers spoke about (point to bible verses, expound on it, point to another bible verse, expound on it, paint a serious reality of your sin, make you feel guilty, come up with a resoultion to sin no more, ask for God’s grace, find practical ways to deal with it blah blah blah…been there done that and nope it didn’t work for me!) in their books really made me think twice. But after much thinking, I decided to go, not because I had already paid up or because of sex, but… oh and this is quite embarrasing and pathetic when I come to think about it… to meet up with my old church buddies! It was after all quite a long time since I had attended any of the Young Adults functions…this would be my first in many months, so it would be a good “homecoming” for me… yes how lame how pathetic.
But Theology of the Body made the all difference. TOB surprised me with TRUTH, FAITH and CONVICTION and this was something I was NOT anticipating at all!
