1. God asks us to make one day holy. It's good to step back from our everyday busyness and remind ourselves that God is in charge.
2. Jesus gives us the gift of himself. In churches where the sacrament is the Body and Blood of the Lord, this is what he commanded us to do in memory of him, and it is the greatest gift imaginable.
3. We need to be part of a community. When we gather for worship we are satisfying our need to be in communion with other people. We realize that we are not alone.
4. God has a special message for us. We hear the scriptures and the preaching. Through them God can inspire us and impact our lives. The same words can have different meanings for different people.
5. We need to talk to God. We talk to God when we sing the hymns, when we recite the prayers, when we join our hearts to the prayers others say, and when we speak to him from the depths of our hearts.
6. People need our prayers. When we pray for other people during the worship service, we are praying as members of a community, which joins us in our prayer. The whole community of believers (including those who are distant and those who have gone before) prays with us.
7. We need to stand up for what we believe. In an increasingly secularized world, we give witness to our faith by setting aside the time for worship and visibly joining with our fellow believers.
8. We need to acknowledge that we make mistakes. I'm not sure about other forms of worship, but at Mass we ask God to have mercy on us. We are admitting that we have done wrong and need his forgiveness — which he will not refuse.
9. We need ritual in our lives. The sameness of the worship format week after week can be comforting and reassuring. It shows us that there is some stability in our lives. It allows the meaning of the worship to penetrate our souls at the same time it lets the changing elements such as the readings to stand out.
10. We need to experience something bigger than ourselves. At worship we are offering our lives to God. We are encouraged to live our faith in our daily lives. We can be helped to see meaning and purpose in our lives as they are part of God's will for the world.
We Christians believe that we that it is in and through Jesus that we receive these benefits as God's gift to us. We Catholics believe that this happens because the Mass makes Jesus' saving death and resurrection sacramentally present to us so that we participate in them as members of his body.
1 comment:
My Grandma represents the religious side of my life. Most of my experiences about religion, come from when i used to go to church with her on a Saturday evening when i was much younger.
From what i can remember, it was a very loving and caring place. Everyone there had a real sense of togetherness. They were trying to do their best for the world by helping others.
Although most of the time i was bored out of my brain. I wasn't even a teen yet. lol
I can understand every one of those points though. I can say that i think in many cases, having religion in one's life (and going to a place of worship regularly) can make them a better person.
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