The weekender church goer is a pretty neat arrangement for most, including me. Seven days a week, you just need to spend an hour for church. Dress up nicely, do your thing and get back to life. If I am lucky, we get some nice cantors, nice hymns and non-boring short sermon.
But over the last few weeks, I went out of my normal weekender-church-goer routine and discovered that if we strip away nice cantors and music and replace them with no music but some auntie singing in the best voice she could find (which sometimes is out of tune until the chorus before I get what she is singing hehehe), it is still worship. And even if the sermon is a short five minutes one, there are enlightenment in those short homily. Plus, forget about how the lector proclaims the Word of God. I belong to the weekender group of lectors and oh boy, do you know how much pressures I feel? There were so much expectations to live up to. But without all that, the Bible reading for the day stills touch a chord, regardless how it is proclaim.
And the reason is - It is how we feel, how weak we are and how broken we are that makes the mass meaningful. It was for that reasons that I forced the sleepy head in me to attend mass at 7 am. I didn’t go for nice singing, great proclamation or even sermons full of oomph. I went to find strength by unloading my burdens to the Lord.
The past week, I couldn’t make it to the 7 am weekday mass because my children have to go to church at 8.30 am, which makes it impossible for me to drive to church, drive home and pick them and drive there and back again. Blame it on the petrol price increase. And also ridiculous jam of the morning traffic.
Next week, I don’t think I want to endure the school and office jams to head to church for my weekday masses. I probably cussed too much at those drivers and I will be stressed out before I get to church. Then, I will start the same cycle when I need to come back. A normal drive without any jam takes only 4 minutes to reach church. A regular school morning means at least 20-30 minutes.
So, I have to be contented with my weekender church going to ‘enjoy the performances’ or to take care of the OHP or lector duty. Trust me, church is sometimes more healing and comforting when we strip away all the external factors. I can feel the presence of the Holy Spirit when it is a private affair between the Lord and I. The one to one communication minus all the social expectations, pomp and pageantry.
*sigh* I have lector’s duty tomorrow morning at 10 am mass. Someone exchanged with me for today sunset mass. But at the last minute, the mass will be celebrated by the group of youths including my two sons. So, the reading will be done by the youths. On the good side, I think I can coerced my hubby to go to church and bribe him to ‘watch his sons perform’. It is one of those rare occasion to see him in church. My son has also asked me to bring the DSLR camera to capture their photos.
But that means, I won’t get to proclaim Hosea 6:3-6 . I love the part so much, “What I want is love, not sacrifice” and ‘why I slaughtered them with the words from my mouth..” Powerful words…
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