Teens: Are You Having a Hard Time with Mass?

Recently, my eight-year-old son told me that he thinks the Mass is boring. Has it changed much now that you're a teenager? When I was eight, I didn’t have to go to Mass because I wasn’t Catholic. I didn’t have a denomination. When it was time for me to go to church, I went to “Kids on the Move” where church was actually fun. As soon as you walked up the stairs, you were greeted with a ticket to hold on to. You got a second ticket if you brought your Bible. If you collected enough tickets, you could trade them in for prizes at the Bible store. The group leader worked at a chocolate factory so when we were good or answered the questions correctly, we got full-size Paydays. We also got giant candy bars if we won the “Sword Drills" which were races to see who could find Scripture verses the fastest.

As I got older, the candy bars went away as did the puppet shows. Instead, we had Friday night praise and worship and a message after video games, pizza, and Rita’s Italian Ice. One could imagine this would be every child’s dream, or at least a consolation for those who went to private Christian school on top of having to go to church four times a week. I remember asking my mom once, “Mom, is it possible to get too much Jesus? I feel like all I ever do is church and the Bible. I'm kind of tired of it." I can assure you she had a response, and it was something like, "You can never have enough Jesus." She was absolutely right, but as a young teen - and we can all sigh with understanding - it just feels kind of pointless at times.

When I was 17, the fanfare of the tickets, puppet shows, video games, and pizza nights lost their appeal. I was practically an adult now, and even though I had a fantastic Scriptural foundation and a personal relationship with Christ, I was left somewhat empty. I lacked community for sure, being off in the Army and away from family, but there was an emptiness and a searching, knowing that I still had not quite found what I was looking for. Was the Bible, prayer and worship (singing) and being a good person all there was to this life in Christ?

At the age of 18, I met a nice fellow who happened to be Catholic. I immediately went to 2 Corinthians 6:14 and guarded myself against being “unequally yoked together with an unbeliever.” Yet, this fellow was telling me about the Mass and about the Eucharist and my heart swelled with the desire to KNOW what he was talking about. I had never before heard someone speak about his faith, his mistakes, God’s forgiveness, and the importance of the Mass and the “sacraments” in such a profound way. Most Christian guys I knew offered exuberant testimony about faith, and they weren't wrong. They were just lacking in a very critical part of what I would eventually discover thanks to the gentle nudges of the Holy Spirit.

The same week that this nice fellow told me about the Eucharist, I went to Mass. As the priest raised up the bread, and the bells jolted me to the realization of transubstantiation, my eyes filled with tears, and I finally understood. I finally found what I had been looking for and what I had been missing. I married that nice fellow, and we went on to have five kids. It took MANY years (about 10) for me to come around to Our Blessed Mother and the Saints; but once I did, it opened up a whole new world, a new community that didn’t just revolve around pizza and Rita’s and chill time with my peoples. It revolved around courage and humility and piety and intelligence. Consecrating myself to Mary, studying the lives of the Saints, practicing virtue, and writing a book about all this eventually led me to Holy Apostles College and Seminary.  

It was here that a liturgy professor shared a YouTube video with me of Bishop Fulton Sheen’s Meaning of the Mass. It helped me understand the scientific explanation of our physical assimilation into Christ through the Eucharist. “Think about the springtime and the sunlight and the carbons and the phosphorus of the earth. If they could talk, they would say to the plants, ‘Unless you eat me you shall not have life in you.’ If the plants could speak to the animals they would say, ‘Unless you eat me you shall not have life in you.’ And if the plants and animals could speak to us they would say, ‘Unless you eat me you shall not have life in you.’ And Christ says to us in communion: ‘Unless you eat me you shall not have life in you.’ And the law of transformation holds sway. Chemicals are transformed into plants, plants are transformed into animals, animals into man, and man into Christ.”[1

The Eucharist is the “source and summit of the Christian life” [2] as is taught in the Catechism. And the liturgy, the Mass, is to bring us to Him (physically!) so we can have life and have it more abundantly. (Jn 10:10) I know what’s on the other side, and it’s lacking. The materialism of the world, even though these things are good and they are gifts to us and can be used to draw us closer to Christ, they are not the greatest physical good. The greatest physical good is the gift that the Father gave to us in the physical body of Christ. By the sacrament of the Eucharist “we unite ourselves to Christ, who makes us sharers in his Body and Blood to form a single body.” (CCC 1331) We offer ourselves, in conjunction with Christ, using the most beautiful things to unite heaven with earth. And this takes place in the Mass. How blessed are you who have been raised in the Church and have shared in this for your whole life. I am like a prodigal who returned home. You have been with the Father this whole time. Ask Him for this special gift of understanding the Mass, truly and fully. Ask Him for the "fatted calf" so that you may celebrate with your friends, for everything the Father has is yours! (Lk 15:11-31)

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Home Page Photo by Ryan Song on Unsplash

Candy Photo by Pete Wright on Unsplash

Questioning Photo by Anthony Fomin on Unsplash

Adoartion Photo by Jacob Bentzinger on Unsplash

Monstrance Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash

[1] Venerable Fulton Sheen, “The Meaning of the Mass,” YouTube video, from Catholic Clips on 21 May 2013, at http://www.youtube.com.

[2] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1324, at The Holy See, w2.vatican.va.