Dear all,
In the past couple of weeks, I could experience a sudden turn of events that really helped to renew my walk with the LORD. I got the grace to celebrate Mass daily, and to spent good amount of time in rosary, personal prayer, Word of God reading, writing etc. etc. I attribute all this revival to the most generous graces showered by our Father in the name of Jesus through His Spirit. This happened through the motivation & prayers of multiple people, not as a group but in individual personal interactions, but all working together in proper order for the salvation of my poor soul. Another reiteration/affirmation of God's constant love and concern for me.
At this juncture, to start with my own response to my "Jubilee Thoughts", I am sharing a few lessons I learnt in my struggle to celebrate Holy Mass in a worthy manner. These are not general rules, but things I felt really apply to me. I am sharing this to myself grow in this fellowship, but if anyone finds this useful, it's a bonus!
In this span of 14 years since I first started celebrating Mass, I have gone through my ups and downs in the way I celebrate the Mass. I notice that in my beginning years, I used to see God's presence with the whole heavenly hosts upon the altar, but many a times in the years later, I had to struggle with lots of wandering thoughts during the celebration. I found that though my faith in the Real Presence never reduced, the devotion to it varied. I used to wonder what was wrong, and wanted to figure out how to deal with the problem.
As I introspected, I could find out the following things:
In the past couple of weeks, I could experience a sudden turn of events that really helped to renew my walk with the LORD. I got the grace to celebrate Mass daily, and to spent good amount of time in rosary, personal prayer, Word of God reading, writing etc. etc. I attribute all this revival to the most generous graces showered by our Father in the name of Jesus through His Spirit. This happened through the motivation & prayers of multiple people, not as a group but in individual personal interactions, but all working together in proper order for the salvation of my poor soul. Another reiteration/affirmation of God's constant love and concern for me.
At this juncture, to start with my own response to my "Jubilee Thoughts", I am sharing a few lessons I learnt in my struggle to celebrate Holy Mass in a worthy manner. These are not general rules, but things I felt really apply to me. I am sharing this to myself grow in this fellowship, but if anyone finds this useful, it's a bonus!
In this span of 14 years since I first started celebrating Mass, I have gone through my ups and downs in the way I celebrate the Mass. I notice that in my beginning years, I used to see God's presence with the whole heavenly hosts upon the altar, but many a times in the years later, I had to struggle with lots of wandering thoughts during the celebration. I found that though my faith in the Real Presence never reduced, the devotion to it varied. I used to wonder what was wrong, and wanted to figure out how to deal with the problem.
As I introspected, I could find out the following things:
- When I was not regularly spending time in personal prayers, there were distractions during the Mass.
The connection? I meditate/contemplate a lot during my prayer time. If I am not spending time in prayer, I would instead spend time in contemplation during the Holy Mass. Thus, instead of watching closely the Holy Mass and its mysteries, I would do my contemplation, which I came to as "not healthy", though contemplation was something good. - When I am not using my Liturgy Book, I tend to get distracted.
When I shared my difficulty to some of my friends and to some religious sisters, they recommended me to use the Liturgy Book. I could not first accept this suggestion, because I though that I will lose spontaneity if "read" prayers from a book. But I was amazed to see that their suggestion was full of wisdom, and it worked. I learnt that almost all the religious sisters daily use the Mass book, eventhough they know the prayers by-heart much more than we do. Why? One of the reasons is this: If you are not using the book, you'll need to put some effort to remember the prayers, however small that effort is. Our focus might shift to saying the prayers correctly from our memory "by-heart" rather than saying the prayers "from heart". Again, we may also tend to feel the pride in "knowing it fully" especially when you see your 'poor' neighbor "needs a book". (All this may not be true for you, but it is for me) - When I get distracted for some part of the Mass, I would get discouraged for the rest of the Mass.
Even with my best efforts, it was (and is) common that distractions happen. At times I even "miss" the most important parts such as "Words of Institution" and the "Invocation of the Holy Spirit". Till some time back, if I got distracted for some portion of the Eucharist, I used to get discouraged till the end scolding myself for the same. But when God convicted me that though I need to set high standards for myself (according to the gospel values), I need not put high expectations from myself, that too so soon. God made me realize how poor I am and how He still loves me. The times when I was walking triumphantly with Him did not point to my greatness but to His ability to cover my inability. So what if I got distracted for a few minutes, I can humble myself and with ten times zeal try to open myself to the infinite graces of the Most Holy Eucharist by giving my best in the remaining moments, even if I come to my senses only during the Final Blessing.
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