It's often observed that people will happily spend three hours at a sporting event, but grumble over one hour spent in church. Homer Simpson once tried to reconcile the two--listening to a football game on radio earphones at a Sunday service. In the middle of the sermon he jumped up shouting "IT'S GOOD! IT'S GOOD!...er...It's, uh, good to see you all in church today."
To Homer and his friends the difference may seem to be a no-brainer: sports are exciting, church is boring. Pass the nachos.
Yet for all the excitement sports can bring (and it has brought me a lot over the years), Mass has some thrills to offer that don't even compare.
When I walk into church I dip my fingers into a bowl of water in which Jesus has sent the Holy Spirit. The same Spirit who descended upon Jesus "in bodily form" when he rose from the baptismal waters of the Jordan now beckons to me "in bodily form." I touch the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit touches me. This is the same water used in baptism, effecting rebirth into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and joining us to his body. And I'm touching it! I haven't even gone into church yet and already I'm given this awesome, exciting gift that allows me to be in physical contact with God. (I'll take that over a bobble-head or a floppy hat any day.)
As Mass begins I stand with a crowd of people to do something much more memorable than "The Wave." Together, out loud, we confess that we have sinned through our own fault, in what we have done and in what we have failed to do. And we ask the Blessed Virgin Mary, all the angels and saints, and our brothers and sisters in Christ to pray for one another. Yes, Harry Caray fans, this is a "Holy Cow" moment! (And I don't care if I ever get back.)
After all, we live in a world where people often sue other people to avoid accepting responsibility for their own mistakes--and here an entire community admits publicly that they have sinned? This is radical! Nobody does this "out there"--how exciting is this!
We ask not just the folks we can see to pray for us, but we're rubbing elbows with Mary the Mother of God, the angels and the saints! The shirtless guys in sub-zero temperatures with their team name painted on their bellies are pretty cool, but I get to hang out with angels and saints!
I listen to words written centuries ago, half-way around the world, in languages and cultures I don't even know--and they speak to me. Together with these other folks I recite a Creed which, as Scott Hahn has pointed out, people in the first few centuries AD risked their lives to say.
Most amazing of all, I see bread and wine transformed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. I am then called forward to be both physically and spiritually fed by the Bread of Life, and thus become physically and spiritually one with him and his mystical body. "We are" [Clap! Clap!] "the Body of Christ!" [Clap! Clap!]
We are then sent forth not merely to "drive home safely," but "to love and serve the Lord," having been joined to him with his promise to transform us into the divine image in which we were created. Who needs a foam finger!
So yes, Homer, "IT'S GOOD!" It is so much more than good. Sports are exciting, no doubt, and I am so blessed to have sports as part of my life. But I am so much more blessed by the opportunity to participate at Mass. If we can all bring the same zeal from the stadiums and arenas to the altar of the Lord, what a truly exciting game this life of ours can become.
Bring it on!
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