Ask Fr. Jerry
Fr. Jerry Herda, Pastor - St. Monica's Parish, Whitefish Bay
Embrace what your Catholic Church offers
The first installment of a 3 part question and answer article
previously published in the Catholic Herald.
Q: I have a friend who is encouraging me to attend a Bible-focused evangelical church. She says the services are very entertaining with lots of video and music. It sounds exciting. If I go does that fulfill my Sunday obligation?
A: First, to answer your direct question, no it does not fulfill your Sunday obligation. As Catholics we are obligated to attend a Catholic Mass each week to fulfill our Sunday obligation. My hope is that you would want to continue attending Sunday Mass and continue your journey as a Roman Catholic. I recently heard an interesting statistic. The number one religion in the United States, as far as total members, is Catholic. Number two in total members would be former Catholics, if you were to count all who have left the church. This leads to your deeper question, that is, your search for something more, your search for fulfillment.
Many people leave the church in search of something more. Evangelical churches will attract people with fancy technology and use of entertainment. It is a strong pull on one’s emotions and the desire to be entertained. Youth and young adults have constant entertainment before their eyes and ears, with television, movies, computers, iPods. From their view, it is only about entertainment. But this approach quickly becomes very shallow. What is the depth of the message?
I recently spoke with a young couple who had left the Catholic Church to join a non-denominational church. They quickly returned to their Catholic roots because they discovered a lack of depth. The simple example they gave was that the non-denominational service was all about entertainment and had only one brief Scripture reading, whereas the Catholic Mass has much more Scripture – the first reading, the psalm, the second reading and the Gospel reading.
My point, if you truly want to grow in your faith, don’t abandon the Catholic Mass, embrace it. Maybe it doesn’t have all the fancy video and music, but it does have 2,000 years of tradition and history, it does have the power of the Eucharist and the presence of Jesus Christ in his body and blood.
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