I love Mass. It is the highlight of my week. Mass is also the most difficult, sad, and frustrating hour of my week.
I am cleansed with fire each week at Mass, when presented with Our Lord, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, along with poor music choices loosely performed by people who are not musicians and clearly have no clue what the purpose of music is during Mass.
This is my struggle. It is a pain, a lesson in humility, a fight against my need for the Lord and the Grace that is given through the Sacrament of the Eucharist, and my natural urge to just stop going to this parish during this Sunday morning Mass time. I want to boycott, and protest, and complain, and whine to my priest. I want to write my bishop a letter.
But I'm not going to do any of those things. I have been heard by my priest and said what was needed to be said, and the bishop's job is not to micro-manage each parish. At this point, it is what it is, and I can only try to affect change on my own, God willing.
So I will practice. I will sing. I will abandon my desire to sit in the pew and wait for someone else to do a better job so I can sit there and passively enjoy it. I will not get to stay in the pew and enjoy Mass with my family, but I will get to (hopefully) provide something that benefits the rest of the parishioners. That will be my sacrifice.
Cleansed with fire through patience, humility, and sacrifice. It's the little things, each and every day, that lead us down the little way.
~JMJ~
