Mass is everything.

On earth there is nothing greater than Mass… at least in God’s eyes!

Padre Pio once said that it’d be easier for the earth to exist without the sun than for the earth to exist without Mass!

Mass is Heaven’s greatest gift

Mass is Jesus and all that he has done for us.

Imagine trying to hug the person who has hurt you. It’s so hard… sometimes impossible.

Well, that’s what it’s like for God. When God loves us he’s also loving us as people who’ve offended him and that’s so hard to do.

When we look at Jesus on the Cross, we’re looking at how hard it is for God to love us as people who’ve offended him. We can see it in a way that makes it more than just words.

Mass is this love offered to us personally. It’s personal. It’s Jesus himself.

God packages everything he’s got – love – and gifts it to us in the person of Jesus who unites himself completely with us in Communion. God actually comes from Heaven and enters inside us in Jesus when we receive Communion.

If this is true… that Mass is God’s love for us, nothing less than Jesus himself leaving Heaven and entering inside us, then we should prepare for Mass very carefully.

If Mass is Jesus… and in Jesus we see how hard it is for God to love us as people who’ve offended him, then we should be really careful to not offend him even more in Mass and especially in receiving Communion.

Try to understand Communion from God’s side…

He’s loved us as people who’ve offended him to the point where it’s crucified him, to the point of giving his life, and it’s all packaged up and gifted to us in Mass and Communion.

It follows that Mass and Communion matter a great deal. I can’t stress this enough. It matters in Heaven.

The bottom line here is; when we celebrate Mass and especially when we receive Communion, depending on the state of our souls – if we’re pleasing or displeasing to God – we may be consoling him or we may be adding to his suffering.

This is the reason the church says we should always apologize to God for our offences before receiving Communion.

In fact, the church (who got this in the first place from men and women who were very close to God) says we should tell God we’re sorry in Confession before receiving Communion.

Equally though, given that it costs God so much to embrace us, our little sufferings freely offered to him in Mass serve to take away a little bit of his suffering and give him great comfort. In these moments we make God feel like his work in Jesus is worth it! In fact, God delights in us when we freely accept and offer him our little sufferings.

So, I’ve tried to explain how Mass is experienced in Heaven… how God experiences Mass.

If this is God’s understanding of Mass, then how does God feel when we don’t go to Mass?

Are our usual excuses for not going to Mass received in Heaven as little more than further insult?

What’s it like for God when we go to Mass but our minds and hearts are elsewhere? Well… what’s it like when you’re talking to someone and they’re not paying any attention to you? That’s how it is for God.

In truth God is grieved by our unbelief and indifference toward Mass.

If all that I’m saying is true, then we’re probably offending God on a scale we haven’t even begun to understand.

Still, God will seek to love us, always. It just costs him much more!