The World of Grandpa Don

On the week of December 5, 2003, I included the following comments on my "events" page:

The World of Grandpa Don
www.plefka.net

And now I have some additional thoughts on the subject:

 The liturgy was not diminished for me by the lack of attendance but I was disappointed by the fact that so few people took advantage of the opportunity.  At first, I blamed the parish staff for not promoting this very special service. There was only a notice in the parish bulletin and I believe a brief announcement at Sunday Mass. The presider should have talked about it during his homily, telling of it's beauty and spiritual value. Maybe there should have been a big poster at the entrance to church.

But then I remembered that the Homily is a time of reflection on the readings for the day and Sunday Mass is it's own liturgy and special time of spirituality, not an occasion to promote other events. So, where does the responsibility for this poor attendance belong?

We are responsible! Each and every one of us as an individual are responsible for our relationship with God. Is our spiritual life important to us? Is our relationship with God a valuable part of our life? Do we want to take advantage of the spiritual enrichment opportunities offered by our religion? 

Then it is our duty to ourselves to read the bulletin to see what the parish has to offer and plan to take advantage of these opportunities. The announcement was made before Mass and it is our obligation to ourselves to be there in time to hear it and to be attentive to what is said. God gives us invitations and free will to accept or reject them. We, as individuals, have an obligation to ourselves to look for the invitations as well as accept them if we wish. No one else is to blame if we fail to do so.

Unfortunately, due to the lack of attendance to this liturgy and others like it (This isn't the first time), we may not have them in the future. I hope our parish staff does not give up on us. God doesn't.