Humblesse Oblige

[Papist]

 

On Thursday morning, I had the following thought process.  Raise your hand if you can relate:

 

Let’s see, Thursday, Thursday.  Almost done with the week.
Let’s see, Facebook, Facebook.  Ha, look at that cat . .  Oh, poor lady, gotta pray for her . . . Ugh, MSM hypocrisy . . . Ha, look at that other cat . . .
WAIT.  Holy Day?  Of obligation?  Today?  Wait, no, they changed it to Sunday!  Or did they?  No, not in my diocese!  Phew.
Okay, but we really should go, even if we don’t have to.  I should go because I want to and because it’s a privilege, not because I have to!
But wait, I can’t, because I already made that appointment, and we were on the waiting list forever, and we already missed the morning Mass, and if we go at night, when will we eat?  Okay, we’ll have to find some other way to commemorate it.
But wait, I guess my diocese is in a larger ecclesiastical province, whatever that is!  I think it is a HDO!  But why didn’t they say anything about it last Sunday??

 

As it turned out, Ascension Thursday is a holy day of obligation where I live – and that’s kind of rare in the United States.  Most bishops of have moved the feast to the following Sunday, so you can fulfill your HDO obligation and your Sunday obligation at the same time.

 

On Holy Days of What-Was-Formerly-Obligation, we very often hear cries:  It shouldn’t feel like an obligation to go to Mass, anymore than it’s an obligation to eat a delicious feast!  If we truly understood what was happening at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we’d be breaking down the door to get inside,and not hoping we get let off the hook.  Why, there are seminarians in Nigeria who live inside abandoned detergent bottles.  Tell them why you ‘can’t’ make it to Mass today, just because you aren’t obligated to.”

 

These things are all true.  And yet people who say them are glossing over something central to our existence as children of God:  the sweetness of obedience for the sake of obedience.

 

It would be wonderful if we simply always wanted to go to Mass.  It would be Heaven on earth if we enjoyed doing all the things we ought to do.  And sometimes it really does work out that way.  As we increase in holiness, our desires become more and more aligned with God’s desires, and there is less and less of a struggle between what we want to do and what we ought to do.

 

But knowing how you ought to be is not the same as being that way. The Church gives us obligations because she knows we need them.  This is an idea which sets the Church apart from so many other religions:  the much-derided “rules and regulations” that the Church lovingly imposes show that the Church understands human nature.  If we were only ever invited or encouraged, we’d hardly ever turn up.  I’d like to think I’m different, but I know I’m not.

 

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/simcha-fisher/humblesse-oblige#ixzz2SuDCwCzH

 

 

 

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

LUKE 17:7-10 answers this for me.

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

I am the servant, the Lord is the Boss.