This is my struggle. I love my religion, but have no patience for Mass. It thoroughly bores me. I can’t stay awake. I dread going, because it’s so long, disorganized, chaotic and quite frankly, mind-numbing. Yet, I feel better afterward, for having gone, so I know on another level it’s rewarding. This is one of my greatest weaknesses. Any suggestions?
Well, what would you do if you got married and found you felt the same way about sex with a spouse whom you love? Certainly, you are right to feel this isn’t a tenable state of affairs, in the long term. You both meant to have better, right?
On one level, participating at Mass is an obligation. So you make up your mind that you will be available for it as duty requires, like it or not and whether or not you think you could find greater excitement elsewhere. As you have rightly sensed, though, that is not enough. I would argue, though, that it is a necessary starting place. Quitting is not an option. This is an aspect of life where resolving to “show up” is only the starting place. One should never be satisfied with that alone, but one must start there.
On another level, the Mass is of course the source and summit of the Christian life. It is a life-giving act, more surely even than marital relations are, since in marriage we are open to life and at Mass we are guaranteed the Life of Christ will be there,* par excellence*. You have to make yourself fully open to the Mass, too, and hold back nothing of the life it offers you. Like marriage, this is the work of a lifetime, not just an isolated act that takes place once in awhile. It is the act once in awhile, though, that will demonstrate whether you are as open as you like to think.
On another level, this is of course the greatest act of intimacy that exists between you (plural, as in: the Body of Christ) and God that can possibly take place. Is this an intimacy issue between you and God? Between you and the other members of Christ’s Body? This is something to look at! Unless the relationship and the Body are working and tended to, the act is not going to work as God intended, either.
On another level, it is act that, in spite of its immeasurable significance as noted above, can suffer greatly by human neglect, lack of understanding, lack of communication, lack of willingness to be fully present, lack of generosity, selfishness, self-loathing, self-consciousness, and so on. Essentially all the things that can go wrong in a marital relationship can go wrong in the Mass, even if not in the same way. This detracts greatly from the human joy that the Mass has to offer. A quick fix to “jazz things up” will almost never suffice to address a deficit felt here, no matter how people would like to think otherwise. I have nothing against variety, but when a deficit is felt as deeply as what you describe, lack of novelty is almost never the culprit.
I don’t mean to make Mass and the marriage beds equivalent. I do mean to say that you may get some insights if you look for possible parallels, look at what people do to repair their marital relationships, and perhaps find a few clues to what might help you. Human nature is human nature, and we tend to go wrong in all areas in many of the same ways.
One thing that is open to you is this: there are over a billion Catholics in this world, and you are just as baptized into Christ with one of them as with another. The parallel of infidelity would only apply if you were to go to another denomination to “be fed.” Of course you should not place judgement on brothers and sisters whose worship at Mass doesn’t move you–we are strictly forbidden by Christ in just so many words from doing this, of course–but you don’t have to sit through a personal penance every week, either. It is OK, once you have tried honestly to engage yourself at Mass in your home parish to try another parish. This isn’t about blaming them for being wrong, but about finding a way to fully engage with the Mass, as you are meant to do. If you engage with Mass elsewhere, without them, you will know it because you will be more fully engaged with them in every other respect. By the fruits, you will know how you’re doing.
