Our nation celebrated Independence Day this past week, and I hope everyone was able to take a little time away from work and other things to relax and thank God for the gift of our country.
The holidays and regular celebrations we hold form a sort of rhythm to our lives, and in a way, they are one of the big building blocks of culture. You can learn a lot about people by looking at what they celebrate and how they celebrate it, because celebrations and holidays show you what people value.
For us Catholics, the first building block in our calendar is Sundays. Our week begins with a day dedicated to God. On Sundays, we thank God for saving us and offering us a path to eternal life. We do this, most importantly, by participating in the sacrifice of the Mass, where we worship God. Saying that this worship is a “sacrifice” is particularly important, by the way. If you look at human history, every culture and civilization has recognized that to worship a god, you must offer sacrifice to that god. While sacrifice includes things like our normal daily sufferings and challenges, in this case we mean that something is set apart and offered to God. At Mass, we worship God by offering Him the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross. This weekly celebration of praise and thanksgiving for the Resurrection of Christ and the salvation of humanity is meant to give a distinct shape to our life and to remind us that God always comes first.
I encourage you to think about the holidays we celebrate, why we celebrate them, and how we celebrate them so that we can be intentional about how we shape our lives. If we only celebrate civil holidays and never Holy Days set apart by the Church, for example, what does that reveal about the way I value God?
Have a wonderful week!
Fr. Matt