One of the important barometers of the vitality of the faith of our Catholic community is Mass attendance. It’s no secret that many of our fellow Catholics are not with us at Mass on Sundays.

 Yes, there is an obligation from the Church that we attend Mass each week, not just on and off. Even coming to Mass at Christmas and Easter, as valuable as that practice might be, doesn’t fulfill our obligation.

But the issue really isn’t just fulfilling a rule. It is better summed up by a heartfelt question: Why aren’t you with us before the Lord?

Plenty of ink has been spilled and words have been multiplied in an effort to answer this question and to turn this trend around. Still, when we look around at Sunday Mass we frequently see pews populated predominantly by older folks with our young people often underrepresented. Too many stay away from Mass and from the Church.

The concern is not one of nostalgia or institutional pride in the Church, as if
the membership or attendance of our favorite club or organization isn’t what it used to be.

Participation in the faith of Jesus Christ, and therefore in the Church, is the door to salvation. After all, Jesus told us that he is the way, the truth and the life. And his choice of Peter as the rock on whom his Church will be built, as well as his prayer that his followers be one show us that faith is not just a personal, one-on-one relationship with him.

Christ wants all in his Church. And so we are rightly concerned when our friends and neighbors, and especially our young people and children, aren’t with us before the Lord.

We need to see a wider social context as well. As we look around, we sense our society declining rapidly. The list is familiar, but to name a few symptoms, broken families, increasing violence, gangs and drugs, economic disparity, and an emphasis on unrestrained sexuality in personal lives, government policies and our media give us a sense of an increasingly morally exhausted culture in our beloved country.

It is not a coincidence that these values are expanding rapidly at a time when our national religious practice can well be said to be in decline. In short, more policies won’t cure what ails us. A closer relationship to Jesus Christ will.

A problem as widespread and as socially rooted as the current failure to come to Mass and the Church won’t have an easy or quick solution. But still, we can be part of the work of grace that can and will attract hearts and minds to Christ.

Obviously, we must begin with prayer and trust. Jesus can and does change the world. The hearts even of our friends and children who have left the Church or who are not practicing the faith are not beyond his calling and his grace.

We need to pray for those not with us before the Lord. And like so many prayers, if we don’t see the answer right away, we must keep praying.

At the same time, we need to make our parishes faithful, welcoming and vibrant. Compromising the faith to make it easier has been tried time and again. That approach is not faithful to Christ, nor has it ever been successful. So we need to be full, complete and joyful in our faith.

We need to be welcoming as well. Does the new family moving into the parish, coming to Mass for the first time, feel at home in my parish? Does the single mother feel support for herself and for the kids? Do we reach out, introduce folks and invite the shy ones as a part of our faith?

Finally, we need to be vibrant in our parishes. I am sure that different parish communities will express this in a variety of ways, but on a personal level, there is a common thread.

 We need to come personally and physically. Yes, to Sunday Mass. Also to devotions and stations of the cross and other moments of prayer.

But what about to our parish festivals and chili cook-offs and all of the other events that take our faith and put it into a supportive practice of fellowship with each other?

How about something as personal and yet collective as joining in the responding and singing at Mass, transforming the liturgy from a routine listening to the organist and cantor to the vibrant and contagious rejoicing to be before the Lord?

There are many reasons to explain why our Masses are not as full as they should be. Our personal prayers, our joy and our participation must be part of the solution.