I heard it again the other day and it left me, as usual, saddened. The comment was “I find Mass boring.”

That comment often is part of a discussion by someone explaining why they don’t attend Sunday Mass, or who is laying the groundwork to stop attending.

It’s no secret that studies routinely show that well thought out, well delivered homilies and good music during Mass lift minds and hearts to greater heights of prayer.

Bishops, priests and deacons are keenly aware of our weaknesses at the moment following the Gospel when we are to speak about God’s Word. Every one of us wishes he could deliver the perfect homily (whatever that might mean) every time.

And we must accept blame when homilies fail simple tests such as being well prepared and addressing spiritual realities.

Similarly, every parish wishes it could identify and then afford a perfectly trained and gifted music director. However, such gifts are not easy to come by. Less so in smaller parishes and rural areas.

Such laments have a common thread.

They place the blame for one’s disinterest, distraction, or failure to enter into prayer on the Church, on the celebrant, or on that family with the four fidgety kids two pews in front.

In short, it’s a thought that looks outside and does not ask, “How do I prepare for and approach the Mass in order to enter more deeply into it?”

There is a way to approach going to Mass in order to enter deeply into the Eucharistic sacrifice.

I think, for example, of my own experience years ago of offering Christmas Mass in the mountains of Pakistan.

At noon, several hundred Catholics in family groups showed up at the door of an agreed upon house, with no parish bulletin for announcements, no greeters at the door and no musical accompaniment. The people were poor and largely illiterate.

The very simple homily had to be translated into the local language, sentence by sentence, by a native sister standing next to me, a tedious task indeed.

The faithful came that morning because their rare opportunity to attend Mass was a necessary part of their otherwise difficult lives and was a crucial means of living their faith. No one worried about being bored.

Periodically, The Observer will report on a Mass that has been celebrated in one of the prisons in our area. Once more, the set-up in the jail is necessarily basic. The concentration and spirit of the inmate attendees is anything but.

Why is it that, like these examples, there are so many cases throughout the world where Mass is offered and attended with quiet fervor and no sign of boredom?

Isn’t the answer that when we prepare our hearts and adjust our expectations, Mass takes on an entirely different perspective?

How might we, in our own personal context, enter more deeply into the Mass?

Here are some simple suggestions that will require our own effort and responsibility to prepare briefly our way of participating.

�–� First, before every Mass that you attend, arrive several minutes early.

Use that time to pray about two things: first my own sins and God’s great mercy in allowing me the chance to come to Mass even as a sinner. Then, settle on your own personal intention to pray for throughout the Mass.

�–� Second, look over the readings that will be proclaimed during the Mass ahead of time.

It is remarkable how much more meaningful the Mass becomes if we are not hearing the readings for the first time during the Mass.

Mass is not meant to be entertainment. Rather, it is a celebration of our liberation from sin by the death and rising of Jesus who makes Himself present in the Scriptures and in the Eucharist.

The more we join the Church throughout the world and throughout the ages in this understanding of the Mass, the more we will recognize the divine and eternal reality of Christ’s presence.

Seen in that light and putting that kind of effort into our personal preparation, the Mass is anything but boring.