Bishop Ricken's Message
January 2005

CHEYENNE – According to our statistics, attendance at Sunday Mass has been on the downward slide for several years now. This decline is a very serious and troubling concern. I have heard a million and one excuses over the years, but other than for a serious reason (for example, illness, the care of infants or if the priest was not able to travel to the parish, due to inclement weather) there is really no excuse to miss Mass on Sunday.

It is important for us, from time to time, to review the basics. Just as in any sport, review of the fundamentals, the basics, over and over, is required in order to achieve anything. So, to grow in the spiritual life, one needs frequent review and practice of the basics in the faith. This includes at least regular attendance at Mass on Sunday as the bare minimum for living the faith.

The Third Commandment of the Decalogue tells us, “Keep Holy the Lord’s Day.” The Lord has blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy (Exodus 20:11). The Sabbath was the sign for the Old Testament people of the irrevocable covenant of the Lord with them. It was a day of rest from all servile work, “a day of protest against the servitude of work and the worship of money.” (Catechism of the Catholic
Church, paragraph 2172.)

Sunday, for Christians, has become the very first day of all days, the first and most important day of the week, because Jesus Christ rose from the dead on Sunday. Sunday replaces the Old Testament Sabbath (Saturday) as the day given to God for religious purposes in gratitude for all of His blessings. It is still a precept or law of the Catholic Church that “on Sundays and other Holy Days of Obligation, the faithful are bound to participate in the Mass.” Those who deliberately fail in this obligation commit a ‘grave sin’ and should go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation before returning to receive Holy Communion at Mass
on the following Sunday.

I have noticed the fact that some people’s mentality with regard to the seriousness of this obligation to give God the first day of the week and the first hours of the first day of the week has grown very lax. It seems more people are becoming very cavalier about finding other things to do on Sunday and leaving God out of the picture completely.

For those of you who are faithful every Sunday to Mass attendance, you know the tremendous fruits of this practice. It, somehow, sets your week off on the right course. You remember that you are the creature and God is God and that you have come to give God praise and thanksgiving for all the good He does in your life and in the lives of others.

You also realize that this is a time to bring difficulties, pains, disillusionment and discouragement to the Lord and to symbolically place it in the offertory procession so that it is brought up as a sacrificial offering to be offered at Mass. In some way, this offering lifts the burdens which you have to bear during the week.

For those of you who are only somewhat regular, I ask you to redevelop the habit and the practice of attending Sunday Mass.

There is really no reason to skip Mass. Using the common excuse that “I don’t get anything out of Mass” is really not valid, since Mass is not about “getting something out of it.” It is about giving back to God gratitude for what He has done for us; the gift of life and the gift of blessings. It is not about “getting something out of Mass,” but about “putting something into it,” by preparing well for Mass, by coming with a clean conscience to celebrate the Sacred Mysteries by receiving the Sacrament of Confession and
Reconciliation.

For those of you who have completely lost the practice of Sunday Mass attendance, I must urge you with a very serious concern, for the sanctity of your own soul, to return to this practice immediately. You can make an appointment with the priest if it has been some time since your last confession or go to confession offered every Saturday in our churches.

All throughout Wyoming, confessions are heard, if not in your own home parish or mission church, in one nearby. And so, I challenge you in a very serious way to re-embrace this wonderful and beautiful way of using your time, your talent and your treasures for God.

May God bless each and every one of you and may Sunday be treated as the very holy day that it is when Our Lord Jesus conquered sin and death for us. May all those sacrifices so graphically portrayed
in the movie The Passion of the Christ and described so accurately in the Gospels and the sacrifices
He has made for us call you to regular attendance and participation. The very least we can do is
give Him the first day of the week, every week.