Reading the Bulletin (sort of)

Someone once asked me when Confession was. Not a problem in itself, but he was holding the Church bulletin in his hand at the time. This is not a one time event. It appears to be fairly common for people today to treat the Church schedule as secondary in their lives. In times past, people structured their lives around the activities of the Church, and not the other way around. Today it is, "I do what I want, and then I'll see if I can fit some church stuff in later".

In modern society we have been forced to think of church activity as a hobby, or an extra in our lives rather than the center of our lives. How do you plan your week? Do you look at the church bulletin first and then decide what you are going to do? Or do you decide what is fun and then see if it is convenient to squeeze church activities in? If it is the latter, then you are more focused on this world than the next. This is not to say that you need to be at church 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Yet, if the only thing you consider in your week is Sunday Mass, that is a very weak commitment to the Church of our Lord.

Someone once suggested I offer a prize to the first person who finds an intentional typo in the bulletin (in order to get people to read it); a funny idea, but it was tempting! A thousand years ago, there were no church bulletins. Now we assume their existence, but do we realize what they are telling us? I am not really concerned with bulletins per se. I am concerned that people do not go through their week with the life of the church as an afterthought. If Christ really comes first in our lives, then His church will as well; we all know it is through the church that we experience Him. It is a simple principle: God makes things available to you so that you can fulfill your calling before Him, so do everything you can to take full advantage of what he has provided.