Question 

Dear Father Angelo,

May the Spirit help me…thirty years after my conversion, thirty years spent attending the Holy Mass on a daily basis and going to confession regularly… unfortunately, for several months now when I go to mass  I feel that it  is not beautiful, I get tired, I pray unwillingly or in a forced manner. When the mass is finished and I have taken the Communion I leave the church happily. 

I have had very good spiritual guides, but now this dullness and unwillingness in prayer makes me feel bad. 

Please tell me what to do, I trust you and most of all I trust God the Father.

Thank you. 

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The priest’s answer

Dear friend,

  1. The idleness or the feeling of heaviness that you feel during the celebration of the mass can be due to various reasons: they might depend on your personal tiredness, on time that passes and makes concentration difficult, on the distractions of our mind, on venial sins that weaken fervor, or even on lack of devotion in the celebration of the Holy Mass. 
  2. I suggest you should be early when you go to mass so as to prepare spiritually. A good way to do this is reciting some decades of the Holy Rosary, thinking that the Lord is going to be present among you, to talk to you, to receive the offering of your life in order to  unite it to His own sacrifice. He is going to offer Himself to the Father with you for your good and for the good of all mankind and, finally, to give Himself to you in the Holy Communion. 
  3. We know that blessed Piergiorgio Frassati wanted to arrive at the Church ten minutes before Mass, and he used to concentrate so much that he looked like an entirely different person. You must have noticed yourself how different your participation to Mass is if you arrive at the last moment, out of breadth, or late. You must have noticed the difference if you have talked to other people just until the last minute, even about serious things, or if you have been meditating silently, waiting for the Lord to come.
  4. A booklet written in Latin in the 1960s, in order to kindle fervor for the participation in the Holy Mass, suggests three short biblical reflections for every day. The reflections concern three questions: Who comes in Mass? Who does He go to? Why does He come? Our mind, therefore, should focus on Jesus, contemplating His various titles (all of them present in the Sacred Scriptures), like the Emmanuel (God with us), the physician, the bridegroom, the teacher, the brother, the redeemer, the savior. These reflections help us to keep our gaze on He who is coming, on Jesus, with a crescendo of desire and love. We should also think about who He is going to: He is coming to visit us, who are spiritually sick (blind, deaf, dumb, besieged by temptations and evil thoughts, full of worries, distracted and indolent…). This prompts us to feel how precious it is to meet Him, since we need Him because of our infirmities. Finally, we should ask ourselves why He is coming: He comes with His hands full of graces of all sorts in order to donate them to us. These graces are mentioned through every word of the Sacred Scripture proclaimed during that eucharistic celebration or in the priest’s prayers, or in the acclamations of the faithful. We might even feel them through internal inspirations.
  5. We should not exclude that indolence and heaviness might be provoked by the devil. Unfortunately during the pandemic it is not possible to cross ourselves intinting our hands in blessed water. But of course this rite is also useful to renew the grace of Baptism. If it is performed with devotion it helps to revive fervor. This way, without even noticing, we become holier. 

In the hopes of having given you some spiritual help, I wish you all the best, I bless you and I remember you in my prayers.

Father Angelo

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