June 6, 2024 • 33 mins
🕊️✨ 🌟In this episode, we explore Top 5 Shocking Effects of Skipping Sunday Mass and why it's crucial for Catholic Families to attend. Drawing from both religious teachings, Catechism and even neuroscience, we explore the profound impact of Sunday Mass on individuals, families, and society.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Maybe the central point of the crisis of mankindtoday is that people don't know to whom they
belong. It's very much a page out of a novelwritten in the 30s of Huxley by Brave New World,
in which it talked just about that. They wouldget rid of people just when the body would
(00:21):
start giving out. And it was very shocking whenthe book came out. But today, it's like reading
the newspaper. Let's say a normal family usedto go to church every day 20 years ago. The
first Sunday that they didn't go, were theyaware of all these terrible consequences that
(00:44):
was going to bring for them, for the childrenand the grandchildren? Something that Professor
Plino Correo Oliveira points out, the revolutionhe says of the tendency. Tendencies that create
ideas, ideas that create the faults. The familiesand institution. It's a perfect institution,
it's the foundation of the society. Everybodyis born to live in a family. If we lose the
(01:06):
Sunday Mass, then the family doesn't work anymore.The user guide of the family is that you need
to go to Mass, if not the family is not goingto work. Welcome to Salve Maria, the podcast
of the heralds of the gospel.
(01:26):
Salve Maria Fr. Arthur! Salve Maria! Salve MariaFr. Justin! Salve Maria! Welcome to our audience!
And yes, today we are talking about how Catholicsand why we should attend Mass on Sundays. And
sounds a little bit basic, right Father? Becausewe would say that there is a commandment involved.
Exactly, absolutely. We have the commandmentof giving praise to God and to sanctify our
(01:53):
feasts, etc. But actually going to Mass is alsorelated to the First Commandment. I'm going
to Mass because I love God. But this has a tremendousimpact in our life, in the life of the family,
in the life of society, et cetera. Because ina certain sense, we can say that in the same
way that I have to go to the doctor to be healthy,if I have a problem, I need to go to the doctor.
(02:19):
In the same way, you can say I have to go tochurch, I have to go to Mass if I want to be
spiritually healthy. Also, it's interestingis that every commandment has its root, the
first commandment, the love God above all things.So honor your father and mother is based on
the idea of loving God first. You can't properlyhonor your father and mother if you don't love
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God. Stealing, right? It's if you love God first,you won't steal. Everything is in function
of that. It's a hierarchy of commandments orwords, a decalogue, right? Of 10 words spoken
by God. What's really important is that it'sthe commandment that God gave us for our own
health too. So that we would rest on one day,we would close off that week of work. And whenever
(03:08):
Israel decides to mess up, it's because theyhave forlorn that very commandment. I'm sure
at this point, you know, some of our not sofriends, right, will say, oh, there come the
hills again, you know. putting religion in everything,tapping always on religion, making, evangelizing
everyone in this sense. But today, we wantedto do something a little bit different, Father.
(03:31):
We went into research, and of course, I'm goingto accompany you on this. It's about, OK, we
tapped on neuroscience. Apparently, it has nothingto do with anything religious. And yet, it's
amazing, because everything they say and theyrecommend matches perfectly. with what the
(03:51):
catechism says, because we were asking, okay,what happens to a family when the family has
no spiritual values? And of course we can goto the catechism, but no, according to neuroscientists,
there are five consequences that happen whena family lacks spiritual values. So we are
(04:11):
going to tackle that topic today. But also asa part of introduction, can we say something,
Father, about... the sacramental life and howthe sacramental life is a fruit of the mass
on Sundays. Of course, the sacrament of theEucharist, the sacrament of our union with
God is the whole essence of our life. We wereborn to be in society, to be related to. and
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to whom are we called to be related to in thefirst place? It's to God himself. How can we
get related to God himself? It's to go to hishouse. I need to go to his church, I need to
go to his house, and then I need to participatein the banquet at his house. And the banquet
is the mass. The Eucharist is, as the Catechismof the Catholic Church says, it's the source
(05:02):
and summit of the Christian life. You removethat from the Christian life, and you end up
with nothing. Nothing. Right, you end up withan absence, a whole. And that's the great problem
that we live in our world today, which is thatpeople have forgotten the sacramental life
and have replaced it with materialism. So youend up with what? You end up with an absence,
(05:25):
a zero, or negative. Because the material life,we have also material life, but it's under
our spiritual life, and we have to feed ourspiritual life. in order to materialize, to
work properly. Now this week I was reading somethingvery interesting, which is biblical commentaries
by John Berksma, who we recommended the wholeaudience because it's really very accessible
(05:50):
and very interesting. And he was saying thatthere is a definition of humanity as fundamentally
liturgical and move towards worship. And heeven uses the term in Latin, No, as a person,
our human nature is made for worshiping andis made for liturgy. And no matter which way
(06:17):
we go, there is still a liturgy. So we can adorefalse gods or we can adore the true God. But
there is no other solution. Either people goand follow the liturgy of the world. or people
who unfollow the liturgy of the spiritual side.There was something I was also reading in the
1800s, if we go back to that time, and it wasvery much an era of scientism, right? The Darwin
(06:39):
concept, it was like the religion of science,absence of God, God's ridiculous, but science
is important. But if you go to the end of thatcentury, we have this amongst those people,
the cream of the crop, you may say of society.They were drifting back into religion, but
it was false religion. It was spiritism andit was the Theosoph and all that. But it's
(07:01):
interesting that the human person can't distancethemselves from religion. The more that they
cut it off, the more the need draws them backin. Interesting. There was something else I
was reading which I found interesting whichwas that there's a certain author who made
a series that was very popular and his purposewas to have it that there would be no God.
(07:23):
It was a way of proving that God doesn't exist.But what happened to this poor guy at towards
the end of his series he introduced a God character.Why? Because of the absence. He felt that the
story was lacking something and that is verymuch the human problem. is that we are in,
you know, in spectral, in light of God. Godis very much what we live, we have to. If we
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accept it or we don't accept it, it's stillthere. It's like, imagine I were to say, I
don't believe in the sun. Our planet still rotatesaround the sun. No matter how much I scream
and yell and threaten you, you might even acceptthat there's no sun, but the sun's still there,
and that's a big problem. circle, the worldis, you conceive it as fear, no? So you more,
(08:14):
you want to go away, the more you're gettingback to the same point. Back to the beginning.
Back to the beginning. And God is the beginningand the end of everything. Exactly. And that
was the truth that our Lord spoke. So therewe go. So Sunday Mass is nothing but the strengthening
of the families. spiritual life, the growthof the family's spiritual life, the feeding
(08:38):
of the soul via the sacraments, both Eucharistand also confession. And also finally, well,
something very important, the Gospel reading.So all is there in the Sunday Mass, right?
So what happens when families do not have thisspiritual life? So let's comment here, Father,
(08:59):
please take the initiative whenever you want.The very first one the neuroscientists appoint
is no sense of belonging. And no sense of belongingis a consequence why because they say, okay,
when parents do not share common foundations,right, for their moral and for their ethical
(09:21):
life, what happens? The views of commitment,loyalty, fidelity start to fail. And that has
a tremendous repercussion on the children, becausethe children are going to carry what is in
their parents. If I don't belong to my family,if I don't belong to something, I don't know
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who I am. And I think this is the, maybe thecentral point of the crisis of mankind today,
is that people don't know to whom they belong.And this is the most horrible crisis. because
we were made to belong to God. And if we don'tknow to whom we belong, then we are useless.
(10:07):
Spiritual orphans, orphan completely. Well,I think that's the big problem right now when
there are more and more of the nones, non-affiliatedwith anything. absolute and total unfortunately
of the breakdown of the family. We have younot even talk about nuclear family, we're sub-nuclear,
we're talking about children with one parentwho have no idea who the other parent is, no
(10:31):
other siblings, etc etc. And that is incrediblydamaging to the children but also to the adults
because they're isolated and I think one ofthe points of this isolation that was more
highlighted was during the COVID period. theamount of mental illness that exhibited itself
during that period is off the charts. And continues,eh? It continues, just manifesting itself.
(10:56):
Father, there are also some points here thatsay, okay, what are the results of this lack
of belonging? And I'm gonna read here, it'smarital discord, infidelity, divorce, and even
neglect of the elderly. And those are the problemswe see in... in contemporary families. We neglect
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our grandparents, no? Today, you know, in avery high level societies, et cetera, first
world societies, the elderly are completelyabandoned. No cases of old people who die completely
alone because the children and grandchildrendon't absolutely care of them anymore. They
(11:40):
don't even keep contact with them, et cetera.So they don't belong anymore to what they are,
their family. And euthanasia. Yeah. Well then,I'm pronouncing it well. But it's a logical
outcome. It is logical. I mean, you have, andhow can someone think, well, if you're completely
abandoned in a wretched old age. Why live? Itactually is a valid question. It's horrible.
(12:07):
Why live? No one cares about me one way or theother. If I die today or die in 10 years, makes
no difference. And that's on the part of theperson, but also let's say the other part of
the machinery, right? That sees them as a cost,as a liability. Why to keep this old person
that is useless for me, et cetera, because Idon't belong to them anymore. You're not producing
(12:29):
anything. And you're not producing anything.It's very much a page out of a novel written
in the 30s of Huxley by Brave New World, inwhich it talks just about that. They would
get rid of people just when the body would startgiving out. And it was very shocking when the
(12:50):
book came out. But today, it's like readingthe newspaper. Yeah. It's not a book of fantasy.
No, it's fascinating in the sense that someonecould have seen all that in 1930. But unfortunately,
that's what we live in today. Shocking, butalso sobering. When reality is becoming what
it was fantasy in other times, then we're inreal trouble. No questions. We are breaking
(13:16):
away from our roots, which is mankind. So we'rebecoming what? This is basic. These are basic
levels. We're not talking about extreme refinements.We're talking basic. human interactions. Yeah.
Well, it's also amazing that the solution isso close. It's just, well, not just, but it's
not a mystery. It's simply restructuring andgoing back to the values that are fostered
(13:41):
by Sunday Mass. Second consequence, let's go.Okay, when a family lacks spiritual values,
they say there are no tools to cope with stress,grief, and hardship. in times of crisis. They
don't have the fuel to live. They don't havethe energy. They don't have the reason, the
(14:06):
arguments, the purposes in life that will motivateyou. When you wake up every morning, you need
to have motivation. That motivation should behope. Hope? You need to have hope. If you are
in a situation in which there is no more hope,etc. you will have a tremendous trouble to
wake up in the morning. Stay in bed for that.Don't come out. Well, actually there's a term
(14:30):
for that now, right? In which a person justdoesn't leave their bed. Spends days and days
doing this. Now it's very sad. And it's a thingright now amongst the young people. And it
was funny, because I forgot what the title isthey use for it. But they said that it's a
(14:51):
self-help element. It's self-nurturing. Butif you use it too much, you might fall into
depression. OK. Well, this brings us straightto a sub-topic here, which is included in this
lack of tools to cope, which is that then peoplestart looking for a way of escaping that is
(15:14):
harmful. And so what happens? Addictions comein, abuse, violence, and also, with it, trauma.
Because when children and the whole family see,right, that there are vices like alcoholism,
drug addiction, everything else, and also thoseerupt into violence, imagine the amount of
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trauma that little kids have. Well, we havethat in today's world. It's interesting because
we realize that the moment in which, let's say,a normal family used to go to church every
day, etc. 20 years ago, the first Sunday thatthey didn't go, were they aware of all these
(16:01):
terrible consequences that was going to bringfor them, for their children and their grandchildren?
Maybe not, because they were not thinking. Somethingthat Professor Plinio Correo Oliveira points
out, no? the revolution, he says, of the tendency.Tendencies that create ideas, ideas that create
the facts. Exactly. So precisely. So even beforethe first Sunday that it didn't go to mass,
(16:28):
something was even previous to that. It wasa wrong tendency that was developing in the
family in which God was being replaced by othervalues or false values. Well, it can be some
things like hockey, sports, as a whole, manyother things. Let's go to a quick break because
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I see the camera people here that are just pointingat, hey. So let's go to a quick break and then
we come back with three more consequences ofwhat happens when we do not have a spiritual
life in the family. Salve Maria, I'm Fr. RyanMurphy of the Heralds of the Gospel and I'm
delighted to extend an invitation to each andevery one of you. In the midst of our busy
(17:11):
lives, it's crucial to take a moment of reflection,of soulless end of prayer. That's why I would
like to personally invite you to join us everyday at 3 pm for a special and powerful devotion,
the Divine Mercy Chaplet. The Divine Mercy Chapletis a beautiful prayer that embodies the boundless
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compassion of our Lord. It's a time to cometogether as a community, regardless of where
we are and lift up our intentions, our hopes,and even our burdens to the heart of Jesus.
Imagine all around the world, countless voices,uniting in prayer at this very hour. It's a
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moment of connection, of spiritual unity. andof seeking God's mercy in a troubled world.
So mark your calendars, set your alarms, andmake a commitment to join us each day at 3
p.m. Tune in and experience the transformativepower of the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Let this
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be a sanctuary of peace amidst the noise oflife. Thank you for being a part of our Herald's
Canada YouTube channel. Let's embark on thisjourney of faith, hope, and mercy. I'm looking
forward to praying with you every day at 3 p.m.May God's love and mercy shine upon you always.
(18:44):
And until we meet again, may Almighty God blessyou, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. Amen. We are back then with a... differentconsequences that happen in the family when
we abandon spiritual values. And Brother Justin,you were talking also off the mic about treating
sports as gods. Well, I mean, Father was mentioningthe question of bad tendencies, right? The
(19:09):
family was a Sunday mass goer, and they decidedthat it was more important to skip mass and
bring Johnny to hockey practice. or baseballor ballet or whatever you want, you can fill
into that block. Which is innocent in itself.Well, it's, yeah, but it should not be on Sunday
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morning. And what that happens is that it starts,it gives a reason why to miss mass. Look, I
can't go to mass this Sunday because I'm toobusy. I have, Johnny has hockey. And next week,
while Tanya has ballet, and then, well, Johnnyhas hockey again. And at one point that exception,
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that one miss, becomes the rule and there'sno time. There was a kind of a theatrical play,
a sketch on a channel in the internet aboutthis, that the father tries to convince the
son to go to mass in the morning, but he says,no, I'm very tired, I have been working the
(20:17):
whole week, da-d Finally, after half an hourof discussion, very interesting, then the father
and mother goes to church and he stays. Andhe receives a call from a friend inviting him
to a soccer match. Oh, yes, of course. There'sno time to rush through the door. So, you know,
an excuse. A third consequence that neuroscientistspoint out and is also unexpected completely
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and yet happens when a family lacks spiritualvalues is financial mismanagement. And financial
mismanagement, they say, okay, why? Becausethere is a lack of stewardship in the family.
There is a lack of responsibility, a lack ofgenerosity out of this lack of spiritual values
that bring towards attitudes related to moneythat are disorderly. So here we go, reckless
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spending. People that topple their credit cardsas if it was, no? Coding. Greed. and unethical
financial dealings, right? So all of that bringsinstability to the family. How many costs of
divorce are there? Because the family, okay,we don't have money, and then it's again, you
know, strains and everything else, but deepdown it's a lack of stewardship. Interesting
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because it shows that the family is an institution,which is a perfect institution, is the foundation
of the society, you know? And everybody's bornto live in a family. Any child that comes to
the world, actually without being explicit inhis mind, but he's looking for a father and
(21:54):
a mother. He's looking because he needs a societyin which he's going to hang up and live and
be loved, etc. But when we lose that sense offamily, then everything goes down, because
(22:16):
then we don't work anymore. So the family, ifwe lose the Sunday mass, then the family doesn't
work anymore. You're not following the userguide of the family. The user guide of the
family is that you need to go to mass. If not,the family is not going to work. What's interesting
(22:39):
here is that some people may say that what we'retalking about is a very modern problem, that
this question of no time, et cetera. other thingsgetting in the way. But you look into the Bible,
and the ancient Jewish people had the same problemsconcerning Sabbath. The ancient people from,
let's say, the first to the third centuriesafter Christ had the same problems. The medieval
(23:05):
person had the same problem. This problem isuniversal. It's disorder. Disorder's been a
part of our life since the Great Fall. So...Anyone who thinks that, no, you don't understand.
But Johnny needs to go to hockey. That disorder,it was, maybe it wasn't hockey. Maybe it was
on a journey. Maybe it was one of a thousandother things. But there's always something.
(23:31):
I remember something that you had mentioneda couple of podcasts ago, talking about the
Babylonian captivity in which the God ends upexiling them. so that the land of Israel can
respect the Sabbath. So that is something veryimportant and that's something that we don't
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do. So I'm worried that our present day people,if we're going to have to respect the Sabbath
forcibly. Now the results are in this concretethird thing, third question is feuds over money,
family instability and division. So how manytimes we see in-laws or families fighting over
(24:19):
money? Sometimes they are very rich, the biggerthe battle. Sometimes they have very less material.
They're poor, but they still fight over money.Right? It could be a change, but that doesn't
matter because that kind of lack of stewardship,which is a spiritual value, it's easy. But
you know, I think that the poor, they debateabout money. the fight over money less, because
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the more you have, the more you have a tremendousappetite to have more when you're attached
to something. The poor, he understands that,look, I was not born to be rich, and I am going
to be rich, so I don't mind about money, I havetime to do philosophy and to speak about things
and to... to observe things of nature that thebusinessman of today, he doesn't have time
(25:11):
for nothing. He's just thinking about his money.And the more we have, the more we want to have
because we are wired for infinite. So we wantto have infinite money. You exchange the infinite
for the finite, and now you're trying to fillthe finite as though it's infinite, and it's
frustration. The fourth consequence that isalso very related to what you were just saying,
Father, is nuclear moral compass in decisionmaking. And that is amazing because, also ties
(25:40):
with what Brother Justin was saying, is a sourceof anxiety, depression, and despair. Because
people start to, I mean, with a lack of moralcompass, start making wrong decisions and start
choosing wrong possibilities. and then the familyunit goes down with that, but anxiety levels
(26:04):
skyrocket. Because an attachment to a wrongdecision pushed the other one to be attached
to his wrong decision, and it's me against theother, et cetera, and then pride gets involved,
and then there's no solution. It's such a chaos,such a lack of understanding, et cetera. When
we have a moral compass, then we have hope,right? Of course, yeah, because we know where
(26:27):
we're going. So we know if the other one makesa decision which is going in the direction
of the family, everybody else will agree andwill be united because this is what we are.
Well, our faith gives us a common purpose andif you have a common purpose then the common
compass of life, you don't have a common purpose,you don't have a common compass, everyone chooses
(26:51):
their own way and that's chaos. Exactly. Fifthconsequence that comes completely what almost
hand in hand with this parent children divisionsand strife because when children and teenagers,
especially in their formative years See thatthe parents do not have values They are going
(27:14):
to apply to their own family later on this lackof values But also they don't have a point
of reference and when this point of referenceis missing then we have of course arguments,
confusion, rebellion, fights, because parentsdon't understand their children, children do
not understand their parents, because they don'thave a common moral ground. And so as a result,
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this is inevitable. There will be clashes andmisunderstanding and eventually separations
and divisions between parents and children.
We're not able to transmit those values. Why?Because they're not leaving them anymore. You
cannot give what you don't have. So if you don'tleave those values in the family that naturally
(28:08):
are being transmitted to the children, thenthe children are not going to get them. And
they're going to be open to be influenced byothers who had already went down much farther
than them. So they will have to choose between.the parents who have weak values and others
who, even though they are going in the wrongdirection, but they are going with more conviction
(28:31):
than the parents. The parents are not transmittingthe conviction anymore to the children, that's
very serious. So warning then, Sunday mass,non-negotiable. We can solve all of these via
just a small. constant, like a famous teacherhere of music used to say, no consistency demands
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practice, there is no easy way. Of course it'snot just the fault of the parents, sometimes
it's fault also of the parish, or the entourage,which is a parish that is not welcoming, it's
not dynamic, it's not full of faith, et cetera.So the parents get kind of discouraged to to
(29:17):
go in the right direction because it didn'thave the right motivation. Now, the church
has to be very clear, it has to have its convictionsvery, very clear. We need to know what we believe,
we need to know where we are going, we needto know that it is worthwhile, we need to know
that anything else is absolutely useless. Sowe hope after people listen to this podcast,
(29:40):
now at least you can find explanations. Yes,maybe the choir sounds terribly. No, maybe
the sermon is not that inviting, but there arethe sacraments there, right, that we need and
we need to foster and we need to feed our soul,right? Absolutely, exactly. We don't go to
church because of the priest. We don't go tochurch because of the choir. We don't go to
(30:01):
church because the minister of the Eucharistis not nice to me or is nice to me. We go for
a Lord Jesus Christ. We go for a tremendousconviction that give us the possibility to
go beyond and above all the difficulties. Sothis is why it is so important that those who
have faith will have more faith. Those who havefaith will act according to their faith. And
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this is why we need a tremendous renewal inthe church in order to fix the problems of
our society. This may be as closing two quoteshere that we have put aside. One is by Moses
in Deuteronomy that says, after he gives, Godgives all these laws that are going to basically
rule the worshiping and the liturgy of the earlychosen people. He says, I have, Moses says,
(30:50):
I have said before you today, life and prosperity,if we go too much, we can say, or death and
adversity, we abandon the spiritual values.And if we want to really close further, here
comes John 10.10 that says, our Lord says, Ihave come so that you may have life and may
have it to the fullest. Absolutely. That's oneof the quotes that when you hear it for the
(31:14):
first time, you don't forget it anymore. Ah,life, but life to the fullness. So it's not
just, you know, any life. This is extremelyimportant. It's beautiful that St. John put
it this way. So he felt the same thing. He feltthat it's not enough for you to have life.
It's not enough for you to call yourself Catholicand have a crucifix and a Bible
(31:40):
in your house. And that's it. It's not enough.You need to have in your heart, you need to
have that life and life to the fullness. Itmeans there's a life that will be growing and
growing and growing. And at the same time, Father,we also can say, our Lord doesn't want us to
be in family instability. He wants us life tothe fullness. Well, he gave us the symbol of
(32:03):
what a family is supposed to be, which is theHoly Family. And with the Holy Family, it had
stability. And also mutual respect. No. Well,imagine the life of the Holy Family. That was
life to the fullness. They were living really,wow. tremendous things that still we don't
(32:24):
know because why do we don't know what happenedin the Holy Family? Because we are not prepared
to know. They're so big, so extraordinary thatwe have to go through a tremendous conversion
in order to be able to understand what was lifein the Holy Family. That's the perfect life.
Very good. So maybe Father, you can bless familiesthat are listening to us and maybe we'll receive
(32:47):
graces so that the attendance of us may be renewedin the good line. And to give a blessing to
all those who don't go to Mass, of course, forthem to go. But for those who go, also we want
them to go more and to be more full of life.The Lord be with you. And with your spirit.
And the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son,and Holy Spirit come upon you, remain with
(33:07):
you forever. Amen.
Maybe the central point of the crisis of mankindtoday is that people don't know to whom they
belong. It's very much a page out of a novelwritten in the 30s of Huxley by Brave New World,
in which it talked just about that. They wouldget rid of people just when the body would
(00:21):
start giving out. And it was very shocking whenthe book came out. But today, it's like reading
the newspaper. Let's say a normal family usedto go to church every day 20 years ago. The
first Sunday that they didn't go, were theyaware of all these terrible consequences that
(00:44):
was going to bring for them, for the childrenand the grandchildren? Something that Professor
Plino Correo Oliveira points out, the revolutionhe says of the tendency. Tendencies that create
ideas, ideas that create the faults. The familiesand institution. It's a perfect institution,
it's the foundation of the society. Everybodyis born to live in a family. If we lose the
(01:06):
Sunday Mass, then the family doesn't work anymore.The user guide of the family is that you need
to go to Mass, if not the family is not goingto work. Welcome to Salve Maria, the podcast
of the heralds of the gospel.
(01:26):
Salve Maria Fr. Arthur! Salve Maria! Salve MariaFr. Justin! Salve Maria! Welcome to our audience!
And yes, today we are talking about how Catholicsand why we should attend Mass on Sundays. And
sounds a little bit basic, right Father? Becausewe would say that there is a commandment involved.
Exactly, absolutely. We have the commandmentof giving praise to God and to sanctify our
(01:53):
feasts, etc. But actually going to Mass is alsorelated to the First Commandment. I'm going
to Mass because I love God. But this has a tremendousimpact in our life, in the life of the family,
in the life of society, et cetera. Because ina certain sense, we can say that in the same
way that I have to go to the doctor to be healthy,if I have a problem, I need to go to the doctor.
(02:19):
In the same way, you can say I have to go tochurch, I have to go to Mass if I want to be
spiritually healthy. Also, it's interestingis that every commandment has its root, the
first commandment, the love God above all things.So honor your father and mother is based on
the idea of loving God first. You can't properlyhonor your father and mother if you don't love
(02:42):
God. Stealing, right? It's if you love God first,you won't steal. Everything is in function
of that. It's a hierarchy of commandments orwords, a decalogue, right? Of 10 words spoken
by God. What's really important is that it'sthe commandment that God gave us for our own
health too. So that we would rest on one day,we would close off that week of work. And whenever
(03:08):
Israel decides to mess up, it's because theyhave forlorn that very commandment. I'm sure
at this point, you know, some of our not sofriends, right, will say, oh, there come the
hills again, you know. putting religion in everything,tapping always on religion, making, evangelizing
everyone in this sense. But today, we wantedto do something a little bit different, Father.
(03:31):
We went into research, and of course, I'm goingto accompany you on this. It's about, OK, we
tapped on neuroscience. Apparently, it has nothingto do with anything religious. And yet, it's
amazing, because everything they say and theyrecommend matches perfectly. with what the
(03:51):
catechism says, because we were asking, okay,what happens to a family when the family has
no spiritual values? And of course we can goto the catechism, but no, according to neuroscientists,
there are five consequences that happen whena family lacks spiritual values. So we are
(04:11):
going to tackle that topic today. But also asa part of introduction, can we say something,
Father, about... the sacramental life and howthe sacramental life is a fruit of the mass
on Sundays. Of course, the sacrament of theEucharist, the sacrament of our union with
God is the whole essence of our life. We wereborn to be in society, to be related to. and
(04:40):
to whom are we called to be related to in thefirst place? It's to God himself. How can we
get related to God himself? It's to go to hishouse. I need to go to his church, I need to
go to his house, and then I need to participatein the banquet at his house. And the banquet
is the mass. The Eucharist is, as the Catechismof the Catholic Church says, it's the source
(05:02):
and summit of the Christian life. You removethat from the Christian life, and you end up
with nothing. Nothing. Right, you end up withan absence, a whole. And that's the great problem
that we live in our world today, which is thatpeople have forgotten the sacramental life
and have replaced it with materialism. So youend up with what? You end up with an absence,
(05:25):
a zero, or negative. Because the material life,we have also material life, but it's under
our spiritual life, and we have to feed ourspiritual life. in order to materialize, to
work properly. Now this week I was reading somethingvery interesting, which is biblical commentaries
by John Berksma, who we recommended the wholeaudience because it's really very accessible
(05:50):
and very interesting. And he was saying thatthere is a definition of humanity as fundamentally
liturgical and move towards worship. And heeven uses the term in Latin, No, as a person,
our human nature is made for worshiping andis made for liturgy. And no matter which way
(06:17):
we go, there is still a liturgy. So we can adorefalse gods or we can adore the true God. But
there is no other solution. Either people goand follow the liturgy of the world. or people
who unfollow the liturgy of the spiritual side.There was something I was also reading in the
1800s, if we go back to that time, and it wasvery much an era of scientism, right? The Darwin
(06:39):
concept, it was like the religion of science,absence of God, God's ridiculous, but science
is important. But if you go to the end of thatcentury, we have this amongst those people,
the cream of the crop, you may say of society.They were drifting back into religion, but
it was false religion. It was spiritism andit was the Theosoph and all that. But it's
(07:01):
interesting that the human person can't distancethemselves from religion. The more that they
cut it off, the more the need draws them backin. Interesting. There was something else I
was reading which I found interesting whichwas that there's a certain author who made
a series that was very popular and his purposewas to have it that there would be no God.
(07:23):
It was a way of proving that God doesn't exist.But what happened to this poor guy at towards
the end of his series he introduced a God character.Why? Because of the absence. He felt that the
story was lacking something and that is verymuch the human problem. is that we are in,
you know, in spectral, in light of God. Godis very much what we live, we have to. If we
(07:49):
accept it or we don't accept it, it's stillthere. It's like, imagine I were to say, I
don't believe in the sun. Our planet still rotatesaround the sun. No matter how much I scream
and yell and threaten you, you might even acceptthat there's no sun, but the sun's still there,
and that's a big problem. circle, the worldis, you conceive it as fear, no? So you more,
(08:14):
you want to go away, the more you're gettingback to the same point. Back to the beginning.
Back to the beginning. And God is the beginningand the end of everything. Exactly. And that
was the truth that our Lord spoke. So therewe go. So Sunday Mass is nothing but the strengthening
of the families. spiritual life, the growthof the family's spiritual life, the feeding
(08:38):
of the soul via the sacraments, both Eucharistand also confession. And also finally, well,
something very important, the Gospel reading.So all is there in the Sunday Mass, right?
So what happens when families do not have thisspiritual life? So let's comment here, Father,
(08:59):
please take the initiative whenever you want.The very first one the neuroscientists appoint
is no sense of belonging. And no sense of belongingis a consequence why because they say, okay,
when parents do not share common foundations,right, for their moral and for their ethical
(09:21):
life, what happens? The views of commitment,loyalty, fidelity start to fail. And that has
a tremendous repercussion on the children, becausethe children are going to carry what is in
their parents. If I don't belong to my family,if I don't belong to something, I don't know
(09:43):
who I am. And I think this is the, maybe thecentral point of the crisis of mankind today,
is that people don't know to whom they belong.And this is the most horrible crisis. because
we were made to belong to God. And if we don'tknow to whom we belong, then we are useless.
(10:07):
Spiritual orphans, orphan completely. Well,I think that's the big problem right now when
there are more and more of the nones, non-affiliatedwith anything. absolute and total unfortunately
of the breakdown of the family. We have younot even talk about nuclear family, we're sub-nuclear,
we're talking about children with one parentwho have no idea who the other parent is, no
(10:31):
other siblings, etc etc. And that is incrediblydamaging to the children but also to the adults
because they're isolated and I think one ofthe points of this isolation that was more
highlighted was during the COVID period. theamount of mental illness that exhibited itself
during that period is off the charts. And continues,eh? It continues, just manifesting itself.
(10:56):
Father, there are also some points here thatsay, okay, what are the results of this lack
of belonging? And I'm gonna read here, it'smarital discord, infidelity, divorce, and even
neglect of the elderly. And those are the problemswe see in... in contemporary families. We neglect
(11:19):
our grandparents, no? Today, you know, in avery high level societies, et cetera, first
world societies, the elderly are completelyabandoned. No cases of old people who die completely
alone because the children and grandchildrendon't absolutely care of them anymore. They
(11:40):
don't even keep contact with them, et cetera.So they don't belong anymore to what they are,
their family. And euthanasia. Yeah. Well then,I'm pronouncing it well. But it's a logical
outcome. It is logical. I mean, you have, andhow can someone think, well, if you're completely
abandoned in a wretched old age. Why live? Itactually is a valid question. It's horrible.
(12:07):
Why live? No one cares about me one way or theother. If I die today or die in 10 years, makes
no difference. And that's on the part of theperson, but also let's say the other part of
the machinery, right? That sees them as a cost,as a liability. Why to keep this old person
that is useless for me, et cetera, because Idon't belong to them anymore. You're not producing
(12:29):
anything. And you're not producing anything.It's very much a page out of a novel written
in the 30s of Huxley by Brave New World, inwhich it talks just about that. They would
get rid of people just when the body would startgiving out. And it was very shocking when the
(12:50):
book came out. But today, it's like readingthe newspaper. Yeah. It's not a book of fantasy.
No, it's fascinating in the sense that someonecould have seen all that in 1930. But unfortunately,
that's what we live in today. Shocking, butalso sobering. When reality is becoming what
it was fantasy in other times, then we're inreal trouble. No questions. We are breaking
(13:16):
away from our roots, which is mankind. So we'rebecoming what? This is basic. These are basic
levels. We're not talking about extreme refinements.We're talking basic. human interactions. Yeah.
Well, it's also amazing that the solution isso close. It's just, well, not just, but it's
not a mystery. It's simply restructuring andgoing back to the values that are fostered
(13:41):
by Sunday Mass. Second consequence, let's go.Okay, when a family lacks spiritual values,
they say there are no tools to cope with stress,grief, and hardship. in times of crisis. They
don't have the fuel to live. They don't havethe energy. They don't have the reason, the
(14:06):
arguments, the purposes in life that will motivateyou. When you wake up every morning, you need
to have motivation. That motivation should behope. Hope? You need to have hope. If you are
in a situation in which there is no more hope,etc. you will have a tremendous trouble to
wake up in the morning. Stay in bed for that.Don't come out. Well, actually there's a term
(14:30):
for that now, right? In which a person justdoesn't leave their bed. Spends days and days
doing this. Now it's very sad. And it's a thingright now amongst the young people. And it
was funny, because I forgot what the title isthey use for it. But they said that it's a
(14:51):
self-help element. It's self-nurturing. Butif you use it too much, you might fall into
depression. OK. Well, this brings us straightto a sub-topic here, which is included in this
lack of tools to cope, which is that then peoplestart looking for a way of escaping that is
(15:14):
harmful. And so what happens? Addictions comein, abuse, violence, and also, with it, trauma.
Because when children and the whole family see,right, that there are vices like alcoholism,
drug addiction, everything else, and also thoseerupt into violence, imagine the amount of
(15:38):
trauma that little kids have. Well, we havethat in today's world. It's interesting because
we realize that the moment in which, let's say,a normal family used to go to church every
day, etc. 20 years ago, the first Sunday thatthey didn't go, were they aware of all these
(16:01):
terrible consequences that was going to bringfor them, for their children and their grandchildren?
Maybe not, because they were not thinking. Somethingthat Professor Plinio Correo Oliveira points
out, no? the revolution, he says, of the tendency.Tendencies that create ideas, ideas that create
the facts. Exactly. So precisely. So even beforethe first Sunday that it didn't go to mass,
(16:28):
something was even previous to that. It wasa wrong tendency that was developing in the
family in which God was being replaced by othervalues or false values. Well, it can be some
things like hockey, sports, as a whole, manyother things. Let's go to a quick break because
(16:50):
I see the camera people here that are just pointingat, hey. So let's go to a quick break and then
we come back with three more consequences ofwhat happens when we do not have a spiritual
life in the family. Salve Maria, I'm Fr. RyanMurphy of the Heralds of the Gospel and I'm
delighted to extend an invitation to each andevery one of you. In the midst of our busy
(17:11):
lives, it's crucial to take a moment of reflection,of soulless end of prayer. That's why I would
like to personally invite you to join us everyday at 3 pm for a special and powerful devotion,
the Divine Mercy Chaplet. The Divine Mercy Chapletis a beautiful prayer that embodies the boundless
(17:34):
compassion of our Lord. It's a time to cometogether as a community, regardless of where
we are and lift up our intentions, our hopes,and even our burdens to the heart of Jesus.
Imagine all around the world, countless voices,uniting in prayer at this very hour. It's a
(17:56):
moment of connection, of spiritual unity. andof seeking God's mercy in a troubled world.
So mark your calendars, set your alarms, andmake a commitment to join us each day at 3
p.m. Tune in and experience the transformativepower of the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Let this
(18:19):
be a sanctuary of peace amidst the noise oflife. Thank you for being a part of our Herald's
Canada YouTube channel. Let's embark on thisjourney of faith, hope, and mercy. I'm looking
forward to praying with you every day at 3 p.m.May God's love and mercy shine upon you always.
(18:44):
And until we meet again, may Almighty God blessyou, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. Amen. We are back then with a... differentconsequences that happen in the family when
we abandon spiritual values. And Brother Justin,you were talking also off the mic about treating
sports as gods. Well, I mean, Father was mentioningthe question of bad tendencies, right? The
(19:09):
family was a Sunday mass goer, and they decidedthat it was more important to skip mass and
bring Johnny to hockey practice. or baseballor ballet or whatever you want, you can fill
into that block. Which is innocent in itself.Well, it's, yeah, but it should not be on Sunday
(19:30):
morning. And what that happens is that it starts,it gives a reason why to miss mass. Look, I
can't go to mass this Sunday because I'm toobusy. I have, Johnny has hockey. And next week,
while Tanya has ballet, and then, well, Johnnyhas hockey again. And at one point that exception,
(19:56):
that one miss, becomes the rule and there'sno time. There was a kind of a theatrical play,
a sketch on a channel in the internet aboutthis, that the father tries to convince the
son to go to mass in the morning, but he says,no, I'm very tired, I have been working the
(20:17):
whole week, da-d Finally, after half an hourof discussion, very interesting, then the father
and mother goes to church and he stays. Andhe receives a call from a friend inviting him
to a soccer match. Oh, yes, of course. There'sno time to rush through the door. So, you know,
an excuse. A third consequence that neuroscientistspoint out and is also unexpected completely
(20:43):
and yet happens when a family lacks spiritualvalues is financial mismanagement. And financial
mismanagement, they say, okay, why? Becausethere is a lack of stewardship in the family.
There is a lack of responsibility, a lack ofgenerosity out of this lack of spiritual values
that bring towards attitudes related to moneythat are disorderly. So here we go, reckless
(21:10):
spending. People that topple their credit cardsas if it was, no? Coding. Greed. and unethical
financial dealings, right? So all of that bringsinstability to the family. How many costs of
divorce are there? Because the family, okay,we don't have money, and then it's again, you
know, strains and everything else, but deepdown it's a lack of stewardship. Interesting
(21:34):
because it shows that the family is an institution,which is a perfect institution, is the foundation
of the society, you know? And everybody's bornto live in a family. Any child that comes to
the world, actually without being explicit inhis mind, but he's looking for a father and
(21:54):
a mother. He's looking because he needs a societyin which he's going to hang up and live and
be loved, etc. But when we lose that sense offamily, then everything goes down, because
(22:16):
then we don't work anymore. So the family, ifwe lose the Sunday mass, then the family doesn't
work anymore. You're not following the userguide of the family. The user guide of the
family is that you need to go to mass. If not,the family is not going to work. What's interesting
(22:39):
here is that some people may say that what we'retalking about is a very modern problem, that
this question of no time, et cetera. other thingsgetting in the way. But you look into the Bible,
and the ancient Jewish people had the same problemsconcerning Sabbath. The ancient people from,
let's say, the first to the third centuriesafter Christ had the same problems. The medieval
(23:05):
person had the same problem. This problem isuniversal. It's disorder. Disorder's been a
part of our life since the Great Fall. So...Anyone who thinks that, no, you don't understand.
But Johnny needs to go to hockey. That disorder,it was, maybe it wasn't hockey. Maybe it was
on a journey. Maybe it was one of a thousandother things. But there's always something.
(23:31):
I remember something that you had mentioneda couple of podcasts ago, talking about the
Babylonian captivity in which the God ends upexiling them. so that the land of Israel can
respect the Sabbath. So that is something veryimportant and that's something that we don't
(23:55):
do. So I'm worried that our present day people,if we're going to have to respect the Sabbath
forcibly. Now the results are in this concretethird thing, third question is feuds over money,
family instability and division. So how manytimes we see in-laws or families fighting over
(24:19):
money? Sometimes they are very rich, the biggerthe battle. Sometimes they have very less material.
They're poor, but they still fight over money.Right? It could be a change, but that doesn't
matter because that kind of lack of stewardship,which is a spiritual value, it's easy. But
you know, I think that the poor, they debateabout money. the fight over money less, because
(24:44):
the more you have, the more you have a tremendousappetite to have more when you're attached
to something. The poor, he understands that,look, I was not born to be rich, and I am going
to be rich, so I don't mind about money, I havetime to do philosophy and to speak about things
and to... to observe things of nature that thebusinessman of today, he doesn't have time
(25:11):
for nothing. He's just thinking about his money.And the more we have, the more we want to have
because we are wired for infinite. So we wantto have infinite money. You exchange the infinite
for the finite, and now you're trying to fillthe finite as though it's infinite, and it's
frustration. The fourth consequence that isalso very related to what you were just saying,
Father, is nuclear moral compass in decisionmaking. And that is amazing because, also ties
(25:40):
with what Brother Justin was saying, is a sourceof anxiety, depression, and despair. Because
people start to, I mean, with a lack of moralcompass, start making wrong decisions and start
choosing wrong possibilities. and then the familyunit goes down with that, but anxiety levels
(26:04):
skyrocket. Because an attachment to a wrongdecision pushed the other one to be attached
to his wrong decision, and it's me against theother, et cetera, and then pride gets involved,
and then there's no solution. It's such a chaos,such a lack of understanding, et cetera. When
we have a moral compass, then we have hope,right? Of course, yeah, because we know where
(26:27):
we're going. So we know if the other one makesa decision which is going in the direction
of the family, everybody else will agree andwill be united because this is what we are.
Well, our faith gives us a common purpose andif you have a common purpose then the common
compass of life, you don't have a common purpose,you don't have a common compass, everyone chooses
(26:51):
their own way and that's chaos. Exactly. Fifthconsequence that comes completely what almost
hand in hand with this parent children divisionsand strife because when children and teenagers,
especially in their formative years See thatthe parents do not have values They are going
(27:14):
to apply to their own family later on this lackof values But also they don't have a point
of reference and when this point of referenceis missing then we have of course arguments,
confusion, rebellion, fights, because parentsdon't understand their children, children do
not understand their parents, because they don'thave a common moral ground. And so as a result,
(27:40):
this is inevitable. There will be clashes andmisunderstanding and eventually separations
and divisions between parents and children.
We're not able to transmit those values. Why?Because they're not leaving them anymore. You
cannot give what you don't have. So if you don'tleave those values in the family that naturally
(28:08):
are being transmitted to the children, thenthe children are not going to get them. And
they're going to be open to be influenced byothers who had already went down much farther
than them. So they will have to choose between.the parents who have weak values and others
who, even though they are going in the wrongdirection, but they are going with more conviction
(28:31):
than the parents. The parents are not transmittingthe conviction anymore to the children, that's
very serious. So warning then, Sunday mass,non-negotiable. We can solve all of these via
just a small. constant, like a famous teacherhere of music used to say, no consistency demands
(28:52):
practice, there is no easy way. Of course it'snot just the fault of the parents, sometimes
it's fault also of the parish, or the entourage,which is a parish that is not welcoming, it's
not dynamic, it's not full of faith, et cetera.So the parents get kind of discouraged to to
(29:17):
go in the right direction because it didn'thave the right motivation. Now, the church
has to be very clear, it has to have its convictionsvery, very clear. We need to know what we believe,
we need to know where we are going, we needto know that it is worthwhile, we need to know
that anything else is absolutely useless. Sowe hope after people listen to this podcast,
(29:40):
now at least you can find explanations. Yes,maybe the choir sounds terribly. No, maybe
the sermon is not that inviting, but there arethe sacraments there, right, that we need and
we need to foster and we need to feed our soul,right? Absolutely, exactly. We don't go to
church because of the priest. We don't go tochurch because of the choir. We don't go to
(30:01):
church because the minister of the Eucharistis not nice to me or is nice to me. We go for
a Lord Jesus Christ. We go for a tremendousconviction that give us the possibility to
go beyond and above all the difficulties. Sothis is why it is so important that those who
have faith will have more faith. Those who havefaith will act according to their faith. And
(30:25):
this is why we need a tremendous renewal inthe church in order to fix the problems of
our society. This may be as closing two quoteshere that we have put aside. One is by Moses
in Deuteronomy that says, after he gives, Godgives all these laws that are going to basically
rule the worshiping and the liturgy of the earlychosen people. He says, I have, Moses says,
(30:50):
I have said before you today, life and prosperity,if we go too much, we can say, or death and
adversity, we abandon the spiritual values.And if we want to really close further, here
comes John 10.10 that says, our Lord says, Ihave come so that you may have life and may
have it to the fullest. Absolutely. That's oneof the quotes that when you hear it for the
(31:14):
first time, you don't forget it anymore. Ah,life, but life to the fullness. So it's not
just, you know, any life. This is extremelyimportant. It's beautiful that St. John put
it this way. So he felt the same thing. He feltthat it's not enough for you to have life.
It's not enough for you to call yourself Catholicand have a crucifix and a Bible
(31:40):
in your house. And that's it. It's not enough.You need to have in your heart, you need to
have that life and life to the fullness. Itmeans there's a life that will be growing and
growing and growing. And at the same time, Father,we also can say, our Lord doesn't want us to
be in family instability. He wants us life tothe fullness. Well, he gave us the symbol of
(32:03):
what a family is supposed to be, which is theHoly Family. And with the Holy Family, it had
stability. And also mutual respect. No. Well,imagine the life of the Holy Family. That was
life to the fullness. They were living really,wow. tremendous things that still we don't
(32:24):
know because why do we don't know what happenedin the Holy Family? Because we are not prepared
to know. They're so big, so extraordinary thatwe have to go through a tremendous conversion
in order to be able to understand what was lifein the Holy Family. That's the perfect life.
Very good. So maybe Father, you can bless familiesthat are listening to us and maybe we'll receive
(32:47):
graces so that the attendance of us may be renewedin the good line. And to give a blessing to
all those who don't go to Mass, of course, forthem to go. But for those who go, also we want
them to go more and to be more full of life.The Lord be with you. And with your spirit.
And the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son,and Holy Spirit come upon you, remain with
(33:07):
you forever. Amen.
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