Going to Church on Sunday

“But, Mom, why do I have to go to church EVERY Sunday?” 

If you have not heard this around your household on a Sunday morning…well, it’s just a matter of time. The question is inescapable, especially if, like me, you have a child who attends a parochial school and therefore goes to “chapel services” multiple times a week.

Even if we have seriously asked ourselves the same question, it is hard to articulate the answer in a language that our children can understand and, we hope, embrace.

And no, I don’t have a “good answer” for you, because the answer is a very personal one and changes for every single one of us.

But it is important to have an answer, for ourselves and for our children. What needs does communal worship meet for us? Does it provide a much desired “quiet space” in which to acknowledge the one in whom we live, and move, and have our being? Does it help us be in communion with other (we assume) like-minded Christians? Does the experience transport us back to the comfort of a familiar, safe place we used to know and love?  Or is Sunday morning simply the “perfect time” to join our voices in a communal “Thank you” to the Creator of all things? And what about the difference between "going to church" and "being the Church"? There are as many answers as there are faithful worshipers  On Sunday, when you step into the nave, take a moment to ponder what’s yours and how you can find the right words to share it with your little ones. They will be grateful.