10/18/2026
It hardly seems possible that six years have passed since the Covid pandemic, with its masks, social distancing, and strict hand sanitizing. One of the good things to come out of those times was the availability of Mass through live-stream. Even when attendance was not possible, people could participate at least spiritually by tuning in, and this service has continued to reach our homebound parishioners and others who are ill and otherwise not able to attend in person
But what live-stream participation in the Mass does not allow is participation soul and body in the Church's great act of worship - human beings are made up of soul and body, and we must worship God with our entire being. Nor does virtual participation allow the reception of Holy Communion and the other graces which flow from gathering as the family of Christ in the Church. The Mass is ultimately Christ's own sacrifice that opens the door for our salvation. There is, as the Benedictine Dom Hubert van Zeller says, "nothing more perfect that can go up to God from this earth than the sacrifice of Christ. There is nothing more perfect that can come down to us than what the sacrifice of Christ has merited for us."
This is why our personal presence, unless impeded by serious illness or other grave necessity, is a strict obligation on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. The Church asks us to join ourselves body and soul to what takes place on the altar, because it is there that "the work of our redemption is accomplished." Virtual participation in the Mass cannot do that. Other prayers cannot do that. God asks us to be present so that He can communicate His own divine life more fully to us through our willing sacrifice of just one hour, and in return, He gives us His Own Self in the form of a small white Host. And as Fr. Van Zeller points out, when we obey the Church in this way, "we are taking on something of Christ's obedience" to the Father, uniting ourselves more fully to Him who, in the Eucharist, gives us the "medicine of immortality" that prepares us for heaven.
The Lord, the Church only ask one hour of us on Sundays, but it is the most important hour of our week. God asks only a little, but in return, He gives us everything.
Fr. Raymond McDaniel
