love is all you need

After an amazing discussion tonight at our campus ministry meeting, I am still in such a pensive kind of mood, so I decided to blog and sort of think through what we talked about tonight...

So, the topic of our discussion tonight was the mass. Simple enough, right? But not really, it ends up. Mike, our campus minister asked us to think about why mass is so important. Why is mass so vitally necessary that the church calls it a mortal sin to miss a Sunday service? What sets mass apart from everything else in the Catholic tradition?

My first thought was that mass for me is a place to recharge for the week ahead, and to regain that focus on God that gets lost so easily in the craziness of day-to-day life. To recommit myself to living a God-centered life, and to get my priorities back in order. But then I had to think... if that were the most important reason for mass, then why can't we go it alone? Why is it so important that we all gather together in church to celebrate mass?

Well, here's the conclusion we came to... not like there's a definite answer to any of these questions, but rather more of a work-in-progress thought process. But the first part of our answer was thinking about the meaning of life (how philosophical, right?). What is the meaning of life? Well, God. If God should be the center of our lives, then certainly he should be the meaning behind life. And we know that God is love. So I think we can settle on the idea that the meaning of life... is love. To love ourselves, and to love one another, just as God loves us. Pretty simple so far, but a way cool idea.

Thinking about this a little further, people yearn to be loved. I would argue it is a basic necessity, at times even more important than food or water, or shelter. To be loved, and to love in return. It's how we survive. I think what people search for is to be loved without judgment, completely and without reservation. The kind of love that accepts a person for who they are - all of their faults and weaknesses, and for all of the quirks that make them uniquely them. A unwavering love despite anything they have done, or could ever do. That's pretty powerful. I would argue that no matter how much we try, we can come close to loving someone else as deeply as this, but I'm not sure we can ever achieve this absolutely perfect love. I think only God can. And amazingly enough, God offers us this kind of love that we so desperately yearn for in the mass. He offers us himself, and his son, and a perfect acceptance of everything we are and will become, because we are created in his image, and he has given everything to give us life.

So, I think we closed in on an answer, at least a temporary one. Mass is a time to receive the love we are looking for, and to receive it so abundantly that we are rejuvenated and that meaning is given to our lives. And maybe, as our hearts begin to overflow with all of this amazing love that God is giving us, we can start giving it out in return - to others, and back to God in the mass. I guess, it all boils down to something the Beatles discovered long ago...

"All you need is love; love is all you need."