Holy daze of obligation?

There are so many things vying for our attention these days. Everything is a marketing ploy it seems these days. Have you watched a movie recently that didn't have some kind of advertisement in it for something or another? Seems like so many people love fantasy movies (like Lord of the Rings, etc.), and perhaps part of the reason is that we can escape the marketing for Coke or Pepsi or whatever else companies are trying to sell us.

Don't get me wrong, everyone needs to work and make money to support their families. I just think that since marketing has become so invasive into our everyday lives that there should be some boundries put upon these things. Nevertheless, we are the ones who will purchase or not purchase those things which we are marketed. Everything seems like such a good idea and so inviting.

Yet one must stop and consider our Catholic Faith. Our Lord has established Sunday as the day upon which we commemorate his Resurrection. It is our sabbath day, our day of rest. This is the reason why, as Catholics, we break the 3rd Commandment ("Remember to keep Holy the Sabbath Day.") when we willfully don't attend the Holy Sacrifice of Mass. But, the Lord himself has a sort of "marketing" ploy for us - kinda interesting when you think of it this way. During the year there are certain feast days that are of such great importance to our Catholic Faith that the Church raises them to the level of a Solemnity. Then, on top of this, very few of these Solemnities have become "Holy Days of Obligation." What is "Holy Day?" And why are we "obliged" to attend Mass on these days?

Well, we must remember the whole purpose of the Catholic Church: to make us holy and thus unite us more closely to our Lord Jesus Christ. When we attend Mass we are being re-presented to the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, which has become the salvation of all mankind. Certain days the Church calls us to re-consider our everyday life. How important is our love for Christ in our lives? Three of the Five Holy Days of obligation (in America anyway) are devoted to the Mother of God, Mary. If we just think about it for a minute, then we might come to realize that the Church is telling us to look to the example of Mary who gave her whole life to the service of Jesus Christ, her son and Lord.

Though none of us have been asked to physically become the mother of God, we have all been asked to share God's own life by our baptism. Part of sharing His life is recognizing and looking with love to Our Blessed Mother. Again, as we gaze upon her loveliness, we should come to see she is glorious primarily because she has loved God with her whole mind, body, and soul as each of us should be striving to do. This I think is, in part, the reason Holy Mother Church places some days during the Liturgical Year as days we are obliged to attend Mass. These are days in which, if we only accept them as the gifts that they are, we will find great impetus to continue to seek after Christ, to continue to willfully give up our sinfulness in order that the Holy Spirit of God might use us as His instruments.

This, of course, means we should not just feel like we are being forced to go to Church a couple of days out of the year. Rather, we should consider these great feasts as gifts which allow us to re-consider how much importance we should place on our Catholic Faith above our jobs, our relationships with our friends, and in some instances (not all, but some) even above our families. In other words, Christ should be the focus of our lives, and Holy Mother Church invites us to "be obliged," that is, to recognize in humility that God has placed these profound mysteries, like Mary's Assumption body and soul into Heaven, for us to re-consider His love and promises to us if we seek and follow after His only begotten Son, Jesus.

Far too many Catholics sometimes ignore or blow-off Holy days as days which are like those marketing ploys found everywhere today. Holy Days are seen as impositions upon "my daily things I need to get done!" Instead, as we come to realize just how much the one true and living God has loved us and provided many Sacred Mysteries in our Catholic Faith in order that our minds and our hearts might be satiated, we ought to be thankful for the opportunity to reconsider God's promises of Heaven, of Joy, of Love, and of uniting in and with the cross of Christ as we live our Christian Faith. Let us not feel that anything is more important that these great Feast Days, for Our Holy Mother Church has given them to us knowing that they are good for us and will make us grow - even whether we are aware of it or not. Perhaps, instead of thinking of these Holy Days of obligation as annoying, maybe we should begin to see them as gifts of God through His Catholic Church to each of us.