The Joy of Living the Holy Mass: Why the Altar Changes Everything

Beloved in Christ,

Let me confess something a priest is perhaps not supposed to confess: there was a season, early in my priesthood, when the Mass had become routine for me. The words were the same. The gestures were the same. And one morning, elevating the chalice in a nearly empty church, a thought pierced me like light through a shutter: I am holding the price of the world in my hands — and I have grown used to it.

That morning changed my priesthood. In time, it became a book — The Joy of Living the Holy Mass — because I discovered I was not alone. Many of the faithful sit through Mass the way one sits through a familiar journey: present in body, elsewhere in soul. Not out of malice. Out of habit. And habit is joy's quietest thief.

The Mass is not something we attend

Here is the truth that recovers everything: the Mass is not an event we attend; it is a mystery we enter. At every altar, time folds. Calvary is not remembered the way we remember a battle from history — it is made present (CCC 1366). The same sacrifice, the same Christ, the same love poured out — now, for you, this morning, in your parish with the flickering light and the crying baby and the choir slightly out of tune.

When this truth moves from the page to the heart, boredom becomes structurally impossible. One can be tired at Mass. One can be distracted at Mass — the saints were too. But one cannot comprehend the Mass and remain indifferent to it.

Living the Mass, not just hearing it

The title of my book says living deliberately. Three doors open the way:

1. Arrive before you arrive. The Mass begins in the car, on the walk, at the bus stop. Two minutes of silence before entering — "Lord, I am coming to meet You" — transforms attendance into encounter. We prepare more carefully for a dinner with friends than for the wedding feast of the Lamb.

2. Bring something to the altar. When the bread and wine are carried forward, place something on the paten in your heart: this week's fear, a person you love, a failure, a thanksgiving. The offertory is not a pause for the collection — it is the moment your life climbs onto the altar to be transformed with the gifts.

3. Leave with a mission. The final words are not a polite goodbye: Ite, missa est — go, you are sent. Every Mass ends by turning pews into a launching place. The test of my Sunday Mass is my Monday morning.

For the one who feels nothing

Perhaps you say: "Father, I do all this and still feel nothing." Take heart — feeling is not the measure of grace. The Host does not glow more brightly for the fervent than for the weary. Fidelity in dryness is worth more than ecstasy in consolation; ask St. Teresa of Calcutta, who lived decades of it. Keep coming. Keep receiving. The sun warms even those who cannot see it through the clouds.

"I was glad when they said to me: let us go to the house of the Lord." (Psalm 122:1)

The altar is waiting, beloved. And on it, Joy Himself.

Fr. Dr. Linus Akali Nwakaline

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If you wish to walk deeper into this mystery, my book The Joy of Living the Holy Mass is available in English and Italian in the Shop — and if this ministry blesses you, you can support the mission here. See you at the altar.