Sunday Mass attendance

Low relevance or lack of appreciation?

An ever-declining Sunday Mass attendance by youths reflects the fact that young people want to give the Church a message, Fr Savio Vella, who heads the Diocesan Youth Commission, said yesterday.

But Servolo Delicata who, together with his wife Marcelle, heads the Diocesan Commission for the Family, believes the drop in attendance is due to a lack of appreciation for the beauty of Mass.

According to the preliminary results of a Sunday Mass Attendance Census, released on Tuesday by Discern, the Institute for Research on the Signs of the Times, overall Mass attendance in Malta and Gozo stood at 52.6 per cent, an almost 11 per cent drop in 10 years.

The lowest attendance was registered by the 15 to 24 age group, with 37.3 per cent of people in that bracket, followed by the 25 to 49 group with 41.3 per cent.

Fr Vella said that in not going to Church, young people were telling the Church authorities they were not finding the celebration of Mass to be relevant to their lives.

This did not mean that young people had turned their back on God or the Church; a good number, including some of those who did not attend Mass, were members of youth organisations where they met and prayed.

It was time, Fr Vella said, to see how one could make the celebration of Mass more significant to one's daily life. The explanation of the word of God, for example, had to be relevant.

Priests needed to better understand that the celebration of Mass should be a celebration of joy, and this feeling should be experienced by the whole congregation.

Some people, including youths, were finding it difficult to build a relationship with God. There was a lot to hinder them and the way Mass was celebrated did not allow them to have the more significant relationship they were seeking.

"Let's all make an effort to make Mass more relevant," he said.

Fr Vella said many priests were making a big effort to understand how to better animate Mass. But there was also a lack of participation by youths and an effort had to be made by everyone.

"There is need for more understanding and creativity in the celebration of the liturgy," he said.

Mr Delicata said he believed the decline in attendance was mainly because the religious education children were getting was not good enough.

"To appreciate something, you have to know it well. And the beauty of Mass is not being portrayed well to children."

Moreover, the environment young people lived in did not encourage them to go to church. Because of peer pressure, many youths were embarrassed to say they went to Mass. A lot of Maltese were also losing their faith so they did not feel the need to attend Mass.

Mr Delicata said he believed that the claim that people did not go to Mass because its celebration was not attractive enough was merely an excuse.

"If one understands what is happening in Church during Mass, one would appreciate how beautiful Mass is, with or without music.

"I can concentrate more during Mass if there is no music, for example."

He said that as political parties used Sundays to meet the people, so should the Church.

However, to attract non-church goers, children should receive better education. Many Church school students did not go to church. This proved something was wrong.

Mr Delicata said that for one to say one did not go to church because the homily was boring did not make sense, for one could keep searching for the church and the priest until one was found whose homily was relevant.