Pastor's Pen - September 27, 2015

Over the years I have heard almost every excuse you can imagine from Catholics who have chosen to walk away from participation in the Mass. Recently, someone handed me an article creatively written by a pastor about why he doesn’t think he should attend sporting events. He titled it



“These are the twelve reasons why I have decided to quit attending
sporting events.” See if you can find the non
practicing Catholic’s excuses in this article. 

 1. The coach never came to visit me.

2. Every time I went, they asked for money.

3.The people sitting in my row didn’t seem very friendly.

 4. The seats were very hard.

 5.The referees made a decision I didn’t agree with.

 6. I was sitting with hypocrites


- they only came to see what others were wearing!

 7. Some games went into overtime and I was late getting home.

 8. The band played some songs I had never heard before.

9. The games are scheduled on my only day to sleep in and run errands.

 10. My parents took me to too many games when I was growing up.

 11. Since I read a book on sports, I feel that I know more than the coaches, anyway.

 12. I don’t want to take my children because I want them to choose for themselves what sport they like best.

We really don’t use these excuses at all when it comes to sporting events and yet for something like the Mass, which is the most important event we can participate in, we have all sorts of excuses why we can’t be there. How sad! Maybe, I should say, “How stupid!” 

“Would I offend someone if I shared this with him or her?” 

Fr. Ralph