Why Should I Go to Church?

1600x1200-por-que-ir-a-igrejaGo to church, because there we find the community gathered. Go to the Church to return home better than we left for home. 

In regions where the lack of water is quite detrimental to the survival of the human being, the water trucks are indispensable for many families so that they may receive, the minimum water necessary for their survival. Without that vehicle, which takes the water from its reservoir, many families would be condemned to live with the lack of water. And everyone knows that this liquid is an element necessary for our survival.

The water truck carrying the water is, in some ways, bringing life to all those who depend on this substance to stay alive. It fulfills the role of being a river where there are none.

Many people wonder what is the importance of participating in Church. Many turn away from the Christian community for a variety of reasons. Others to participate, but they return home the same way you came. In the midst of a society that will very quickly create the mentality that spirituality is something, what’s the point of participating in church? Why go to church?

Often, we arrive at Church like a water truck,empty, without the necessary water as a sign of life. Before the mystery of God, the Word proclaimed, reflected and meditated, the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, let’s be of life in fullness offered by Christ himself. Thereby, we return home full of living water, and thus we can share with those around us the water was deposited in us in our heart.

The heart is the life in fullness, in which we take God’s love to our brothers and sisters. When we participate in the Church, our heart is empty and dry. How can one quench thirst for someone else, if you don’t have even enough water to quench his own thirst?

A water truck only fulfills its role if it is filled with water. A human being ca only feel complete as a person if hes stocked for the presence of God. Why go to church? Because it is the source of living water which quenches our interior. And because, once supplied with the presence of God within us, we can take this same water to all those who ask for a drop of water of life, which give them the sense of living in a society that shares other artificial waters do not quench the thirst; but on the contrary, human beings always have more thirst for true life.

Go to church, because there we find the community gathered. In Union with the brothers and sisters of the community, we share the pains and joys of living in a “common unity”. Go to church, because that’s where the miracle of the Eucharist takes place in all holy masses celebrated. Go to the Church to return home better than we got.

Many people, when they return home, they hear from their families: “you have been praying and came back worse?”. When we come home fueled the love of Christ in us, it is impossible to get back to everyday life the same way. Only those who had their thirst quenched by God can quench the thirst for other people with the same love that he received.

If the water truck takes the water that quenches the biological human thirst , we are invited to leave the Church with the heart fueled with the living water that quenches our thirst for human-divine love.

Padre Flávio Sobreiro

Father Flávio Sobreiro is the paroquial vicar of Our Lady of Fatima parish in Santa Rita do Sapucaí, in the Archdiocese of Pouso Alegre, Minas Gerais (MG), Brazil. He is the author of the book “Amor Sem Fronteiras” [Love Without Borders] from Editora Canção Nova. For more information on Father please see: facebook.com/peflaviosobreiro

Portuguese version