Spiritual While in School: Let us Attend

My parish decorated for Palm Sunday

As you may have guessed this post is about church service attendance. It is the most important thing that you can do. Through attending church we are spiritually fed by the service and by partaking in communion. It is way to set aside time to participate in prayer and worship. Attending church can also be beneficial for destressing. It is something we are familiar with and know the rhythm of the service. It can be a time to clear our minds from our worldly cares and focus on the heavenly world.

Make a commitment to Sunday morning liturgy and strive to attend that the most. Vespers and an occasional evening service are good to attend as well once in a while. For Holy Week there are so many services but not everyone can always make it to all of them. I try to aim for all the evening services prioritizing holy Unction and my personal favorites. Often when I know holy week is coming I try to get ahead on some of my school work that I can so that I am not stressed about school while trying to attend services. When I was working for a particular catering job, I would request the evenings after 5pm off for religious reasons. Because the schedule changed form week to week I just had to give far enough notice in advance.

I understand the struggles of attending church there have been many times when I have not attended because a final project was due or finals were coming up. I have also not attended church because of work. I worked a for catering for 2 of my college years and if I worked a 7 hour shift on Saturday I would come home exhausted and none of my homework for Monday done. I didn't go to church the next day unless it was a feast day. I have one particular summer memory of working a 50 hour work week in food service and that Sunday being my first day off and I just needed to sleep. I wish I had been better about church attendance but it is the past and I know I can only go forward and keep working on it.

Much love