A really bad "really good reason why you should go to Mass"

The October issue of the U.S. Catholic [September issue pictured at left] addresses the topic of young adult Catholics and features the question on its cover page, "Are young people getting the message?"

One of the primary articles on this topic is entitled "10 reasons not to go to Mass (and one really good reason why you should)" by Gregory Pierce. Wanting to get to the meat of the article, I jumped ahead to read the "really good reason" one should go to Mass.

Here it is (underlining and comments in brackets are my own):

"Now for my one compelling reason for young adults to go to Mass. This is the one that I am trying with my three college-age children, and I'll let you know in four or five years how it works.

I am pointing out to my children that what they are searching for is a guiding principle, what I call a "mission worthy of their lives."

I tell them that the church has such a mission to send them on, the very mission on which Jesus of Nazareth sent forth the original disciples. That mission is to make this world a better place, a place more like the way God would have things.

["a better place"? Who can't agree with that?]

I then tell them that they need two things in order to accept and carry out this mission.

[Hmm, Word and Sacrament maybe?]

They need a community of believers to send them forth on the mission, and they need that same communuity to go forth with them to help accomplish it. That community could be the church, specifically the local arm of the church that we Catholics call the parish.

["could be the Church"? How is this an argument for going to Mass, and not just attending a local protestant church?! Ironically, another article in the magazine tries to answer why evangelical churches are having more luck reaching young people - well, maybe it's because Catholics aren't admitting they offer anything unique...]

And that community should be already committed to this mission. We already have a liturgy to celebrate and promote it.

["Celebrate [the mission]"? How about adoring God? Again, the author is giving his children great reasons to become protestants, but ambiguous reasons to remain Catholic.]

That liturgy is called "the Mass," which can be loosely translated as "the sending forth."

Not suprisingly, I didn't find the author's "really good reason" to go to Mass compelling at all. Sure, there is some good stuff mentioned, but nothing the author suggests is unique to the Catholic faith - he does not talk about the Sacraments (what truly strengthens us to take up the mission of evangelization) or about the Church being uniquely commissioned by Jesus Christ for the task of spreading the Good News.

In other words, it's not surprising that young Catholics aren't "getting the message" if the "message" they are being given is inadequate in the first place.