a sense of duty

For forty years now there is a continuing decline in church attendance. Meaning every Sunday fewer and fewer people go to church. This is happening not just in the Catholic Church but even among protestant and evangelical churches. For example 21 years ago, when PCP II was celebrated, it noted in a survey that only 10 to 15 percent of Catholics were actually going to church on a regular basis every Sunday.
There are many studies done to know the causes to this trend but there is one which I believe is reasonable. It says, we have moved from an age of duty to the age of discretion. In the past, the study says, more people go to church moved by a sense of duty. Today, however, discretion reigns supreme - going to church becomes just one of the options - it depends on what you feel about it.


I believe this is also true why the number of priests keeps going down. We have moved from an age of duty to the age of discretion. Look at how St. Paul viewed his mission as an apostle in our second reading this Sunday. He said, “If I preach the gospel, this is no reason for me to boast, for an obligation has been imposed on me, and woe to me if I do not preach it!” For St. Paul it was not a question of discretion as in, what choices do I have, what choice will I make, what will make me happy, or what will be more fun, or what will be more fulfilling in my life, or what will be more advantageous to me. No, these questions may come later. But the first and foremost consideration was, what moved him to answer the call was, the sense of duty, it was a call to duty - woe to me if I do not preach it!
The same thing can be said to explain for example what happened in World War 2. Young men volunteered to fight the war and they fully knew where they were going. They were going to war, they will face the enemy, they might get hurt, they may even die and die they did. But what drove them to volunteer, what drove them to fight in a far away land - again the sense of duty.
We have to recover this sense of duty - Christ needs me, the church needs me, God calls me to serve people, I am needed in the church, people are being snatched away by the devil of materialism, they are being deceived by the values of secularism, people are going to hell everyday because nobody is leading them to God, no one is teaching them the moral way, nobody is correcting and reproving them - I need to be there for them, I must become a priest. Sense of duty.
What makes a priest do what he is supposed to do, what makes the priest stick it out with his assignment, what makes him go to a sick call in unholy hours, what makes him stay in the parish he is assigned to, what makes him do his responsibilities even at the expense of his convenience and well-being - again the sense of duty. Woe to me if I do not preach it!
We need to recover this sense of duty even in our day to day life and decisions sa bagay nga indi ako katulog kon indi ko mabuhat ang dapat ko buhaton. We need to develop this sense of duty - And to acquire this is we have to realize that there are certain things we must do even if we don’t feel like doing them. “Do something every day that you don’t want to do.” The sense of duty begins here.