One morning about a decade ago, the Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on my front door. For whatever reason (and despite their reputation), when the Witnesses stop by my house, they often do not seem particularly interested in conversation—they drop off their literature and continue on their way. This time was a bit different, however. The man and woman who were standing on my doorstep struck up a fairly lengthy conversation with me and my wife. During our exchange, it came out that the man had been raised Catholic but had subsequently fallen away from the practice of his Catholic faith and had later joined the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Somewhat by way of explanation, the man informed me that, in contrast with the Catholic Masses of his youth, the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ church meetings were very engaging. Reflecting on his time as a Catholic, he told me, “I just didn’t get much out of Mass.” We chatted about some other theological topics but eventually wrapped up our conversation—and the pair then headed out to the next house.

In a number of ways, the conversation my wife and I had with the Jehovah’s Witnesses was pretty unremarkable: they failed to convince us to become Jehovah’s Witnesses and we failed to convince them to join (or return to) the Catholic Church. But even a decade later, that man’s comment about the Mass has stuck with me—in large part because it is so relatable. I suspect that most Catholics have, from time to time, questioned the fruitfulness of their participation in the liturgy. How often do we “get” something out of Mass? How many times have we tried to pay attention at Mass, to sing the hymns and say the responses, to offer up the joys and sorrows of our own lives in union with Jesus on the altar, only to have Mass end with apparently nothing to show for it in our spiritual lives? Why isn’t our participation in Mass more fruitful for us? Sometimes we pin this lack of fruitfulness on what we might term the “externals” of the liturgy: the hymn selection, the church architecture, the presiding style of the priest, etc. These “externals” are not unimportant: it is certainly true that bad hymns, bad architecture, and the grating personality of the presider can disrupt our prayer. But, if my personal experience is any guide, while a beautiful liturgy can help us to pray better, it isn’t sufficient in and of itself to guarantee that a particular liturgy will be fruitful for me. Why is that the case?

Feelings vs. Facts

Of course, as I’ve reminded myself in the past, it is important to recognize that our own subjective assessment of the fruitfulness of our participation in Mass is not always a reliable barometer of the objective value of that participation. Even if each Mass and reception of the Eucharist does not bring with it an influx of spiritual consolation or a measurable increase of our love for God and neighbor, it is good for us to be there, to unite ourselves with Jesus’ sacrifice on the altar, and then to receive the fruit of that sacrifice in the Eucharist. Even if we don’t feel like we’re getting anything out of Mass, we are in fact receiving our Lord and the graces that come with that reception. Being convinced of this fact intellectually can help us to persevere in the midst of spiritually dry patches.

However, sometimes when we are in a period of dryness, we begin to doubt ourselves and question whether that dryness is due to something we are doing wrong: “What if the reason why I’m not ‘getting’ anything out of Mass is because I’m not trying hard enough to prepare myself for Mass? Maybe I just need to do a better job paying attention or adopt a more robust prayer routine. Maybe if I just pushed myself a bit more, I’d experience the fruits of the Sacrament more easily.” I suspect that this thought process is common to many who are striving to grow in holiness. In a number of ways, it’s a helpful starting point. When we first begin to take our faith seriously, when we first feel drawn to devote ourselves to God more deeply, we tend to realize that certain aspects of our life must change and certain priorities must be adjusted. We recognize that we need to receive the sacraments more frequently, participate in Mass more attentively, and, in general, pray more intentionally. And so, we set to work, putting forth some additional effort to live in a way more consistent with the Gospel. Those initial weeks and months of living our faith more seriously are often a period in which the fruits of our “labors” are quite obvious. There is joy in experiencing the liturgy in a new, and deeper, way. There is consolation in receiving the Eucharist and attending Adoration.

However, for many of us, this spiritual “honeymoon” eventually passes as we settle into our new routine. What was novel and exciting might in time become rather rote and boring. At some point, we might wonder, “Why am I keeping up with this routine of prayer? What am I getting out of it?” Here, our first inclination might be to try to “reignite” the fires of our devotion by following a plan of action similar to that which we pursued in the midst of our initial conversion. Indeed, back then, after we “ramped up” our practice of the faith, consolations followed. Perhaps a similar approach would work here: if we were to try a bit harder, if we were to devote ourselves to our spiritual routine a bit more, maybe that would make our participation in Mass more fruitful. While such a plan might be called for in certain instances (for example, when we recognize that we have fallen out of the habit of our prayer routine in one way or another), it can at times lead to a rather unhealthy approach to the spiritual life, characterized more by Pelagianism than by authentic piety and love of God.

DIY Spirituality?

Pelagianism draws its name from the British monk, Pelagius, who came to prominence as a spiritual guru in Rome at the beginning of the fifth century. Pelagius was enthusiastic about the faith and about encouraging others to take seriously the demands of the Gospel, pointing his audience to the great gifts they had received in the Scriptures and in the life and example of Christ. While Pelagius is often accused of denying the need for God’s grace, this isn’t quite right. Pelagius did acknowledge the need for grace and even stated that we need it at every moment and for every action. The problem wasn’t so much that Pelagius denied the need for grace entirely, but rather that he had a rather restricted understanding of what counted as “grace.” Indeed, for Pelagius, grace is largely an intellectual reality. He argued that once we know what the right thing to do is (thanks to Scripture and the example of Christ), we simply need to decide to put that knowledge into practice and do that right thing. Of course, Pelagius acknowledged that we have cultivated sinful habits that impede our ability to live virtuously as readily as we might like. However, the solution is simply to put in more effort: to try harder and devote ourselves more intensely to the task at hand. Eventually, with enough gumption, even the most hardened sinner can arrive at a state where sin can be avoided entirely.

As Pelagius grew in popularity, word of his views eventually found its way to St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo Regius on the coast of what is modern day Algeria. Augustine was disturbed by what he heard. Augustine had a firm conviction, based in large part on his reading of St. Paul (and probably his own life experience), that growth in holiness is not simply a matter of willpower and that knowledge of the truth and of right and wrong is not sufficient for living righteously. In fact, that insufficiency became painfully obvious to Augustine in his own process of conversion, as he was intellectually convinced of the truth of Christianity a good bit before he was able to leave behind the sinful habits he had cultivated in his youth. Indeed, a key theme of Augustine’s reflections in Book 8 of his Confessions is the fact of his powerlessness to abandon a life of sin and to embrace the Gospel. It was only when he received what would seem to have been a divine invitation to “take and read” the Scriptures (and more particularly, a passage of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans) that the sluicegates opened and Augustine was able to leave behind his sinful attachments and request baptism.

Something changed that day for Augustine—and it wasn’t simply his reading of a particular passage in Scripture. Rather, it was the work of God’s grace in his heart, moving and drawing him to conversion, attracting him to the Christian life that he already knew to be good but that he was too weak to embrace on his own. In his writings against Pelagius, Augustine emphasized time and time again that “knowledge” of how we ought to live is not actually sufficient for living a holy life. Instead, we need a sort of grace that directly impacts our will and attracts us towards holiness, setting us on fire for a life of virtue, prompting us to desire friendship with God. This attraction to the life of holiness that grace bestows on us makes conversion possible—without it, we would have no desire to be holy and would have no inclination to leave our sins behind.

Get Out of God’s Way

How does this all connect with our participation in Mass (and our spiritual lives more broadly)? The point is this: sometimes (or maybe often!) we can approach the liturgy in a Pelagian way, viewing the fruitfulness of our participation in the Mass as essentially a product of willpower, grit, and determination, as we make sure to check all the “boxes” required for a good life of devotion. As a result, when we’re not experiencing the results we expect to flow from our participation in the Mass, we might be tempted to assume that God wants us to try harder and to do more. God has given us the liturgy, he has given us (especially in the Church today) countless resources to enrich our prayer lives and to grow in our faith—if we’re not seeing the growth we’d like to see, it must be due to lack of effort on our part, right?

At this point we would seem to have two options: either we might push ourselves harder, taking on new spiritual practices in the hopes of making the liturgy more fruitful for ourselves, or we might begin to despair of ever enjoying a fruitful participation in the liturgy, resigning ourselves to the apparent fact that we’re just not meant to experience the joys of consolation in the liturgy. The problem with these approaches is that they both are almost entirely egocentric. We, like Pelagius, tend to think that growing in holiness and love of God is ultimately a project we need to undertake ourselves, with God as a remote observer watching our often half-hearted efforts from afar. This is where we need St. Augustine to step in and correct our misunderstanding of the situation. Human effort is indeed a key part of growth in holiness—but, as Augustine reminds us, God is the one who draws us to himself.

As Augustine frequently points out, Jesus told us: “No one can come to me unless the Father draws him” (John 6:44). This does not mean that we just sit by passively and wait for God to do all the work. Augustine argues—at least in his best moments—for a balanced approach to grace and free will: God is the one who gets the ball rolling and helps us along the way, drawing us to himself, but nevertheless we have a real contribution to make in response to that divine attraction. The key to this balance is to become increasingly attentive to the movement of God’s grace within our hearts. Whether it be in the liturgy or in the course of our daily lives, how attentive are we to moments when we feel—even subtly—drawn to praise God, to offer up our sufferings and joys, to pray for those around us, to do some concrete act of love for God or neighbor? In contrast, how often do we pass through our day without really considering the presence of God in our lives? These aren’t new ideas, of course: they’re found, perhaps most famously, in Ignatian spirituality’s rules for discernment and the examen prayer. Nevertheless, they are powerful tools for remedying Pelagian tendencies in our spiritual lives and, indeed, for drawing more fruit from the liturgy—because all too often, God is indeed trying to draw us to himself in the liturgy, but we are simply missing his cues.

God’s initiatives in our lives are often subtle—recall that Elijah recognized the Lord’s presence not in strong wind, earthquake, or fire, but in a gentle whisper (1 Kings 19). The more we leave behind our tendency to focus on ourselves and what we’re doing (or not doing), the better we can attend to what God is doing, and how he is trying to attract us towards a deeper union with himself in the liturgy.