say you're going to Mass and all of a sudden you're like, wait a second, I don't know if I've committed

a mortal sin. Maybe I did. Maybe that was that a mortal sin? Now here's what I heard as counseled

to me and I will counsel it to you and maybe until the day I die. It's this. I'm my name's Father Mike Schmitz and this is the Sentry Presents. Oh, when I was in college, we kept the precept so late. We had mass at 9 o'clock.

That was kind of like the big student mass we had on our campus.

So we'd have mass really late.

And I remember one guy, man, I know very, very well.

He'd come to mass every single Sunday.

And. was kind of like the big student mass we had on our campus. So we'd have mass really late. And I remember one guy, man, I know very, very well, he'd come to mass every single Sunday. And when everyone else would leave their pew for communion, he would not get up and come forward. He would just sit in the pew. I think that he's sitting there thinking, like, here I'm the failure. Like, here I am. I'm the one who can't receive Jesus today.

I'm the one who can't receive Holy Communion today on Sunday night because of what I did Saturday night or Friday night or whatever. I'm not assuming anything. It's just like he knew himself. He knew that he was in such a state that he was not able to receive Holy Communion. I'm guessing he saw that as a failure, as a great lack of witness to Jesus.

But I remember

seeing that and thinking, that man gets it. By not coming forward to receive holy communion,

he's honoring the Lord more than many of us who are coming to receive Holy Communion unworthily.

St. Paul writes about this in 1st Corinthians chapter 11.

He says that there are some who are going to Mass and they are receiving the body and blood of Jesus unworthily and in doing so, they're guilty of his murder. They're guilty of his death.

That's actually the weight. If we receive Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin, if we receive Holy

Communion unworthily, it's a

mortal sin. And First Corinthians makes that absolutely abundantly clear. And yet how often we kind of,

in a cavalier way, approach the altar, not really weighing out, wait, let's ask the question,

am I in a state of grace? Am I conscious of any, I'm conscious I conscious of mortal sin? We know what the requirements of mortal sin are, that it has to be grave sin, right? I have to know it's a sin, I have to freely choose to do it anyway. So I recognize that, okay, if I'm aware that I've previously skipped mass, that is a grave sin, if I knew it was a grave sin and chose to do it anyways,

that's a mortal sin. I can't receive Holy Communion. If there's another mortal sin, another grave

sin that I knew was a grave sin and freely chose to do anyway, I can't receive Holy Communion,

then either because that's another grave sin. We're called to Mass. We're called to be there,

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