The first reading at daily Mass on Saturday, Feb. 13, has a powerful lesson about what can happen when we aren't putting worship first. 

Here's the scene for the reading: King Solomon died in sin, having set-up pagan altars for his foreign wives and worshipped the pagan gods himself. As a result of Solomon's sin, the kingdom of David is broken up, with ten tribes to the north and two tribes to the south. Jeroboam is leading the ten tribes to the north and is concerned that if the people go to Jerusalem to worship the way that God prescribed, they may end up giving their allegiance back to the house of David, thus leaving Jeroboam out of the picture. So what does he do? He establishes a false, watered-down form of worship that cuts Jerusalem and the Temple out of the picture. He establishes a false form of worship, in order to protect his own selfish interests. 

So what I'm thinking about is this: Where have we put our own interests ahead of offering true worship? In what ways have we settled for some false, or empty substitute because to worship according to God's command means we would have put our own interests second? Here's an example: a family fills up the weekend with so many events that they decide they have no time to go to Sunday Mass. They justify missing Mass by saying, "We can just pray at home - it's all the same." So in order to keep their own schedule they end up abandoning the great sacrifice of the Mass. What do you think?