Commentary from Archbishop Robert J. Carlson of St. Louis …
Last year when I wrote about the Third Commandment, I offered some fairly blunt reflections on our obligation to attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation. Here is what I wrote:
“I’m not going to sugarcoat the truth. Too many Catholics ignore their solemn obligation to attend Mass every Sunday. Parents who fail to bring their children to Mass on the Lord’s Day sin twice — by failing in their Sunday obligation and by being a source of scandal for their children.
“This is a serious problem for individuals, families, parish communities and for the whole Church. Sunday Mass is not optional. It is an essential requirement for all of us, and unless we have a serious reason, there is simply no excuse for missing Mass on the Lord’s Day. If through your own fault you miss Mass on Sunday, you are committing a serious sin. You should not receive holy Communion until you have gone to confession.”
The First Precept (law or commandment) of the Catholic Church is to attend Mass on Sunday and holy days of obligation and to keep the Lord’s Day holy by avoiding work or other activities that could prevent us from recognizing the sacredness of this time.
I didn’t sugarcoat my remarks on the serious obligation we have to observe the Third Commandment because it is so important to us as individuals and as members of the family of God, the Church. Without the Eucharist, we lose all sense of who we are as disciples of Jesus Christ and as members of His body. Without a serious commitment to worship God in word and sacrament on the Lord’s Day and other holy days of obligation, we cannot claim to be Catholics in good standing.
The Sunday eucharistic celebration, which may begin with the anticipated Mass on Saturday evening, is at the heart of the Church’s life. Sunday is that special day when we celebrate the Lord’s passion, death and resurrection until He comes again. It is here that we are fed with the Bread of Life. It is here that we prepare ourselves for discipleship and service during the coming week. If we fail to worship God on the Lord’s Day, we betray our baptismal promises and we neglect our responsibilities as disciples and as stewards of the mysteries of God.
I was blunt in my article on the Third Commandment because we need a wake-up call. Too many of us have forgotten how serious this obligation is and how important it is to our identity as Catholics.
More here.
Tags: Orthodoxy at Work
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Parents who fail to bring their children to Mass on the Lord’s Day sin twice — by failing in their Sunday obligation and by being a source of scandal for their children.
Wow, the successor of Cardinal Burke in St. Louis sure knows how to say it when he needs to. This doesn’t seem quite blunt at all.
Well, Anonymous at 8:21 am, I am glad that someone appointed you to the magisterium. How does this grab you…I was taught in first grade that missing Mass on Sunday is a mortal sin. And I have never in 50+ years, without a good reason like illness, done so.
Review your Catechism of the Catholic Church. There may be other grave sins you need to be reminded about.
This is not just the opinion of one bishop – it is a teaching of our faith.
CCC:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P7O.HTM
2181 The Sunday Eucharist is the foundation and confirmation of all Christian practice. For this reason the faithful are obliged to participate in the Eucharist on days of obligation, unless excused for a serious reason (for example, illness, the care of infants) or dispensed by their own pastor.119 Those who deliberately fail in this obligation commit a grave sin.
If you’ve done this in the past, it wouldn’t have been a mortal sin because you were missing one of the 3 factors (full knowledge). However, you might still want to confess it. And certainly now that you know, don’t miss mass again.
Sad.
Thanks, Mike, for putting this article on the blog. Bishops and priests should be reminding us of our obligation to hear Mass each Sunday and it’s good to see that Archbishop Carlson is doing this. There is such a deficit in teaching in the DOR that I’m not surprised that many Catholics around here are clueless about this obligation. Kudos to Cleansing Fire for the service you are providing- I know you get a lot of flak from some but keep up the good work in sharing items with us that remind us of the importance of our Catholic Faith and the obligations that go with it.
I quote Anonymous 8:21 and 10:21: “…does not make it true for me.” So much for objective truth….truth is different for you than it is for me, is that right? Where the heck did you learn THAT?
May I ask you, sir or madam, what exactly makes a “good Catholic?” What exactly makes a Catholic?
God does love you and God does want you to receive Communion, EVERY Sunday, without very good reason.
Maybe if you start visiting the confessional more frequently, you’ll lose some of your smug arrogance and more humbly submit to the teachings of our Church.
“I went to Catholic grammar and high school and I was never taught that missing Mass was a grave sin or that I had to go to confession for missing mass.”
Oh, I see. You must have gone to Catholic Schools in the Diocese of Rochester! I’m so sorry.
“Nobody can tell me what to do” is kind of an American problem. Obedience is a bad word in our culture. Its hard often to see how obedience can be a blessing. I remember being unhappy hearing that being free meant being free to do God’s will. It somehow didn’t seem that free to me at the time. Now I see how it is free. Recently, somewhere, I read an explanation of why true freedom is in fact the freedom to do what is right – not the freedom to do right or do wrong. I think it was a St. Thomas Aquinas argument I was reading. Yes, true freedom is doing what is right.
And it really is freedom that we have a Church that truly tells us what is right and what is wrong. What Anonymous “I can miss Mass when I want” doesn’t realize is that there is TRUE freedom in what our Church tells us is right and wrong.
If you have to find your own truth, that is, whatever seems right for you today, or tomorrow, then sometimes you are going to decide that something false is something true.
The fact is that the truth sets you free. And the opposite is true. Lies enslave you. So if you are believing that something untrue is true, then you are enslaved. Not free.
The Mass-skipping anonymous poster must be putting us on. No one over the age of sixteen can be that self-referential in his decision-making.
Rich,
I was thinking the comments seemed rather fake myself. In case not, anon, I’d love to hear what your priest says. But really it doesn’t matter what your priest says – Church teaching is Church teaching. The CCC trumps any priest’s opinion.
Let’s play name that quote, who said this “the truth is easy to find, hard to accept and even harder still to follow.”. I’ll give you a hint, you probably have never heard of him if you went to a Rochester catholic school. 😀
Correction: replace “hard to accept” with “but it is hard to face the truth” sorry 🙂
Fr longenecker recently posted on the question “What is better? A good person who doesn’t goto mass or a bad person who goes to mass?”
http://gkupsidedown.blogspot.com/2011/03/being-good-or-going-to-mass.html
@ Christopher, I was thinking of this quote myself
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”
That’s Chesterton BTW. Those of you who already knew that, probably do not need to be reminded of his quote.
Christopher,
“It is easy to find truth; it is hard to face it, and harder still to follow it.” – Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
… at least that’s what Patrick Madrid says.
Anonymous,
“Well I really don’t care too much about what any of you think or say.
That’s all well and good, but since you say you are a Catholic I would hope that you would care about what the Catholic Church says …
And with regard to grave (or mortal) sins, the Church says,
I have been thinking about the comments in this thread for the past few days. I have been where Anonymous(3/3/11 @ 8:21pm) is, believing many of the same things that were shared in their comments. Sad part is that most of this understanding also came from other Catholics- my family & friends, my faith formation teachers and even some priests.
The past few years, I have become much more aware of what it really means to be a Catholic in the Roman Rite. I may not always like or even understand the “rules” but, if want the benefits of being part of the Church, I need to follow the them.
If I were to join a country club, I would be bound to follow the rules & by-laws of said club in order to be a member in good standing. I also will pay a hefty fee every month/year for the “privilege” of being a member, and be required to attend certain functions, and think nothing of it, because “them be the rules”. 😉
What I have come to realize is that if I will do this to belong to a secular organization, because I want the privileges of membership, how can I not follow the rules of the Church, if I want the privileges that come with that membership?
My spiritual director gave me some things to work on that last time we talked. In the reading I did, I came across this quote in a book on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius by a Jesuit named Monty Williams, which I think pretty much sums it up.
“Even though we are loved by God, we cannot do as we wish and expect God to acquiesce to us. We are made for God; God is not made for us.”
Very wise advice, IMHO! 🙂
Well put, Persis.
“Even though we are loved by God, we cannot do as we wish and expect God to acquiesce to us. We are made for God; God is not made for us.”
Somewhere I’ve read that thought expressed as, “We are made in his image and likeness, not he in ours.”
Scott Hahn has often said something similar: “God loves us just the way we are, but too much to let us stay that way.”
The Prince of the World loves our Bishop.
So, Anonymous 3/4 @ 9:38 – you don’t even care what God’s CHURCH says? Your opinion is of more value that Holy Mother Church’s opinion? You make up your own rules and follow them when you feel like it?
You MUST be a parody; no-one is quite so brazen in outspoken self-importance as you are coming across.
I thought the same thing. Then I remembered that more than half the time, I can’t tell the difference between a liberal and a parody of a liberal. How do you parody “I think women should have the right to kill their children”? How do you parody “I know better than God”?