Sunday Obligation

Next weekend (July 24-25) is the expiration of the dispensation from the Sunday Obligation. This obligation was temporarily suspended by extraordinary dispensation by Bishop Joensen around mid-March of 2020. It was a time of a lot of unknowns. It has been a rather dicey 16 months for everyone, but hopefully whatever unsought graces came with those months found open hearts so that we haven’t strayed far from our God.

Before the Sunday Obligation it is good to remember what it is. This obligation and others are located in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 2041-2043, which covers the “Precepts of the Catholic Church”:

1) You shall attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of Obligation.
2) You shall confess your sins at least once a year.
3) You shall humbly receive your Creator in Holy Communion at least during Easter season.
4) You shall keep holy the holy days of obligation.
5) You shall observe the prescribed days of fasting and abstinence.
0) You have the duty of providing for the material needs of the Church according to your ability*
*This one isn’t numbered, but it is included at the end of the list

Some people look at this list and see a list of burdens; more stuff authorities say you have to do or else, like taxes. But Mass and practicing your Faith are not things that only take. Most of those same people wouldn’t consider it a burden if they won the lottery and were told they had to come in person to collect it, yet the Mass offers far more than Powerball ever could.

These precepts are not burdensome obligations; they “guarantee to the faithful the indispensable minimum” to keep a person within “the context of a moral life bound to and nourished by liturgical life.” The Christian life is not a life lived on one’s own or according to one’s own rules. It’s a life that binds us to God and to our fellow man. The things deemed worth requiring are the things that bring us closest to them both: the Sacraments, especially Confession and the Eucharist. Confession can restore both the relationships between us and our God and us and our neighbor, relationships we so often injure or destroy. With those bonds of love restored, we are in a good place to participate in the Mass, where the Body of Christ (us) comes together and is reunited with its Head in the celebration of the Body of Christ (the Eucharist).

Daily Masses are great, but the greater days have always been Sundays, a weekly renewal of our Resurrection-based Faith, and the Holy Days of Obligation: Mary Mother of God, Epiphany, Ascension, Corpus Christi, Assumption, All Saints, Immaculate Conception, Christmas. Some of these solemnities change date each year, some are fixed to a date, and some are permanently moved to it’s nearest Sunday (in which case your obligation double-dips). So, in order to fulfill their yearly obligations, a Catholic attends the 58-ish obligatory Masses (58-ish hours per year, depending on who’s preaching), goes to Confession at least once (preferably in Lent), and receives the Eucharist at least once in the Easter season. These are the particulars, but tune into next week’s bulletin for the real reasons why…

To Be Continued…