Although August 15 is the celebration of the Assumption of Mary, there is no obligation to attend Mass today in the United States. Among the complementary norms for the U.S. is the following:
Whenever January 1, the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, or August 15,
the solemnity of the Assumption, or November 1, the solemnity of All
Saints, falls on a Saturday or on a Monday, the precept to attend Mass
is abrogated [SOURCE].
Now, I’ve had some folks write in asking whether there is an obligation to rest today. You might think that, for the general law regarding holy day obligations reads as follows:
Can. 1247 On Sundays and other holy days of
obligation, the faithful are obliged to participate in the Mass.
Moreover, they are to abstain from those works and
affairs which hinder the worship to be rendered to God, the joy proper to the
Lord’s day, or the suitable relaxation of mind and body.
Since the complementary norm mentions the suspending of the obligation to attend Mass but not the obligation to abstain from certain works and affairs, you might conclude that the latter obligation is still in place.
Unfortunately, the situation is more complex than that. For a start, the canon is badly drafted. You’ll note that the canon refers to avoiding works and affairs that interfere with "the joy proper to the Lord’s day." Well, the Lord’s day is Sunday and Sunday only. Not other holy days. This raises a question of whether the second obligation specified in the canon is directed to Sundays or to all holy days.
The answer is that it does apply to other holy days; I’m just pointing out how sloppily the Church drafts its law on this subject so the reader will be put on guard against trying to read the law over-precisely when it comes to this stuff. The Church is painting with broad brush when it comes to the law on this topic. It hasn’t sat down and spelled matters out rigorously.
It’s really hard to imagine that the bishops would say "It’s asking too much to tell people they have to go to Mass on Monday when they just went on Sunday, but we will ask them to treat Monday just like Sunday in all other respects, with all the rest requirements that we haven’t preached on for forty years and when 99.44% of people are required by their employers to work on this day."
It’s not plausible that the bishops intended to put people into a multi-bind situation where they are NOT required to go to Mass BUT are required to rest EXCEPT for the fact that their employer requires them to work AND the people are almost totally unaware of the obligation to rest in the first place due to lack of preaching and knowing what the obligation even means in our culture. If it seems hard to you to imagine how you’d be expected to conduct yourself on such an overly complicated day, it’s for very good reasons and the same reasons suggest that that’s not what the bishops intended.
Thus it’s no surprise when one discovers that there is a recognition at the USCCB also that both
obligations are gone when August 15 falls on a Monday. The Bishops
Committee on Liturgy Newsletter simply says:
August 15 (the Assumption) is a day of obligation only when it falls on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Sunday (35 Years of the BCL Newsletter, 1557).
It therefore appears that the most likely explanation for all this is that the U.S. bishops intend both obligations to be suspended when the day falls on a Monday (or a Saturday). They simply phrased themselves with customary sloppiness following the Vatican’s example.
At a minimum we have a doubt of law situation, and in that circumstance our old friend, Canon 14, kicks in to tell us:
Can. 14 Laws,
even invalidating and disqualifying ones, do not oblige when there is a doubt
about the law.
Bottom line, you don’t have to navigate the multi-bind kind of day mentioned above. Think about what God did for Mary and go to Mass if you want to, but don’t feel obligated to treat the day as a quasi-semi-maybe Sunday.
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I am sorry but such complicated and detailed rule making seems unworthy of the Church. Where is the simplicity of Jesus? It sounds a bit like the Pharisees we are sometimes so quick to criticize in our sermons. Come to think of it, it is a bit like the Internal Revenue Services’ Regulations!
We always called these days ‘holy days of follow your conscience’.
Simplicity of Jesus?
Matt. chp. 7
13: “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.
14: For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
Yeah!! The simplicity of Jesus! No church rules! No Church guidelines! Let every man and woman decide for for himself and do it their own way! I bet that hasn’t been tried before.
Oh wait…it’s been tried 28,000 times before. It’s called Protestantism (Judges 19:1).
The Church has the right and resonsibility to set down rules for good order (Matthew 16:19; 18:18; John 20:23). That they don’t always does it perfectly shows they are human and should evoke our patience and assistance, not as an occasion for carping.
Why do Mondays and Saturdays make it not binding? Is going to Mass TWO DAYS IN A ROW so burdensome that it is beyond the ability of we people who spend an hour on the internet and golf nine holes a day? It seems difficult to believe that the cross of communal worship two days in a row is something beyond the ability of American Catholics. I wish the bishops would ask a bit more of us denizens of the richest nation on earth.
I have to second Mr. Deavel’s comment. I am all for Holy Days of Obligation being put back where they belong no matter when they fall on the calendar. I want Corpus Christi to be on Thursday again. Those who won’t go to Mass on a Thursday for Corpus Christi or on a Monday for Our Lady’s Assumption also won’t/don’t go on Sunday and usually not at all until Christmas and Easter.
PS And on Ash Wednesday to get their ashes 😉 (not a Holy Day of Obligation)
This is the product of forgetting about Friday–we don’t enter into Our Lord’s death, and thus we don’t enter into the Resurrection on Sunday. Sunday has become the cross. How insane and diabolical is it that the one day on which we have a divine mandate to lay aside our burdens and contemplate the rest and joy we’re supposed to enter into in eternity has itself become a burden in the minds of so many?!? Bass ackwards, y’all.
Arg.
My pastor has strongly encouraged us to attend today, since we are St. Mary’s Parish, thus it’s one of our patronal feast days.
I’m going tonight to the 7 PM Liturgy. Which will make, for me, 3 Masses in the space of about 50 hours: the others were an anticipated Mass on Saturday night at my home church; and my first Maronite Liturgy, an outdoor Mass on Sunday as part of Our Lady Of Lebanon’s (Wheeling, WV) annual festival celebrating Our Lady’s Assumption.
You can never praise the Lord too much, folks! 🙂
My family went to a non-obligatory Assumption Mass at our parish today, and were truly blessed. We were able to join in as our priest knelt before the altar to rededicate his priesthood to the Blessed Mother. Just beautiful. Gives me goose bumps.
I suppose the Church could also simplify things by just having us attend Mass every day — what could be easier to remember than that?
and in most of Europe, today is a national holiday.
This is an important anniversary for me… as a protestant missionary in Vienna, it was twenty years ago today that it was a national holiday and I first heard of, and learned, what “the Assumption of Mary” is.
…part of my L-O-N-G Catholic journey home.
I think a big part of the reason for lifting the obligation is not the “two days in a row” question, but a problem with evening/anticipation Masses. For example, would a Mass Sunday evening have been an evening Mass for Sunday, or an anticipation Mass for the Assumption? If a person who normally attends a Sunday evening Mass shows up and finds out this week it’s a holyday anticipation Mass instead, does that mean he/she has effectively missed Sunday Mass? Or can he/she attend the anticipation Mass as a Sunday Mass for him/her, and attend another holyday Mass on Monday for the holyday? I can see how this would cause a lot of confusion for the faithful, and lifting the obligation on some holy days 2 years out of 7 would be an easier solution than eliminating anticipation Masses entirely.
Happy anniversary Tim!
Unfortunately when it’s not a H.D. of O. the mass schedule prohibits many from attending. Our parish adds at least 3 masses per holy day, so if you FORGET til 10 am like idiots like me you still have a chance to make it later in the day. (I’m calendar challanged as well, so don’t always look ahead. Or can I blame it on my parish priest who made NO mention of it Sunday?)
My pastor has strongly encouraged us to attend today, since we are St. Mary’s Parish, thus it’s one of our patronal feast days.
Can somebody elaborate on patronal feast days? I’d never heard of them or whether Mass is an obligation for those parishioners (or whether, like you said, you’re simply strongly encouraged to go).
I’d have gone to Mass on Monday, but neither Catholic Church in my area even had one. I remember churches in every other place I lived, having Mass every day. Why am I now seeing fewer Mass times–anybody know? My newly adopted parish has two priests, so it doesn’t seem that a priest shortage would be our problem.
“Can somebody elaborate on patronal feast days? I’d never heard of them or whether Mass is an obligation for those parishioners (or whether, like you said, you’re simply strongly encouraged to go).”
In my parish, St. John the Baptist, we were ENCOURAGED to go (since the Gospel reading mentions our patron leaping in the womb at the Visitation of Mary). However, the priests specified that The Powers That Be had pronounced that we were not REQUIRED to attend. I suspect, Lurker, that the situation was probably similar in your parish.
Furthermore, you said:
“I’d have gone to Mass on Monday, but neither Catholic Church in my area even had one.”
1) You tried to go to Mass, but there were no Masses being celebrated in your area. The responsibility would no longer fall on you.
2) If the Assumption of Mary WAS a “patronal feast day” in your church (i.e., your church was called “Our Lady of the Assumption,” or some like thing), then your church REALLY OUGHT to have had Masses on that day, in my personal judgement. As it did not, you may want to respectfully ask your pastor why no Masses had been celebrated. If you do not wish to question your pastor thusly, for whatever reason, simply submit yourself to his prudential judgement as it does fall under his priestly authority.
In any case, Lurker, you WANTED to attend Mass on Monday, but were physically inable to do so. There’s no shame in that.
Thanks for the explanation on those two points. Monday wasn’t our pastoral feast day, but I asked the question because I need to know what to do when it is our pastoral feast day.
All or most of the above demonstrates the correctness of the first post. I did not say there should be no rules only that they should not this complicated. Rules should be simple, clear and logical.
Aye, Patrick. I completely agree that the rules should be simple, clear and logical.
May I say, then, that I have found the rules, in my experience, to be basically simple, clear and logical.
On weeks when I know a particular feast day is scheduled, I pay more-than-usual attention when the priest reads the announcements on Sunday. If he makes no announcements, I be sure to pick up a bulletin. The announcements and/or bulletin are fairly reliable sources of information as to whether or not I am required to attend Mass on that particular feast day.
Usually, in this day and age, I can count on the bishops to go ahead and decide to give some kind of dispensation, effectively permitting Catholics to forgo Mass on feast days that fall within the traditional work-week. I am not particularly fond of the bishops’ tendency to do this, but THEY are bishops, and I am NOT. If I really want to change this state of affairs, then I really OUGHT to become a bishop.
But becoming a bishop seems like an awful lot of work. So I’ll just accept the fact that bishops get to enjoy the perogative of binding Catholics to attend Mass on such-and-such a day, while I do not get to experience that particular privledge.
Whatever the case, when a feast day that is normally considered as one that requires Mass attendance, I usually like to go–even if the bishops say that I do not have to. In this case, announcements and or bulletins will come in useful in discerning when your parish will be holding Mass on that day.
I have also found this site to be handy in looking up Mass times, anywhere in the U.S.
If my HTML is faulty, just copy ‘n’ paste this link to your browser: http://www.masstimes.org/dotNet/
Look around and use your judgement. Lurker looked around and found no parishes in his area holding Mass that day. He was, therefore, unable to attend any Masses on Monday, regardless of his desire to go. That, pretty much, covers his duties for that day, given these two facts:
1) Lurker was dispensed by the bishops from the obligation to attend Mass on Monday
2) Lurker evidently wished to attend anyway, looked up Mass times in his area, and found that none of his parishes were holding Masses.
One last point about feast days of obligation: Mary of the Immaculate Conception is the patron of the United States of America. I am no canon lawyer, but it is my understanding that the Feast of the Immaculate Conception is ALWAYS binding–at least in the U.S.–EVERY YEAR. No matter what. No U.S. bishop, I believe, would dispense with that obligation, excepting the most extreme of circumstances.
Hawaii has fewer days of obligation. (I lived there once). I can’t remember off-hand which days are omitted, but according to this website: http://www.cin.org/webboard/messages/908/1302.html?956850328
the Assumption would have been one of them. Just an FYI.
Thanks again for the help. As I live in Germany now, what it comes down to, is that I’m simply going to have to ask one of the priests. The bishops over here might say something differently than those in the U.S., although it seemed to me that the rules must be similar since I found no Masses available on Monday.
Further complicating things – I went to Saturday evening Mass. I am hoping that it counted towards the obligation, as if I’d gone to a Sunday Mass.
Wish me luck. Living abroad just ain’t always easy; in my case it doubles my confusion.