Accidentally missing Mass

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Heather07

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Hi everyone, I just now remembered that today was a holy day of obligation and I checked the mass times at my church and they are already all over and I feel guilty about missing it. I am a new Catholic so I am not yet familiar with all of the holy days other than Easter, Christmas and Ash Wednesday. I most likey forgot about it because I am in my last week of school so I am stressing and cramming to get all of my projects fininshed by Tuesday and I have been working on them non-stop, having little time to think about much else. Nevertheless, I do feel bad about missing mass and I know that I was reminded of it a week ago and was looking forward to going. I am just wondering if I need to go to confession for this or not? Thanks
 
Heather07 said:
Hi everyone, I just now remembered that today was a holy day of obligation and I checked the mass times at my church and they are already all over and I feel guilty about missing it. I am a new Catholic so I am not yet familiar with all of the holy days other than Easter, Christmas and Ash Wednesday. I most likey forgot about it because I am in my last week of school so I am stressing and cramming to get all of my projects fininshed by Tuesday and I have been working on them non-stop, having little time to think about much else. Nevertheless, I do feel bad about missing mass and I know that I was reminded of it a week ago and was looking forward to going. I am just wondering if I need to go to confession for this or not? Thanks
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You forgot. Our Lord made you human, I think He understands. Say a good act of contrition, consider another devotion, catch mass on EWTN if you can and mention it at your next confession. We are allowed to be human.

And the new Catholic thing. I have to drop a note into my hubby’s lunch EVERY Friday to remind him not to eat meat. It is a lifestyle adjustment.

God Bless!
 
you might still be able to make it to Mass. My know my parish here in the Lincoln diocese has Mass on Holy Day Evening as well as the Vigil (the 7th). And if you have more than one Catholic church in your area you might be able to catch Mass there if they have an Evening Mass for Today.

If not, as netmil(name removed by moderator) said, mention it next time you go to confession.
 
And you could give your Diocese a call. I can’t imagine that there isn’t a late night mass somewhere for those that work all day!
 
Heather07 said:
Hi everyone, I just now remembered that today was a holy day of obligation and I checked the mass times at my church and they are already all over and I feel guilty about missing it. I am a new Catholic so I am not yet familiar with all of the holy days other than Easter, Christmas and Ash Wednesday. I most likey forgot about it because I am in my last week of school so I am stressing and cramming to get all of my projects fininshed by Tuesday and I have been working on them non-stop, having little time to think about much else. Nevertheless, I do feel bad about missing mass and I know that I was reminded of it a week ago and was looking forward to going. I am just wondering if I need to go to confession for this or not? Thanks
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Check out Masstimes.org for Dallas area churches, then call around and see who has a Mass scheduled for this evening. I know in my area, every church has at least one evening Mass on Holy Days of Obligation, so I would be willing to bet that there are some in Dallas who do, too. You are not obligated to attend Mass at your own parish only; you are obligated to attend Mass where you can reasonably get to one.
 
I think you’re ok if you honestly forgot. It would only be a mortal sin if knowing full well you had to go to Mass, you decided to stay home and watch TV or something like that. That being said, it can’t hurt to bring it up next time you go to confession. And might I add, frequent confession is a good practice for Advent as you prepare for the coming of the Lord 🙂
 
Heather07 said:
Hi everyone, I just now remembered that today was a holy day of obligation and I checked the mass times at my church and they are already all over and I feel guilty about missing it. I am a new Catholic so I am not yet familiar with all of the holy days other than Easter, Christmas and Ash Wednesday. I most likey forgot about it because I am in my last week of school so I am stressing and cramming to get all of my projects fininshed by Tuesday and I have been working on them non-stop, having little time to think about much else. Nevertheless, I do feel bad about missing mass and I know that I was reminded of it a week ago and was looking forward to going. I am just wondering if I need to go to confession for this or not? Thanks
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Last time I checked Dallas had a lot of Churches my friend, some of which will have Mass later in the day. I guarantee it. Unless there is some really pressing reason not to go you should. You don’t have to go to your Church, you can go to any one of them.🙂

Yes, if you don’t go I believe you do have to confess it, since there are options available to you.
 
Unless honestly being a student, she has no transportation to any mass except on campus. If she goes onto Mass Times and finds that a Holy Mass is too far away to walk or get a bus, (really truly, no excuses) then it would be a venial sin.

We were vacationing down in Fort Lauderdale, turned the wrong way on a highway and almost missed the mass. I would have considered it a venial sin if we did try and missed it. We did have a car and also could have found another Holy Mass but if we missed getting lost then found that it was the last in our area, I’m not sure that I would have been so brave to pop my kiddies in the car and drive in a strange city in hopes of finding another.
 
Why would it even be a venial sin when one forgets and misses and there is no other Mass available?
 
rwoehmke said:
Why would it even be a venial sin when one forgets and misses and there is no other Mass available?
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" Venial sin is a slight offense against the law of God in matters of less importance, or in matters of great importance it is an offense committed without sufficient reflection or full consent of the will."
 
I believe one would be non-culpable in the case of honestly forgetting the HDO until past all Mass times for the day. I’d go ahead and mention it at next confession–but it might not be considered something that the OP is culpable for.

I know w/ my grandmother’s funeral–I’m the only Catholic in my family, and the post-funeral reception was held in my grandparents’ church (non-denominational Christian) on the Friday before Good Friday). I totally blanked that the day of week was Friday until after consuming the meal and on the way back to our motel (meal being true Southern-style comfort food–fried chicken as the main course).

Getting home, I discussed this w/ my priest whose judgment I completely trust in determining culpable/non-culpable … he said that it was not even venial in my case because I had genuinely forgotten the day of week, not a case of ‘well, I didn’t want to go without food and there wasn’t anything non-meat on the buffet’ attitude (which there really wasn’t any non-meat on the buffet–there was even bacon in the green beans).

I think the OP’s situation is similar–but it’s still worthy of a mention in confession so that her priest can help her discern whether it was a genuine human frailty forgetfulness or not.

And, FWIW, my husband is a cradle Catholic (I’m a convert), and he forgot about today as a HDO until I said something to him this morning.
 
netmil(name removed by moderator) said:
And the new Catholic thing. I have to drop a note into my hubby’s lunch EVERY Friday to remind him not to eat meat. It is a lifestyle adjustment.
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Hi. I was under the impression that the meat on Friday thing was optional now, and that we could chose another form of sacrifice for Fridays?
 
boppaid said:
Hi. I was under the impression that the meat on Friday thing was optional now, and that we could chose another form of sacrifice for Fridays?
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You can choose something else penitential but you still have to do something on those days.
 
boppaid said:
Hi. I was under the impression that the meat on Friday thing was optional now, and that we could chose another form of sacrifice for Fridays?
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This happened in Lent. All the Fridays of Lent are days of abstinence from meat. No options in Lent.

Betsy
 
Check to see if there are any Catholic Centers in the colleges. Here the Catholic Center at the University has Masses at 10PM for the students (also open to the public) because you know the students have crazy hours.😉 Good luck…

:heart:Blyss
 
Thanks for the responses, you have been helpful. The reason why I was so worried about it was because all of the masses for the day at my parish were over, and when I checked it was only an hour after the last mass…the reason why I did not check any other parishes is because I am still not very familiar with many areas in Dallas that are outside my regular path of travel or “comfort zone” because this city is very big and confusing and I get lost very often around here when I go to new places. What I am now wondering is whether or not I can still recieve communion because of this? I am confused because I did not intend to miss Mass at all and I certainly wasn’t being lazy…by the way, hilde the dog, thanks for letting me know that Ash Wednesday is not a HDO, I had no idea why I thought it was. Thanks everyone!
 
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