I’m glad that you’re asking the question about Mass attendance. I hope that you attend Mass out of a strong desire to serve the Lord and out of love for him.
So many Catholics miss Sunday Mass, already, because of their lack of faith. I’m puzzled about your parents’ missing Mass, too. was it their plan to attend Mass on Sunday?
Since you brought up this whole matter, are you sure it was a good idea to plan activities on sunday, in the first place? It bothers me that schools and teams and other groups deliberately plan events on Sundays. I think Protestant churches do not require church attendance on Sundays, although they may encourage it.
In the Old Testament, there were only three “pilgrimage” feasts that required Jews to go to Jerusalem. each year. And synagogue services were a late development in Judaism, which is not even recorded in the Bible. The Jerusalem temple was small, and mostly off limits to lay people,
So, I have a gap in my knowledge about when sunday Mass attendance became compulsory and even deadly sinful. the same deadly sinfulness was attached to eating red meat on fridays, until that requirement was lifted, sometime after the Second Vatican Council.
Mind you, I’m retired, and I love attending Mass on weekends and during the week. At Mass, we are renewing our acceptance of the covenant with God that Jesus established at the Last Supper. Communion with the Eucharist is “the source and summit” of our Christian life. the Communion is, what 1 Corinthians says, establishes the world-wide unity of our Church. we are united in Christ.
I’m not talking about what happened in the past to you. Others have commented above. about your recent incident. but I strongly urge you from now on, to make an eternal commitment to attend Mass and to receive the Eucharist (in a state of grace). God established the sabbath as a DAY of rest.
I’ve had to work on Sundays and I certainly studied on Sundays when I was in college, and I had to travel a lot on Sundays for work purposes.
quite frankly, I’m disappointed that the Church ONLY requires about an hour of attendance at Mass on sundays. You’d think the Church would have a whole day’s worth of activities, such as Bible study and visiting the sick and helping elderly people with their yard work and such on sundays, to make the whole day about serving God and our neighbor. I live alone, so I didn’t think about things that families could do together on Sundays – and I’m not talking about watching tv.
There are two listing of the ten commandments in the bible, one in Exodus and one in Deuteronomy – and they’re different. In one version, we’re supposed to “remember” the Sabbath; in the other, we’re supposed to “observe” the Sabbath. Jewish scholars agonized over these two versions – what’t the difference? what was an observant Jew to do, to obey these commandments?
eventually they concluded that “Observing” the Sabbath had to do with the positive aspects of the Sabbath, and that “remembering” meant the negative aspects. Observing meant what they should DO on the sabbath and remembering meant what they should NOT DO on the sabbath.
even if the catholic church [note: my shift key isn’t working on my keyboard] does not MANDATE what to do and what not to do on sundays, I think it is a good practice for individuals to go beyond the minimum of what the church requires, and try to stick to a list of the do’s and don’ts on sundays.
