Confused

[Miss_Primrose]

I’m confused, I have heard two things about mass.

I heard that mass is an obligation and you must attend either on saturday evening or sunday morning and that you can only be excused for a good reason.

but I also heard that as long as you go to mass once a year at easter that your ok.

please could someone explain this to me?

 

[LilyM]

I’m confused, I have heard two things about mass.

I heard that mass is an obligation and you must attend either on saturday evening or sunday morning and that you can only be excused for a good reason.

but I also heard that as long as you go to mass once a year at easter that your ok.

please could someone explain this to me?

You are required to attend mass every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation unless you have good reason for not going (eg illness). You can attend the evening before or anytime on the day (so a Sunday evening Mass would be fine).

You are required to receive holy communion only once a year. But you are still required to attend mass every weekend even of you don’t receive.

Someone may have confused the obligation to attend Mass with the obligation to receive Communion.

 

[sirach2v4]

agreed

 

[Miss_Primrose]

You are required to attend mass every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation unless you have good reason for not going (eg illness). You can attend the evening before or anytime on the day (so a Sunday evening Mass would be fine).

You are required to receive holy communion only once a year. But you are still required to attend mass every weekend even of you don’t receive.

Someone may have confused the obligation to attend Mass with the obligation to receive Communion.

Thank you, that explains it clearly, so some other questions…

Why do you have to attend mass every week but communion only once a year? if communion is so important why is it recommended as a minimum of once a year? I feel slightly embarrassed asking these questions as there is probably a really simple explanation.

 

[Phemie]

Thank you, that explains it clearly, so some other questions…

Why do you have to attend mass every week but communion only once a year? if communion is so important why is it recommended as a minimum of once a year? I feel slightly embarrassed asking these questions as there is probably a really simple explanation.

The ‘at least once a year’ rule for Communion came about at a time when few if any people received Communion at all. The Church imposed a duty to receive at least once during the Easter Season.

As for why people wouldn’t receive, well, you have to be in a state of Grace and be fasting the appropriate length of time. Today the fast is only one hour but only 60 years ago that fast was from Midnight so if you had supper at 5 p.m. and went to bed early you might not eat again until after the 10 am. Mass if you wished to receive. The length of the fast was one of the reasons people might not have gone to Communion often. Imagine a farmer in those days having to work several hours before going to Sunday Mass (the animals don’t know it’s Sunday and have to be cared for). Odds are good that he would have had some food to have the energy to do his work and thus been unable to receive.

I grew up in the 60s, a time when for many people monthly Confession was the average and receiving Communion was something you did for a few days or maybe a week after you’d been to confession and then not again until your next confession. Communion lines were much shorter than the lines for Confession.

 

[livingwordunity]

Thank you, that explains it clearly, so some other questions…

Why do you have to attend mass every week but communion only once a year? if communion is so important why is it recommended as a minimum of once a year? I feel slightly embarrassed asking these questions as there is probably a really simple explanation.

Reception of Holy Communion at least once a year is tied in with how we should go to Confession at least once a year. The Church isn’t saying that we should only do the minimum. She’s only telling us what the minimum is. Ideally, everyone should avoid sin at all times and thus receive Holy Communion every Sunday. But because we have a tendency to commit mortal sins, and we don’t always make it to confession when we need to, we can’t always receive Holy Communion on every Sunday.

As Saint Paul has said, “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.” -1 Corinthians 11:27-30