Daily Mass goer needs advice!

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Fergal

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Hi Folks,
I have a slight quandry that I need your learned advice on. I am a daily Mass goer and only recently was asked to help out with the local scout brigade as they are very short on male leaders. Since my two children are in the scouts at level 1 and 2 and since I realise the tremendous importance of gender balance, I felt I could not refuse their request. We meet on Saturday mornings from 10 to 11.15am.

There was always an 8.30 Mass at our Parish which I attended before I went to my meeting at 10am. Only recently a new Parish Priest was installed and the Pastoral Council decided to rearrange our weekly Mass schedule. The 8.30am Saturday morning Mass was dropped from the schedule and the 10am Mass was left as the only “Mass of the day” in our Parish.

My problem is that there is no other place that offers an early morning Mass on Saturdays that is even remotely close to me. The earliest time is 10am which conflicts with my social commitment! Since I dearly love to go to Mass each day and have done over the past 2 years, is it ok to go to the Saturday evening vigil Mass and count it as a Mass for Saturday and go again Sunday, counting it as a Mass for Sunday?

Maybe I am being absolutely pedantic about all this but it worries me slightly since Saturday is the memorial day to Our Blessed Lady and love to receive communion and offer it for the intentions of her heart.
 
Well there is the alterntive of watching EWTN’s Daily Mass and doing Spiritual Communion.

Going for Saturday Evening Mass fulfills your Sunday Mass obligation.
 
By all means, go to the Saturday evening Mass. Even though it’s the liturgy for Sunday, it will allow you to keep your commitment to attend Mass daily. It will also not preclude your receiving Communion on Sunday morning.

Don’t give up!

By the way, if you haven’t already done it, check out masstimes.org . There may be a Mass close by on Saturdays that you weren’t aware of.

Hope that helps.
 
I think it is wonderful that you are making this sacrifice for the work of God. God Bless You!!!
 
I don’t really have a suggestion for you, Fergal, but I mourn the tendency (and I saw the same thing happen at my former parish) to eliminate the earlier daily Mass, leaving only the later one. In most cases, the people who can make the later Mass can also make the earlier one, just by getting up earlier, but it doesn’t work the other way around for people who have to go to work.

In my former parish, the earlier daily Mass was eliminated – the reasoning was that too many people couldn’t make that Mass because they had to drive their kids to school. Well, a few of the daily communicants did a survey of everyone attending daily Mass one day. It turns out that a large percentage of the early Mass attendees would not be able to make the later Mass (because they had to leave for work), but only one of the later Mass attendees had the driving-kids-to-school situation. The results were brought to the attention of the pastor, but to no avail.
 
Keep the faith I will share what happened to me

I am able to go to my own parish for daily Mass everyday but Thursday, For the past few years I have been going to another parish that had an evening Mass. This past summer they stopped having it except for once a month
I was really upset but put it in the Lord’s hands. I told him I wanted to go to Mass. During the summer I was often able to go to our Mass at noon but that would end with school starting.
One day at the pool a friend was asking me about how we use to see each other at that Mass.(It happened to be her parish) My sister over heard and said. "Did you know that StThomas is starting a 630 Mass this week.

I felt like the Lord did it for me. Now unfortunately this week i didn’t make it because that was the only time to see my brother during his fast stop on his way through town. (I only see him once or twice a year) I felt that seeing him was important. But next Thursday I will be at Mass once again thanking the Lord for providing it
 
In my parish (as well as my old one before I moved), there is no morning Mass celebrated on Saturdays, only the Sunday vigil mass on Saturday eve. This is probably because there are so few attendees during weekdays, and if there is going to be just one celebration on Saturdays that would have to be the Sunday vigil Mass.

I try to attend Mass as often as possible, and if there was a Saturday morning Mass I would definitaly attend it. But since there are none, I am not sure if there is anything to earn in going to Sunday vigil Mass instead as a substitute. If the vigil Mass really is a Sunday Mass, what’s the difference between attending Saturday eve and Sunday morning from attending Sunday morning and Sunday eve? No one would do the latter, so is there really a point in doing the former?

Even if I often attend Mass during weekdays, I still look forward to the Sunday eucharist as the main event of the week, and if I have already heard the readings and the homily of the Sunday Mass during Saturday eve, it takes away some of the “surprise”, if you know what I mean. And I can’t get rid of the feeling that attending vigil Mass if you intend to attend the solemn Mass on Sunday morning is a little superfluous. But at the same time - if you really are commited to attend Mass every day, maybe it would be logical to attend the Sunday vigil Mass as a substitute anyway? Do you have any advice about this?
 
Sure, you get the same readings, and possibly even the same homily, on a Saturday vigil as on a Sunday … but you get to receive Our Lord in Communion twice!!! That is after all THE most important part of the Mass, and every additional chance to receive the Eucharist brings so many extra graces.

For me that’s well worth sitting through the same readings twice.
 
So receiving communion during both the Saturday eve vigil Mass and the Sunday morning Mass wouldn’t be the same as receiving communion during both the Sunday morning Mass and the Sunday evening Mass? How about receiving communion during both Saturday morning and Saturday evening Mass?
 
Lucky for all of you who have a choice of attending morning Mass on Saturdays. Most parishes here with only one priest have no Mass before the anticipated Saturday evening Mass unless there is a funeral or wedding. I hope the evening Mass enables one to keep the First Saturdays devotion.
 
You can receive communion twice in any day (provided the SECOND time is at a Mass, first time can be any legitimate way, such as at a Communion Service). So you can exercise any of the options given above - or you could in theory go to Mass twice on a Tuesday (say morning and evening) and receive both times.

The MASS on Sunday is obligatory and different from weekday Masses in that way - certain additional prayers such as the Creed are required to be said. Communion, however, is Communion is Communion regardless of the day. And you can receive twice in any given midnight-to-midnight period, it’s not considered the same communion just because the readings are the same. After all, in three years the same readings even are going to roll around again, and that will DEFINITELY be a different Mass 😉

And yes, Saturday evening Mass does fulfil the First Saturday obligations 😃
 
Fergal said:
Hi Folks,
… is it ok to go to the Saturday evening vigil Mass and count it as a Mass for Saturday and go again Sunday, counting it as a Mass for Sunday?

Maybe I am being absolutely pedantic about all this but it worries me slightly since Saturday is the memorial day to Our Blessed Lady and love to receive communion and offer it for the intentions of her heart.
Click to expand...
I don’t see any problem at all. A Mass is a Mass.
Our lady always points to Jesus.
Jesus always points to our lady.

God bless you!
 
Fergal, they are correct, the Vigil Mass substitutes well for your Saturday devotion. I am pleased that you are working with the Scouts. I have been involved with American Scouts for over 40 years. I don’t think there is another youth program, outside of church, that instills values like the Scouting program does. Do the Scouts in Ireland have an opportunity to earn a religous award through their church? One exercise I ask our Catholic lads to do is to find parallels between the Ten Commandments and the Twelve points of the Scout Law. They really reinforce one another. My wife and daughter, Norah Denise and Norah Catherine return from a tour of Ireland tonight. My wife’s father was from Kanturk on the Blue Pool, County Cork. Linehan was the name.
 
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