DESPERATE HELP - holy days of obligation

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slanzill said:
As outrageous as it may sound to be a devout Catholic and not feel one should be obligated to attend mass on January 1st…it does happen. A person can be very devout in their heart and follow every rule that the church places before them, but heaven forbid they question something that they do not understand and ask for clarity and all of a sudden they are no longer a “good catholic”? Really?
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Well… no, and that’s not what has been presented here (I hope). You asked… and folks responded. A person who is “very devout in their heart and follow every rule” – is that the person who says “this rule stinks”? I get that you’re asking… but when folks who do follow the rules ask you about the rule you dislike, are they being uncharitable?
slanzill said:
For anyone to tell me that it’s “nonsense” that I would question as to why January 1st should be an “obligation” is absurd. It’s a totally legitimate question.
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No – please ask! It is a legitimate question! I gotta ask you, though – when folks respond with reasons… why are you offended?
slanzill said:
Too many wander around like robots just believe what they are told to believe and not asking any questions. This is why the church is in the mess that it is today and are losing members in droves.
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Agreed!

When you ask questions and folks give you answers, though… are you looking for reasons, or something else?
slanzill said:
If we cannot get answers to why do the things we do and why we believe the things we do
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Do you think you haven’t been given answers?
 
Do you fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday? Do you abstain from meat on Fridays of Lent?
 
If you are in the USA you have really very few holidays - In Catholic countries - such as Spain and all Latin American countries there are many - to name a few, Jan 1, Jan 6 (Ephiphany), March 19, (St. Joseph), Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, Ascension day, Corpus Christi, June 30, (St. Peter) August 15, (Assumption), August 30 (St. Rose of Lima), September 24, (Our Lady of Mercy), December 8, (Immaculate), Dec 25 (Xmas) All of them except Maundy Thursday and Good Friday with the obligation to hear Mass; and all of them are nationwide holidays, so they are not business days and nobody works. In Mexico they have December 12, Our Lady of Guadalupe; in Spain they have July 25, St James. In Peru, the Government suppressed a number of holidays about 50 years ago, but still we have quite a few.
 
1ke said:
what specifically do you think is wrong?
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I think it’s wrong to label missing a day of obligation “mortal sin”. To me this smacks of the legalism of the cult I left behind many years ago. That’s just my perspective.
 
CelticWarlord said:
I think it’s wrong to label missing a day of obligation “mortal sin”.
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It isn’t “missing a HDO” that is a sin. The sin is willful disobedience to the lawful authority Christ put over us.

If one has a reason they cannot attend, then either there is no obligation or they are excused from it.
 
1ke said:
The sin is willful disobedience
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I do understand that. I find, though, that labeling things in particular as “mortal sin” is not helpful to people like the Original Poster. I realize I offer a perspective not necessarily in accordance with the Magesterium, but that’s the Protestant Rebel still alive and well within me. Even so, I loved attending Mass yesterday and the day before and will continue to do so, obligation or not. 🙂
 
To be clear, we cannot and do not label things as “mortal sin” because we do not have enough insight into the mind of the person doing the act to know if he committed “mortal sin”. There’s an intent element that we simply can’t evaluate when we don’t know the person, don’t have all the facts, can’t read his mind, etc.

We can say something is grave matter, meaning that it’s a serious sin that has the potential to maybe be mortal and it should definitely be mentioned in confession (since we are not required to mention all venial sins). Willfully, deliberately missing Mass on a Sunday or an HDO is grave, because of the rejection of authority that 1ke mentioned. We do not know if it’s mortal. The person’s confessor would have to evaluate that.
 
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I do not agree that a person must follow every single rule to be devout. A person can be very devout in all areas of the church without agreeing with every single thing the church says one is “obligated” to do and I do not see the correlation to it being charitable.

I’m not offended when folks respond with reasons…except that they are giving me reasons that do not answer my concern. Instead I am being told I’m petty, my feelings are nonsense and made to look like a lazy person who doesn’t want to go to mass a couple of extra times a year because I don’t care. I DO NOT mind going to mass a few extra times a year. That is not the issue at all and yet that seems to be what the vast majority of posters are reading into my question/concern. This has nothing to do with not wanting to attend extra masses. I’m being told by other posters why Mary is special in the Catholic church and I DON’T NEED TO KNOW THAT. I am not looking for “reasons” why the masses are offered in her honor. I already know all that. That is not my issue at all. The masses they offer are wonderful, however we should not be pressured into feeling obligated to attend a mass that honors Mary. To me, it would make sense for that to be “optional”. Just like it is not mandatory that we attend mass everyday. It is not mandatory that we attend mass on Ash Wednesday. If we choose not to attend mass everyday, does it mean we are trying to be apart from Jesus??? Of course not. How come it’s mandatory on Mary’s feast day and not on Ash Wednesday or daily?

Okay, I’ll say it like it is…JESUS ALONE is the way the truth and the life. He is the way to salvation…NOT MARY!!! Don’t get me wrong, I love the blessed mother, I honor her, I pray to her and ask for intercession and I absolutely understand her place of honor in our church HOWEVER…She is NOT GOD. I do not worship her and for the church to tell me or anyone else that I need to attend a mass that is being said specifically to honor her or else I am in the state of mortal is offensive to me.
 
All Holy Days of Obligation are really about Jesus Christ. I don’t have time to explain this now, but I will use Jan 1st for example:

This Feast Day is about Jesus’s circumcision and that Mary is the Mother of God.

The fact that she is Mother of God is not really about her, but about who her Son is.

Even All Saints Day… we can’t have Saints in Heaven if it wasn’t for Jesus’s sacarfice on the Cross.

Even minor feast days are really all about Christ because we look to the Saints for what reason? To learn how they loved Jesus and how to emulate their Love for Christ.

So really, it’s ALL ABOUT Jesus.

God Bless
 
slanzill said:
I do not worship her and for the church to tell me or anyone else that I need to attend a mass that is being said specifically to honor her or else I am in the state of mortal is offensive to me.
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Do you ever get masses said for your personal intentions? For those who have passed on, are ill, need a little spiritual help?
 
slanzill said:
The masses they offer are wonderful, however we should not be pressured into feeling obligated to attend a mass that honors Mary.
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Mass honors first and foremost Our Lord Jesus Christ, regardless of the intention or feast or whatever assigned to the Mass day.

Nobody, including the Catholic Church, disagrees with you that Jesus Alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. You’re somehow viewing an HDO on a Marian feast day as changing the Mass from Jesus worship to Mary worship. This is an incorrect view.

If you truly loved Jesus so much, a Mass would NEVER be offensive to you. Regardless of whether the Mass was an obligation or an optional Mass, and regardless of whether the Mass being said was for Corpus Christi, Solemnity of Mary, All Saints, or a day in ordinary time in remembrance of somebody’s deceased Aunt Sandra.

You have also shown quite clearly on the thread that you are vehemently resistant to every good argument or suggestion given to you to get past this. You don’t want to get past this. You just want to keep being offended. The Church is not going to change this because you are offended.

You really need to go talk to Jesus about this.
 
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slanzill said:
Okay, I’ll say it like it is…JESUS ALONE is the way the truth and the life. He is the way to salvation…NOT MARY!!!
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And I’ve already told you that the Marian feast days celebrate truths about Jesus and defend against Christological heresies, which is how these feasts came to be.

Seems you want to ignore this fact.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Willfully, deliberately missing Mass on a Sunday or an HDO is grave, because of the rejection of authority that 1ke mentioned. We do not know if it’s mortal.
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Hmm… sure sounds like you just gave the very definition of ‘mortal sin’, though… 🤔
slanzill said:
A person can be very devout in all areas of the church without agreeing with every single thing the church says one is “obligated” to do and I do not see the correlation to it being charitable.
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You and I have different definitions of what ‘devout’ means, then. (I hate going by dictionary definitions, but when I looked up ‘devout’ just now, one that caught my eye was “totally devoted to a cause”. That pretty much sounded right to me.) So, to my mind, ‘devout’ means totally devoted to practice of the teachings of the Church.

Maybe you mean something else – something slightly different? Something that means that you generally agree with the Church’s doctrines, but feel free to do something different when it strikes you to do so?
slanzill said:
How come it’s mandatory on Mary’s feast day and not on Ash Wednesday or daily?
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Because Ash Wednesday doesn’t celebrate an event in Jesus’ life or the life of a saint. (As I already mentioned, the celebration on January 1 is that Mary is Mother of God – the Theotokos – which is a celebration, ultimately, about Jesus.)
slanzill said:
Okay, I’ll say it like it is…JESUS ALONE is the way the truth and the life. He is the way to salvation…NOT MARY!!!

… HOWEVER…She is NOT GOD. I do not worship her
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Well… no Catholic who knows what he’s talking about would suggest that we worship Mary, right? When you go to Mass on January 1, do you think that we’re worshipping Mary?
slanzill said:
for the church to tell me or anyone else that I need to attend a mass that is being said specifically to honor her or else I am in the state of mortal is offensive to me.
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That Mass is being celebrated to honor Jesus’ incarnation by a human birth to a human person. That’s a subtle – but critically important! – distinction!

I’m sorry that you feel offended by a teaching/instruction given by the Church. It’s kinda her job to teach… 🤷‍♂️
 
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This is because there is no official record of the first Confession, so, parishes cannot report how many made First Confession up to the Diocese, let alone report how many go to Confession. It does not mean fewer Confessions are heard, it is that as part of keeping the seal no one is counting.
 
slanzill said:
She is NOT GOD. I do not worship her
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Good thing, because if you worship Mary as a God or as part of God, it is a very serious sin of idolatry. I know people who have been seduced by that heresy and have been officially excommunicated by the Vatican for it (there were other serious heresies that this group supported, but, Mary as God was one piece).

Christ himself honored Mary, He is our example.
 
They could easily have taken statistics such as number of scheduled confession times, time per week of scheduled confession. Not that different than number of masses, etc.
One get the impression it never crossed their mind.
 
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My take on missing holy mass on holy days of obligation
is that the Church NEEDS us when these particular days,
Sunday, Ash Wednesday, etc… If we fail to join w/ the
Faithful in worship on those days, we offend not only
God, but His Church that Christ is building, His body
on earth!!
 
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