DESPERATE HELP - holy days of obligation

[Limoncello4021]

I find the whole discussion strange. To honor Jesus and obey Him is to obey, with humility and acceptance, His precepts in His Church. It is true that different areas, cultures, and times have had different local precepts, such as Holy Days of Obligation. Count me with those in this thread who are puzzled that the OP doesn’t “get” the fact that God commands us through His authorities on earth, as a good Father, to worship Him and set aside days of particular worship and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass–Sundays and Holy Days. And that when we honor Mary on such a Holy Day we are honoring God who worked through her to effect our salvation.
I don’t see what the issue here is except lack of humility and an odd legalism or, better put, “my preference above God’s” attitude. We often are called to do things we don’t particularly like. Let’s grow up and rejoice in our Catholic faith.

 

[Phemie]

How do you feel about the other Holy Days of Obligation??

 

[Gorgias]

What on earth does my GEOGRAPHY have to do with being in Mortal Sin and my salvation???

It has to do with obedience to the legitimate authority of the Church.

Sometimes, folks will come up with a similar red herring argument, using Friday abstinence as their example. They’ll say “fifty years ago, it was a grave sin to eat a hamburger on the Friday after Easter. Today, it is not. Does that hamburger eaten on a Friday, fifty years ago, cause eternal damnation?”

And the answer to that question, as is the answer to yours, would be, “no – it’s the intended and willing defiance of Church law that condemns, in this case.”

HDO are created by Bishops (who are not infallible like the Pope).

The question is authority, not infallibility. The Church gives the bishops (or, as it were, conference of bishops) the authority to set aside certain holydays of obligation. Therefore, the bishops’ decisions are authoritative.

In light of finding out that Catholics around the word have different requirements tells me more than ever that there is no possible way it can be a mortal sin.

No. It just tells you that the Church is not the monolithic beast that you seem to perceive her as…

A sin is a sin is a sin. Doesn’t matter where you live or where you are. Impossible to be a sin in one place and not the other. Just ridiculous.

In some localities, it’s legal to marry one’s first cousin. In others, it is not. Is that ‘ridiculous’? It’s the same example…

 

[Gorgias]

HOWEVER telling someone that they will GO TO HELL for not doing something that is not required of everyone is wrong.

Fasting and abstinence is a grave requirement. Those who are under the age of 14 aren’t required to do either. So, what is a sin for one is not a sin for another. Is that ‘wrong’, too?

You people are like robots.

And, there you go. “You people”. Got it.

Jesus Christ is my authority and rules put in place by the Pope to whom he left the keys to the kingdom to. Not a bunch of bishops sitting around a table trying to change things up.

So… Jesus delegates all authority to the pope, and that’s ok.

But… when a pope delegates some limited authority to a bishop… that’s not ok?

 

[DeniseNY]

The obstinacy of the OP will not be overcome here. There’s nothing left to do but encourage him to seek further counsel from his pastor, and pray for him.

 

[Dorothy]

And it is a joy and a treasure to go to Mass!

 

[Cruciferi]

Yes. Either there’s a severe deficiency in Catechesis here or an Agenda.

 

[Margaret_Ann]

As the old saying goes: “Whoever honors Christ, honors Mary; whoever honors Mary, honors Christ.”

Personally, I love HDOs.

True trivia tidbit: Sundays ARE Holy Days of Obligation.

 

[Cruciferi]

True trivia tidbit: Sundays ARE Holy Days of Obligation.

Whaaat?! So unfair…

 

[Margaret_Ann]

Of course they are. Sunday in the early Church was the Day of Obligation: “We cannot live without Sunday!” People were martyred for attending the Liturgy/Mass/Qorbono on Sundays.

 

[JimG]

If I recall correctly, every Mass honors Mary, as well as the angels and saints. She is mentioned in every Eucharist Prayer, and in Eucharistic Prayer 1 several saints are listed by name. So if one is intent on avoiding any Mass which gives honor to Mary, one would have to avoid every Mass. And that would be a shame since every Mass is a re-presentation of Jesus sacrifice which secured our salvation.

 

[LilyM]

Look, OP, think of the Church as having a system not dissimilar to a federated country (the US being a primo example).

Some issues (border security, foreign relations, defence etc) are fairly and squarely within the powers of the federal government.

Some (such as slavery, abortion and gay marriage) are areas that didn’t start out being specifically federal but because they involve overarching themes of, eg, human rights, the federal government/court systems have intervened and set principles that are binding on all states.

Some (one being the age of consent for sex/marriage etc) are purely state issues. The federal government has no interest in dictating to states exactly what age of consent they should legislate. On that issues, not only do legislative norms vary from state to state but from time to time throughout history - usually trending upwards.

In this last category - yes, the state has power to set these norms, change these norms as it sees fit, and to set punishments (pretty harsh ones) on those who do not comply. The fact that across the state border the age of consent may be lower, isn’t going to fly if I am charged with an offence today in MY state. Neither is the fact that five or fifty years ago the age of consent was lower in my state.

The fact is being a citizen of the US means you agree to be subject to local, state and federal laws, as they are from time to time. The fact that details of things like age of consent may vary or be changed is no reason at all to dismiss the whole concept of an ‘age of consent’ as either ridiculous or illegitimate.

Similarly - the Church’s central governing authorities set certain church-wide standards (such as Canon Law). They have full authority to do so. That same Canon Law often delegates decisions on various matters, including HDOs, to bishops in respect of their own dioceses. Again, the Church has full authority to delegate power to bishops in this fashion. If you accept the authority of the Church, you accept the decisions of those who it delegates to make decisions on disciplinary matters.

 

[LateranBasilica]

I asked you a question. You are free to answer or not. However, your response is insulting, degrading and uncharitable. Stating someone is missing the point is quite rude. And the rest of your response is aggressive.

Speak to your priest about this. Or write to the Vatican.

Quite simply we honour Mary as the mother of our Saviour. Mary could have said no. In saying yes, Mary knew she was open to being stoned to death.
If you are unsure why, read Jewish law .

Mary fed and nurtured and hid our Saviour when Herod was after Him.
It’s no easy thing to give birth, have a young baby, and flee In winter, across hundreds of miles on a donkey into another country.
Ever tried it?

 

[Thom18]

@slanzill You do know that ancient Israel had “Holy Days of Obligation” in addition to regular synagogue attendance, right? Does Passover ring a bell?

The Church is given the authority by Christ to impose certain obligations for us- refusing to attend because we disagree with the Church’s decision on mandating a certain day is rebellion against God Himself. When we go against those whom He sends us, we go against Him.

 

[LilyM]

Jesus Christ is my authority and rules put in place by the Pope to whom he left the keys to the kingdom to. Not a bunch of bishops sitting around a table trying to change things up.

Funny - in Acts of the Apostles there is dispute among the Apostles as to whether Gentile Christians should be allowed, among other things, to eat with the Jewish Christians. Peter, the keeper of the keys, did not choose to simply make a decree about it from on high and with no reference to his fellow Apostles. Instead, the 12 met together and debated the issues before Peter made his decision.

And if his decision had been “each of you is allowed to choose how things are done in your own bishopric”, that would have been just as valid a decision as any. I wonder why you seem to think it isn’t.

That first Church Council sounds very much like ‘a bunch of bishops sitting around a table’ to me.

 

[paperwight]

Abstaining from meat is required every Friday in England .

[/quote]

Actually, no. The Bishops have requested it, as being a means of strengthening our identity as Catholics and also as an act of solidarity with the poor. But it is not required in the sense of it being a sin if another act of self-denial is substituted, and certainly not a mortal sin if ignored altogether.

 

[TheLittleLady]

No, it means that we are under the authority of our Bishops.

Think of it as your neighbors growing up when you were a kid. You had a 9 PM bedtime, the neighbor kids had an 11 PM bedtime. The one time you tried to use that as an excuse to stay up, your mom said “if you want to go live with the Smith Family, then you can have an 11 PM bedtime”.

This is not about some gotcha game, it is about submitting ourselves, it is about loving our Bishops.

Heck, back to Marian feasts, if you invited me to your mom’s birthday party and I refused to go simply because I thought having a party for your mom was senseless, would we stay friends for long?

 

[tafan2]

@slanzill, your have been given many answers, I will try one more.

Lets start with the whole idea of the Precepts of the Church. Here is what the catechism says

2041 The precepts of the Church are set in the context of a moral life bound to and nourished by liturgical life. The obligatory character of these positive laws decreed by the pastoral authorities is meant to guarantee to the faithful the very necessary minimum in the spirit of prayer and moral effort, in the growth in love of God and neighbor

Ignoring for the time being what the precepts are, the concept of having precepts such as these certainly makes sense. A rough analogy is marriage: the absolute minimum of what we must do for our spouse is to be faithful. If we do not at least do that, we can certainly say our marriage is not going to go too smoothly. Well, as Christians, we all want to follow Christs’ top two commandmanets: love of God and love of neighbor. What is the minimum we must do to achieve this? Well, we could all come up with our own, but the Church answers this for us, it gives us a basic set of 5 laws we must follow. Not following these laws, not doing the minimum, says that we do not care about the love of God and neighbor, hence we are entering into mortal sin.
That is the answer as too why not following the precepts is a mortal sin, we are literally turning away from God, just as a husband who has an affair is literally turning away from his wife.

So the now lets move onto the first precept:

[2042] The first precept (“You shall attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation and rest from servile labor”) requires the faithful to sanctify the day commemorating the Resurrection of the Lord as well as the principal liturgical feasts honoring the mysteries of the Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the saints; in the first place, by participating in the Eucharistic celebration, in which the Christian community is gathered, and by resting from those works and activities which could impede such a sanctification of these days.

Again, this is rather clear. You seemingly have no problem with the requirement to sanctify Sundays and a holy day such as Christmas. But you consider it wrong to have to sanctify a feast day honoring Mary or the saints. For one thing, the selection of holy days is left to the national bishops because different parts of the world have different histories of what is important to them. For instance, in Mexico, the feast day of Our Lady of Guadelupe is immensely important. But that is likely not to be the case in a country such as England. So the different days in different countries again make sense. But why a Marian feast day? Why is some level of honor to Mary required for us to grow in love of God and neighbor? Because honoring Mary, praying for her intercession, etc are all part of the Catholic Faith. Some people may do it more than others, but there is a bare minimum. And failing to honor God’s mother to the minimum establish by the authority of the Church (is that in question?) is obviously telling God, we do not care in the least about your mother.

 

[buc_fan33]

By the way, it’s worth noting that this isn’t a matter of infallibility. Infallibility and the indefectability of the Church are charisms given to the Pope and the bishops in union with him in very specific instances, always dealing with a matter of faith and/or morals. This is a matter of discipline. Not faith, and not morals.

The universal church establishes hold days of obligation. I believe there are nine of these universally. I’m not sure where the OP is from, but in the United States (where most posters here are probably from) many of these have been abrogated (St. Joseph, March 19) or transferred to Sunday (Ascension in most dioceses and Corpus Christi as two examples). This really is not burdensome.

Finally, one more point regarding infallibility. This charism DOES extend to the bishops. Their exercise of the ordinary magisterium of the church is deemed to be infallible. Please see Lumen Gentium (I couldn’t tell you which paragraph off the top of my head…24 maybe…IDK, but it’s in there).

Once again, I reiterate, this is really not burdensome. Personally, I’d like to see us expand hold days of obligation. I’d like to see Asccension, Corpus Christi, and Epiphany celebrated when they are supposed to be rather than transferred to Sunday out of convenience. I’d like to see the obligation around the Solemnity of St. Joseph restored. Personally, I think the Annunciation should be obligatory as well. However, the bishops have deemed something else here in the US. That’s fine. That’s their prerogative. Our responsibility as faithful sons and daughters of Holy Mother Church is to exercise filial piety and out of love for the Church and the saints/events remembered on these days, celebrate the Sacred Mysteries (I.e. Holy Mass) with joy.

 

[Gorgias]

Abstaining from meat is required every Friday in England .

Actually, no. The Bishops have requested it, as being a means of strengthening our identity as Catholics and also as an act of solidarity with the poor. But it is not required in the sense of it being a sin if another act of self-denial is substituted, and certainly not a mortal sin if ignored altogether.

Actually, yes. See this text from the statement of the Bishops’ Conference, as quoted in the Catholic Herald, re-establishing abstinence as the form of Friday penance:

in accordance with the mind of the whole Church, the Bishops’ Conference wishes to remind all Catholics in England and Wales of the obligation of Friday Penance. The Bishops have decided to re-establish the practice that this should be fulfilled by abstaining from meat. Those who cannot or choose not to eat meat as part of their normal diet should abstain from some other food of which they regularly partake.

So… Friday penance is obligatory, and the bishops have re-established that abstinence is the normative way to fulfill that obligation in their local churches.