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Nonzi
Guest
I attend Saturday night vigil mass every week. I do not attend Sunday morning mass. Does Saturday night fulfill my duty as a Catholic to attend Sunday morning services?
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CRM_Brother
Guest
Yes.
For Solemnities and Feasts (like Sunday Mass), the liturgy begins with the vigil (or evening prayer) on the night before. There are only a few exceptions to this rule but that is only when solemnities fall on two days in a row.
Saturday night (vigil) mass fulfills your obligation to attend Sunday mass.
For Solemnities and Feasts (like Sunday Mass), the liturgy begins with the vigil (or evening prayer) on the night before. There are only a few exceptions to this rule but that is only when solemnities fall on two days in a row.
Saturday night (vigil) mass fulfills your obligation to attend Sunday mass.
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Canvas
Guest
Yes. No further explanation needed.
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Cor_ad_Cor
Guest
The obligation is to attend a Mass (any Mass) anytime on a Sunday or evening before (or Holy Day/evening before).
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Titivillus
Guest
Even when back to back Solemnities occur, assisting at Mass the evening before fulfills one’s obligation for the following day.
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Anesti33
Guest
Technically, only a few liturgies have a formal vigil: Christmas, Pentecost, Easter.
Normal Masses after Saturday Vespers are Sunday Masses. They are not, strictly speaking, “vigils”, they are not anticipated, they are the Sunday Mass, celebrated early.
It is easy and perhaps helpful to use “vigil” because it is a widely-understood shorthand for “the night before”. But you won’t see the Mass formally labeled this way by the Church’s liturgical books.
By the way, the readings and the liturgical options do not matter when fulfilling your obligation. If you attended a wedding, a funeral, or an Eastern Catholic Divine Liturgy on Saturday after about 4pm, as long as they are “Mass in a Catholic Rite”, any of those would suffice for your Sunday obligation, no matter how they were celebrated.
Normal Masses after Saturday Vespers are Sunday Masses. They are not, strictly speaking, “vigils”, they are not anticipated, they are the Sunday Mass, celebrated early.
It is easy and perhaps helpful to use “vigil” because it is a widely-understood shorthand for “the night before”. But you won’t see the Mass formally labeled this way by the Church’s liturgical books.
By the way, the readings and the liturgical options do not matter when fulfilling your obligation. If you attended a wedding, a funeral, or an Eastern Catholic Divine Liturgy on Saturday after about 4pm, as long as they are “Mass in a Catholic Rite”, any of those would suffice for your Sunday obligation, no matter how they were celebrated.
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Elf01
Guest
It does but you need to attend one Mass per obligation.
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CRM_Brother
Guest
Not always. That only works for Sundays in Ordinary time without a dispensation from the local bishop. The other Sundays fall within a higher rank of Solemnity and as such, follow slightly different rules when it comes to liturgical fulfillment of obligation.
So too, when it comes to fulfilling the obligation for a holy day of obligation and the requirements for the plenary indulgence from attending the feast of the patron Saint of a Church, the mass to fulfill that obligation must use the liturgy specified by the holy day or indulgence requirements. For example, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception is a holy day of obligation in the United States. When the feast falls on a Monday, masses celebrated on the evening before still using the Sunday liturgy (like the evening Spanish liturgies in some Churches) do not fulfill the Obligation for the Holy Day.
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edward_george1
Guest
This comes up a lot, and this is a misconception. The law simply says “Mass in a Catholic rite” fulfills the obligation. Any Mass with any readings between Saturday evening and midnight on Sunday fulfills the obligation. Full stop.
-Fr ACEGC
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CRM_Brother
Guest
We will have to disagree. The bishops are the final judiciary and legislators of canon law and every bishop of a diocese in which I have lived in have specifically stated that all evening masses on a Sunday, celebrating the Sunday liturgy, cannot fulfill the obligation.
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edward_george1
Guest
If you have a Holy Day of obligation that occurs on Monday, and you attend Mass on Sunday evening, provided you have already fulfilled your Sunday obligation, the Mass for Sunday evening fulfills the obligation. Readings don’t matter. If readings mattered, then we couldn’t fulfill our obligation at an Eastern Liturgy.
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OldCAFMember
Guest
Please provide evidence of this.
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CRM_Brother
Guest
Thus, if canon law does not specifically reserve power of enforcement to another bishop or office, then the Bishop has final say in the matter. This can only be overturned later by the ‘supreme authority’ through pontifical decree.
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OraLabora
Guest
Quibble but in most cases, Saturday evening Mass is not a Vigil Mass. It is simply the Sunday Mass, celebrated Saturday evening.
There are a few solemnities however, that have proper Vigil Masses the evening before. I can’t remember the whole list off the top of my head, but Christmas, Epiphany, Pentecost and the solemnity of St. John the Baptist are a few examples. There are others. These are proper Vigil Masses as they have distinct readings and proper texts from the Mass on the day of the solemnity. In fact Christmas has four distinct Masses: Vigil (evening), night (aka “Midnight Mass”), at dawn, and during the day, all with distinct proper texts and readings.
But for the majority of Sundays in the year, the Saturday evening Mass is simply the Sunday Mass celebrated after (usually) 4 pm on Saturday, just as the 7 am, 9 am, 11 am or whatever Masses on Sunday are all the same from the POV of texts and readings. And yes, it fulfills the obligation. You go at whichever time is most convenient for you.
There are a few solemnities however, that have proper Vigil Masses the evening before. I can’t remember the whole list off the top of my head, but Christmas, Epiphany, Pentecost and the solemnity of St. John the Baptist are a few examples. There are others. These are proper Vigil Masses as they have distinct readings and proper texts from the Mass on the day of the solemnity. In fact Christmas has four distinct Masses: Vigil (evening), night (aka “Midnight Mass”), at dawn, and during the day, all with distinct proper texts and readings.
But for the majority of Sundays in the year, the Saturday evening Mass is simply the Sunday Mass celebrated after (usually) 4 pm on Saturday, just as the 7 am, 9 am, 11 am or whatever Masses on Sunday are all the same from the POV of texts and readings. And yes, it fulfills the obligation. You go at whichever time is most convenient for you.
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phil19034
Guest
It does count.
HOWEVER, the Saturday night vigil was intended to replace Masses at midnight, 2AM, 5AM, etc for people who work on Sundays.
If you are simply going to Saturday evening so you can sleep in on Sunday, that’s not what the intent of the Saturday evening mass. Yes, it will count (per Canon Law), but it misses the point.
We are supposed to go to Mass on Sunday, while the Saturday evening Mass is intended for people who cannot attend on Sunday for some reason.
I hope this helps.
God Bless
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Anesti33
Guest
If that were a real thing, then pastors would hand out dispensations to attend Saturday Mass. They don’t, so it’s not.
We are supposed to go to Mass in a Catholic Rite that fulfills our Sunday obligation, full stop.
We are supposed to go to Mass in a Catholic Rite that fulfills our Sunday obligation, full stop.
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OldCAFMember
Guest
Um, no, I was asking for evidence that various bishops have decreed that a Sunday evening Mass would not fulfill the obligation for a Monday holy day.CRM_Brother:
Thus, if canon law does not specifically reserve power of enforcement to another bishop or office, then the Bishop has final say in the matter. This can only be overturned later by the ‘supreme authority’ through pontifical decree.
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phil19034
Guest
You are missing the point.
I said it legally counts & fulfills our Sunday obligation.
But I added that the Church did not envision people who only attend Saturday evening mass so they could sleep in on Sundays.
That is why more & more parishes are starting to have Sunday Evening masses, so people can go on Sunday evening instead of Saturday evening.
The Church DOES not make the law difficult, which is why it is not a sin to only attend Saturday evening masses.
However, that was never the intent.
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phil19034
Guest
Year after year, when Christmas falls on a Monday or Saturday, we have an obgligation to attend mass on BOTH Sunday & the holy day.
However, for some HolyDays (at least in the United States) the bishops will dispense the obligation from a HolyDay when it falls on a Saturday or Monday.
Regardless, the only way a mass on Sunday evening counts for a Holy Day obligation for a Monday Holy Day is if it is the 2nd time you attended Mass since 1st Vespers.
In other words, for a Sunday evening Mass to count as the Obligation for a Monday Holy Day of Obligation, one must have attended Sunday Mass on Saturday night or Sunday morning/afternoon.
In other words, you cannot double dip. If you have two Obligations, you must attend Mass twice.
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JulianN
Guest
I don’t think that was the question though. A poster made the claim that, for Holy Days, the Mass the evening before would only count toward the obligation if it used the readings for the Holy Day.
That’s not accurate, so the question was looking for some documentation for the claim.
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