Is it a mortal sin to forget to go to a holy day of obligation?

[TeamCaptain]

So I forgot to go to the holy day of obligation last Thursday. My reason is I am at college and I had a **** load of work with a project due that day that I was working on with someone all day. I actually put it on my calendar last week so I would not forget and I intended on going. Although this project I was working on literally took my mind completely off of church. After I was done with the project I was like “Oh **** I forgot to go to church.” Would this be a mortal sin?

 

[Crusading_Canuk]

Mortal sin requires full knowledge and consent, personally I can’t see how actually forgetting about the obligation would be a mortal sin; intentionally disregarding it is another matter altogether though! It’s like if it’s a Friday or other day of abstinence and you find yourself eating a steak diner, and only remember afterwards; did you sin? Possibly, so the most I could say would be to mention it in your next confession.

 

[kmuestwin]

Yes. It is a mortal sin. The day was a Holy Day of Obligation so there really is no excuse excluding illness or caring for small children.

Please go to confession.

On a side note, typing “*****” doesn’t really add anything to a post. It just makes it seem like you don’t know how to express yourself very well.

 

[Scoobyshme]

We can never sin outside of our free will. If you did not willingly miss Mass on Thursday, then there was no mortal sin. You can mention it next time you go to Confession, since Confession absolves you of venial sin, too.

 

[odile53]

There’s a difference between forgetting and disregarding. If you really forgot, it’s not a mortal sin. If you suddenly remembered late in the evening when it was too late to get to Mass, that isn’t a mortal sin, either.

 

[graceandglory]

So I forgot to go to the holy day of obligation last Thursday. My reason is I am at college and I had a **** load of work with a project due that day that I was working on with someone all day. I actually put it on my calendar last week so I would not forget and I intended on going. Although this project I was working on literally took my mind completely off of church. After I was done with the project I was like “Oh **** I forgot to go to church.” Would this be a mortal sin?

I"m with you on this question. How culpable are my non-driving teenagers, who were working at at college classes that night, for missing Mass? I suppose they could have waken up early, walked a mile to Church, walked two miles to school in 25 degree weather, and skipped their first class, I suppose. They didn’t make that effort this time around. I was not able to take them, as I work in a Catholic school, and had to be at work at that time.

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[graceandglory]

I"m with you on this question. How culpable are my non-driving teenagers, one was at work, and the other in a college class that night, for missing Mass? I suppose they could have waken up early, walked a mile to Church, walked two miles to school in 25 degree weather, and skipped their first class, I suppose. They didn’t make that effort this time around. I was not able to take them, as I work in a Catholic school, and had to be at work at that time.

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[Aelred_Minor]

As others have said if you forgot then you forgot, that’s all. For a sin to be mortal, indeed for it to be a sin at all, there needs to be a decision to do it, which wasn’t present here.

Of course, one would have to look at whether one did everything one should have in order to remember. It sounds like you did make an effort by putting it on your calendar, but perhaps you did wrongly lose track of religion in the course of worldly pursuits, so there may be some guilt there. We are very much talking about venial levels of sin here though, it seems to me.

 

[1ke]

I"m with you on this question. How culpable are my non-driving teenagers, who were working at at college classes that night, for missing Mass? I suppose they could have waken up early, walked a mile to Church, walked two miles to school in 25 degree weather, and skipped their first class, I suppose. They didn’t make that effort this time around. I was not able to take them, as I work in a Catholic school, and had to be at work at that time.

Just want to interject that sometimes I think we (and I include “me” in “we”) are very soft.

My husband’s grandfather walked 14 miles to attend Christmas Eve Mass and then 14 miles home. That is how important Mass was to the family, they didn’t have a parish in their town at the time… it was a mission of the parish he walked to. This was in the early 1900s in Wisconsin, so yes it was very cold. He walked 5 hours for the **privilege **of attending Mass and 5 hours home.

So, yeah, a little schedule rearranging for college age students in this day and age with all the resources available to them is certainly something they could have, and should have, done IMHO.

 

[corsair]

I would agree that to commit a mortal sin you must consent to it and have full knowledge that it reall is a sin. However, this can be a “slippery slope” as “forgetting” can be used to justify a lot of things. An honest, I forgot, is not a sin.

God Bless

 

[Allegra]

I"m with you on this question. How culpable are my non-driving teenagers, who were working at at college classes that night, for missing Mass? I suppose they could have waken up early, walked a mile to Church, walked two miles to school in 25 degree weather, and skipped their first class, I suppose. They didn’t make that effort this time around. I was not able to take them, as I work in a Catholic school, and had to be at work at that time.

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They would have been perfectly justified in missing their first class to attend Mass and three miles worth of cab fare couldn’t be that much. Only your kids and God know, however, if they truely wanted to go and didn’t have the resources or gumption to make the needed arrangements, or if they just pleaded inconvenience to get out of something they didn’t want to do. On the other hand, if any effort or thought went into the notion of attending Mass for the purpose of serving God, that’s a good sign.
I remember my neighbor coming over and making a big deal of how holy her kids were for wanting to go to Mass on Ash Wenesday. His daughter was in my gym class and she showed up to school about ten minutes before lunch time, carrying a cup of soda from McDonalds and bragging about how she’d gotten out of the mile run by driving her brothers to church and having a two hour brunch afterwards.

 

[MartyrForJesus]

If you forgot to go, then no it’s not a mortal sin. If you knew there was an obligation that you needed to go to, and washed it off like it was no biggie, then yes it was a mortal sin.

 

[puzzleannie]

So I forgot to go to the holy day of obligation last Thursday. ?

it is not a mortal sin to forget anything. A sin requires full knowledge, intention and free will consent. no deliberate intent to sin means no sin.

 

[Cider]

From the CCC

1857 For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: "Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent."131

1858 Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man: "Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and your mother."132 The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger.

1859 Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart133 do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.

 

[stanczyk]

These threads about “is this or that a mortal sin” always boil down to the same thing. A mortal sin does require intent, so absent intent, it is only venial. Obviously, if you’re concerned that it may be mortal, you’re best option is to confess it right away. It is impossible for any person to look into the heart of a sinner and say that this or that sin was mortal. This is for God to judge.

That being said, I have to disagree with some of the comments above (and please keep in mind that the following comments are generalized observation and not directed at OP or anybody else in particular). If one “forgets” a holy day of obligation, due to absent-minedness or what have you, I don’t think this means there was no intent. I think it is incumbent upon us as Catholics to take adequate precautions so as not to forget. One must mark it down on the calendar, or tie a ribbon on the finger, or what have you, if you are the sort of person who is apt to forget what day it is. This is especially true of holy days of obligation, which fall outside of the ordinary routine and so are more likely to be forgotten. If I haven’t got then intent to remember, then I’d say I’ve failed in my duty as a Catholic.

So I don’t think this is as simple as “shirking = mortal” and “forgetting = venial.” The real analysis should be “why did I forget? did I make adequate preparations to avoid forgetting? were there any extenuating circumstance?” etc.

 

[1ke]

The real analysis should be “why did I forget? did I make adequate preparations to avoid forgetting? were there any extenuating circumstance?” etc.

I totally agree. I don’t think it’s as simple as remembering versus forgetting. I think it is about planning and priorities. Did you plan ahead to ensure your assignments were done ahead of time so that you could attend Mass? For me, since I am working, did I block my calendar so no one schedules a late meeting? Or did I plan the family activities so that we could attend? Did you think ahead about who you could get a ride with or who would babysit, etc?

I think some people (not necessarily the OP) blame forgetting or not being able to go on circumstances… but those circumstances could have been planned for.

Real reasons to miss mass are actual illness, inclement weather making driving dangerous, etc.