Is it okay to miss Mass to visit my sick father?

[Agent]

I traveled 400 miles on Friday to see my father. I was with him on Saturday and some of Sunday, and traveled back home Sunday afternoon. He had cancer surgery on Monday. I missed Mass on Sunday to be with my father. Is this a sin?

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

Unless you were your father’s caretaker for the entire visit – perhaps because you were the only one who could give his regular caretaker a needed respite – there appears to be no reason you could not have taken an hour sometime in the day-and-a-half of your visit to go to Mass. You have asked a similar question before, which indicates to me that missing Mass is something with which you struggle. If that is the case, then I can only recommend that, rather than seek out excuses to miss Mass, you do all that you can to attend Mass on Sundays and holy days. If you demonstrate to family and friends that attending Mass is important to you, they will do all that they can to accommodate you so you can go. And going to Mass will give you the opportunity to pray for your father’s health at the foot of Christ’s cross.