Is non-Sunday Mass Valid?

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SwissGuard25

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Hello.

So as we all know it is required by the Church that we all must take one day of the week out of our lives and dedicate it to our Father i.e. Sunday Mass. So if a person is unable to attend Sunday a mass is a mass that is not on Sunday considered valid as a Sabbath for the specific person? For example: Stanley’s job makes him work Sundays, but he has Saturdays and Wednesdays off.
If he were to attend mass on one off this days would it allow him to skip Sunday Mass?

Thanks

Take Care and
God Bless
 
SwissGuard25 said:
Hello.

So as we all know it is required by the Church that we all must take one day of the week out of our lives and dedicate it to our Father i.e. Sunday Mass. So if a person is unable to attend Sunday a mass is a mass that is not on Sunday considered valid as a Sabbath for the specific person? For example: Stanley’s job makes him work Sundays, but he has Saturdays and Wednesdays off.
If he were to attend mass on one off this days would it allow him to skip Sunday Mass?

Thanks

Take Care and
God Bless
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No. Nothing can replace worship on the Lord’s Day. A priest can dispense him of coming on Sundays. He may also be required to attend on another day but it is more for the good of his soul rather than replacing Sunday. You cannot replace Sunday.
 
SwissGuard25 said:
Hello.

So as we all know it is required by the Church that we all must take one day of the week out of our lives and dedicate it to our Father i.e. Sunday Mass. So if a person is unable to attend Sunday a mass is a mass that is not on Sunday considered valid as a Sabbath for the specific person? For example: Stanley’s job makes him work Sundays, but he has Saturdays and Wednesdays off.
If he were to attend mass on one off this days would it allow him to skip Sunday Mass?

Thanks

Take Care and
God Bless
Click to expand...
Actually the teaching is not ‘one day of the week’ but SUNDAY (or of course the Saturday VIGIL which means after 4 p.m., not a Saturday morning Mass). You will find that the Catechism specifically states that Catholics are OBLIGED to attend Mass on ALL SUNDAYS and HOLY DAYS OF OBLIGATION.

Now if the man attended Saturday vigil Mass because he worked on Sunday, that would be fine.

BUT he could NOT attend on the Wednesday IN LIEU of Sunday. There are no ‘substitutions’. Of course he could attend on Wednesday as an expression of personal piety, but it would NOT be considered a substitute for Sunday Mass.

Hope that helps.

Caveat: IF this man cannot attend either on Saturday or on Sunday, he may go to his priest who MAY release him from the obligation to attend. (That means, the obligation is still there but the person is permitted to ‘miss’.) This would probably not be a long term solution except in the rarest of cases.

But the best thing to do is to talk with the priest if such a situation were to arise.
 
We are required to attend Sunday Mass, not just “attend Mass one day a week”. The thing to remember is that for liturgical purposes, Sunday begins on the evening of the Saturday prior. If your hypothetical person could not attend Mass on Sunday proper (at any time in the morning, afternoon or evening), he would fulfill his obligation by attending Mass on the evening of the Saturday before, but not on any other day (and not on Saturday morning or Saturday afternoon).
 
SwissGuard25 said:
Hello.

So as we all know it is required by the Church that we all must take one day of the week out of our lives and dedicate it to our Father i.e. Sunday Mass. So if a person is unable to attend Sunday a mass is a mass that is not on Sunday considered valid as a Sabbath for the specific person? For example: Stanley’s job makes him work Sundays, but he has Saturdays and Wednesdays off.
If he were to attend mass on one off this days would it allow him to skip Sunday Mass?

Thanks

Take Care and
God Bless
Click to expand...
As others have stated we have a Sunday Mass OBLIGATION. How is that fulfilled? By attending Mass on a Sunday or on a Saturday evening.
Weekday Masses do not fulfill that obligation.
 
SwissGuard25 said:
Hello.

So as we all know it is required by the Church that we all must take one day of the week out of our lives and dedicate it to our Father i.e. Sunday Mass. So if a person is unable to attend Sunday a mass is a mass that is not on Sunday considered valid as a Sabbath for the specific person? For example: Stanley’s job makes him work Sundays, but he has Saturdays and Wednesdays off.
If he were to attend mass on one off this days would it allow him to skip Sunday Mass?

Thanks

Take Care and
God Bless
Click to expand...
Discuss it with your priest. I have heard that when a person needs to consistently work on weekends and definitely cannot attend Mass, he/she can discuss it with their priest and attend on a weekday.
 
Dorothy said:
Discuss it with your priest. I have heard that when a person needs to consistently work on weekends and definitely cannot attend Mass, he/she can discuss it with their priest and attend on a weekday.
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Good answer to discuss with priest. . .but even IF the person attended on the weekday, the weekday would NOT SUBSTITUTE for the Sunday. The person’s Sunday obligation might be lifted for a period of time, and a weekly Mass might be the person’s choice to maintain ties with the community or as a personal devotion, but there simply is no way that any weekday (Mon-Fri non Holy Day of Obligation) Mass can SUBSTITUTE for Sunday obligation.

It would be like TV Mass. A person, especially a shut-in, can watch as a personal devotional practice but it does not substitute for attending Mass. A shut-in person who can’t attend Mass does not have the obligation to attend because God does not hold us to impossibilities. Should the shut-in at any point recover enough to be physically/mentally capable of attending Mass, then he or she must attend Mass THEN even if he or she had been incapable of doing that for years before.
 
Tantum_ergo said:
Good answer to discuss with priest. . .but even IF the person attended on the weekday, the weekday would NOT SUBSTITUTE for the Sunday. The person’s Sunday obligation might be lifted for a period of time, and a weekly Mass might be the person’s choice to maintain ties with the community or as a personal devotion, but there simply is no way that any weekday (Mon-Fri non Holy Day of Obligation) Mass can SUBSTITUTE for Sunday obligation.

It would be like TV Mass. A person, especially a shut-in, can watch as a personal devotional practice but it does not substitute for attending Mass. A shut-in person who can’t attend Mass does not have the obligation to attend because God does not hold us to impossibilities. Should the shut-in at any point recover enough to be physically/mentally capable of attending Mass, then he or she must attend Mass THEN even if he or she had been incapable of doing that for years before.
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Thank you for clarifying that.
 
Others have said it, but I’ll say it again. A weekday mass (other than a vigil mass on Saturday evening, which would not be called a weekday mass) does not fulfill the Sunday Obligation.

However, if a person is truly unable to attend mass on Sundays or Saturday evenings, obviously it’s a good idea to at least go to weekday masses so you aren’t missing out on the mass and the Eucharist entirely.
 
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