Late masses & confessions: Why aren't there more?

[Jessica_Ceceila]

Hi. This is my first post. It’s good to be here and I’m hoping for some answers and advice.
I was wondering why more parishes don’t offer late mass on Sunday. I used to live in an area where multiple paishes had late mass on Sunday, at 5, 6, and 7pm. As some one who has a late work schedule all week, I depended on this. These masses were very popular and usually were packed. Full of all age groups, families, single people, etc. Where I live now the latest mass I can find on Sunday is 11:15 am. This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
It’s just a sad fact of our society that people work crazy hours and everything is opened 24hours a day. Many of people work 6 days a week, with Sunday being their only day off. It’s their day of rest and worship.
Personally, I used to drift in and out of sleep when I had attended early masses. It’s only natural that faithful people would want to go to mass rested and alert with a renewed mind.
Most parishes have 2 or sometimes 3 masses on Sunday already, but they are usually all in the morning. I don’t know if it’s just the state I live in or if this happens all over the country, but I’m sure that people everywhere want later mass times.
I have written to my new diocese, but haven’t recieved a response yet. I have yet to find a parish home because every Sunday I find myself driving across state lines to go where there are late masses. Which brings me to confession.
Most of the confession times in my diocese are listed in the bulletin as: “Confessions: 2:30pm to 3:15pm on Saturday or by appointment”. Saturdays, and every weekday for that matter, are out of the question for me and my husband and probably a lot of other people. Our only options are to either, make an appointment for a Sunday, (which we never feel comfortable doing) or drive across state lines to the shrine where they offer confessions from 1pm to 4pm on Sunday. We always end up driving to the shrine.
To wrap this up, I just want to know what I can do to help myself and all the other lay people who find themselves in a similar predicament. I do believe the Lord is telling me to advocate for this. If at least one parish in every diocese could have a late Sunday mass and a Sunday option of confession, It would help people like me a great deal. This way no one would have an excuse not to go to mass or confession…in fact I can guarantee confession attendance will go up. Thanks for listening, and I look forward to your advice.
In His hope, Jess

 

[ErrVet]

I’m new here too.

I’ve found that shrines that have regular hours for confession. Most parishes in my area offer confession for 30-45 minutes a week or by appt.

There’s a shrine in Boston that offers regular hours daily, there’s another in Attleboro that offer regular hours daily. Perhaps there are shrines in your area.

There is a local parish near me that offers a 7PM mass on Sunday evenings. My parish had a teen mass at 6PM once a month. For the summer it is now offering one less Sunday morning Mass and a 6 PM Sunday evening Mass. I like this schedule better. There are many parishes near me that offer a plethora of Sunday morning masses but, like your observation, there are few Sunday evening masses.

 

[zz912]

About the Mass times, it could be due to a shortage of priests. If they are pastoring multiple parishes, they may be doing the best they can.

But if they are staffed okay, I agree that an evening Mass on Sunday should be celebrated. Especially if they were previously busy.

I COMPLETELY agree with you about more Confession times. At a minimum they should have a midweek evening Confession time at least once a month. Those of us who work 12 hour days have precious little time on the weekend, especially with little ones who don’t get much Daddy time.