Mass when in a state of mortal sin?

[colleenanne]

If you are in a state of mortal sin and have been denied absolution by a priest, do you still have an obligation to go to Mass?

Since missing Mass is a mortal sin, which part of the Mass makes it so? Missing the consecration?

I guess what I’m asking (sincerely,) is that if you are unable to take the Eucharist, are you still required to be at Mass?

 

[Scottgun]

Yes, the obligation to attend Mass remains whether you intend to receive communion or not.

 

[Joe_5859]

If you are in a state of mortal sin and have been denied absolution by a priest, do you still have an obligation to go to Mass?

Since missing Mass is a mortal sin, which part of the Mass makes it so? Missing the consecration?

I guess what I’m asking (sincerely,) is that if you are unable to take the Eucharist, are you still required to be at Mass?

Yes, the obligation to attend Mass remains, whether one receives the Eucharist or not. To skip Mass just because one is not able to receive Communion would be to add another mortal sin. We are obligated to attend Mass every Sunday and on the established Holy Days of Obligation. We are only obligated to receive the Eucharist once a year during the Easter season (Code of Canon Law 920). They are separate obligations. Of course, the Church greatly encourages us to recieve the Eucharist as often as possible, but we are only obligated to do so once a year.

I pray that this is a hypothetical situation and not your personal experience! Why would a priest deny absolution? It seems that the only time a priest would do that is if the person is not sorry for their sins and fully intends to commit them again. If this were the case, it would seem the person wouldn’t bother with Confession in the first place, or wouldn’t care about missing Mass.

I would do whatever I had to in order to get absolved as soon as possible!

 

[ComputerGeek25]

Yes, the obligation to attend Mass remains, whether one receives the Eucharist or not. To skip Mass just because one is not able to receive Communion would be to add another mortal sin. We are obligated to attend Mass every Sunday and on the established Holy Days of Obligation. We are only obligated to receive the Eucharist once a year during the Easter season (Code of Canon Law 920). They are separate obligations. Of course, the Church greatly encourages us to recieve the Eucharist as often as possible, but we are only obligated to do so once a year.

I pray that this is a hypothetical situation and not your personal experience! Why would a priest deny absolution? It seems that the only time a priest would do that is if the person is not sorry for their sins and fully intends to commit them again. If this were the case, it would seem the person wouldn’t bother with Confession in the first place, or wouldn’t care about missing Mass.

I would do whatever I had to in order to get absolved as soon as possible!

There are a few instances that come to mind (I could be way off, and I’m not an expert) - OP could be in a marriage that is not fully recognized by the church, not a catholic, etc.

 

[Joe_5859]

There are a few instances that come to mind (I could be way off, and I’m not an expert) - OP could be in a marriage that is not fully recognized by the church, not a catholic, etc.

Good point on the marriage situation. If someone was divorced and re-married and was not willing to “live as brother and sister” until they received an anullment, then the priest would probably withhold absolution until such time as the couple could be validly married in the Church.

If they’re not Catholic, the obligation to attend Mass wouldn’t apply to them anyway!

 

[colleenanne]

Unfortunately this does apply to me, and sadly, I think there are quite a few Catholic women who share my situation. Some acknowledge it and some don’t, some receive absolution for it and some don’t.

My struggle, as you can see if you view other posts of mine, is that for various reasons, (excuses?) I can’t seem to convince myself that I should have more children. Because of this and my frustration with NFP, I’ve been using BC. Because of this, I not allowing God’s will to be done.

I think most who are in my situation are able to personally justify using it, and I can’t. Therefore, I go to Mass every Sunday and cry throughout. I can’t personally come to peace with it, and then I go to Mass and it’s even worse. And then Communion comes and I have to exit the Church or I’ll be a wreck. So I guess I was wondering why I put myself through it.

I’ve always wanted a large family, but I can’t get over one significant life-altering event and jump back into it. And now this is where I am.

 

[baltobetsy]

Wow, there’s so much to be hopeful about here!

Your conscience is alive and well, where many others have killed their consciences or at least silenced them effectively.

You still long to receive Our Lord in Holy Communion! That’s wonderful.

You still go to Mass - that’s even more wonderful. Putting aside the fact that we Catholics all have an obligation to attend Mass, and that failure to do so is a mortal sin, there is so much reason to go and so much good to receive just from being there.

Did you know that when you attend Mass, you are literally at the foot of Calvary while Jesus dies on the cross and offers Himself as the perfect sacrifice to His Father? That you can join yourself and your life to His perfect offering? Many Catholics have lost sight of this fact, which actually should overshadow the reception of Holy Communion. You still get to participate in the most important part!

Remember how much Jesus loves you as He offers Himself up for your sins. He will repay the love you show Him by continuing to go to Mass. The grace you need will be there for you, in God’s good time, or perhaps a solution that you never could have thought of for yourself. Watch for it - He loves you and wants you back!

Betsy

 

[DJgang]

I am praying for you.

I encourage you to continue to go to Mass, offer up your tears and pray for guidance and peace with this part of your life.

Nothing in comparision, I know, but I prayed for a year before I decided to convert about the Sacrament of Reconcilation. Then one day, I woke up in total peace about it…I pray that you can find peace in having more children and opening your womb to God.

God bless you!

 

[puzzleannie]

Catholics always have an obligation to assist at Sunday Mass. Even and especially when they are otherwise in a state of sin they should attend and pray for the grace to return to confession and to amend their lives.

 

[teachccd]

I think most who are in my situation are able to personally justify using it, and I can’t. Therefore, I go to Mass every Sunday and cry throughout. I can’t personally come to peace with it, and then I go to Mass and it’s even worse. And then Communion comes and I have to exit the Church or I’ll be a wreck. So I guess I was wondering why I put myself through it.

Because we all put ourselves through this at some points in our lives. God knows you better than you know yourself. Do you really think that Jesus would not have invited you to His Last Supper?? You and all of us are on the top of His list. You are in a tug of war right now. That’s o.k. because of the tugging you are hanging on to Jesus and He to you. Actually, He’s hugging and you’re tugging.

As Catholic’s we put great emphasis on sexual issues. And rightly so. But there are so many other social injustices and offenses that grieve our God. But that is where Christ comes in.
You absolutely are welcomed by Christ at Mass. He would NOT want you anywhere else. His actual graces are showering you and you are responding. I know because you are on this forum stating so.

Find someone who you can trust and have that person guide you in a spiritual direction. God is moving you and it’s not out of Mass. Quite the contrary. Seek guidance and pray and cry. Last Sunday we read that Jesus wept. It’s o.k.

May God sustain you in your time of struggle and my prayers are with you…teachccd

 

[jmcrae]

If you are in a state of mortal sin and have been denied absolution by a priest, do you still have an obligation to go to Mass?

Yes. There are many graces to be had at Mass, even when we are unable to receive Holy Communion, for whatever reason. Don’t deny yourself these graces, for any reason.

I will pray for you, and hope that you will come to peace with the Church’s teachings on the value of human life and the dignity of woman in marriage. (Genesis 1:27 teaches us that you were created female in the image and likeness of God. )

 

[colleenanne]

Thank you all so much for your responses, they were very comforting and enlightening.

I haven’t been this conflicted in all my life, but I think I’m starting to accept what I know to be true and let God’s will come before mine. I just have to remember that HE knows how much I can handle better than I do.

I DO know that not being at peace with the Lord has been the loneliest feeling I’ve ever felt, and if that can’t change me, nothing will.

Thank you again.

 

[Nancyannheath]

Colleenanne

I know exactly how you feel. I too have been denied absolution. It’s not that I REFUSE to live like brother and sister with my husband, it’s that sometimes, when you want to say “no” you become a compassionate wife and partake anyway, thus a mortal sin.

He finally (after 20 years of marriage) has sent in his paperwork for an annulment from his first marriage (she did not wish to have children). So I will se light at the end of the tunnel, hopefully in a year. But I go to mass, get a lump in my throat when everyone steps over my shoes in my pew on their way to communion and I just keep thinking, Jesus, I know you know how I feel.

Am I a terrible sinner for messing up and giving in to my husband? I certainly feel like it. Especially now that I am older. I finally put my foot down and told my husband that if he did not file for anullment, I would be moving down the hall into my own room. He is not an “active” Catholic. He is a police officer and says every day he lives for God, serving and trying to protect God’s children. I tease him and say he is making his own rules, so when I get stopped for speeding, can I make up my own rules?

Oh, I need to pray to Saint Monica that he comes back to the Catholic faith, soon. In the meantime, we are in our 50’s and we dont partake as much as we did 20 years ago, but I am a sinner, stuck in my situation by choice.

Any prayers for us would help, and I will certainly pray for you and I will think of you next time I get my toes stepped on while everyone else goes to receive Eucharist. Oh, one other thing, sometimes I feel so bad, I dont enter church, I just stand in the vestibule, looking through the doors. Does it ever get that bad for you?

 

[colleenanne]

I can always enter the Church once I get there. However, about once a month I talk myself out of even going to Church because I feel so empty once I get there. When my family is with me I do better (three kids are distracting,) so I don’t dwell on myself so much. Of course, I don’t get so much out of the Mass this way, either.

My husband is more of a cafeteria Catholic and doesn’t ‘get’ why I am letting this bother me. Kinda thinks confession isn’t necessary and thinks that when we say, “Lord I am not worthy to receive you but only say the word and thy shall be healed,” means it’s okay to go to communion if you’re contrite. However, if I say, ‘this is how it’s going to be as far as children go’, he’ll let me make the call. So for me, it’s really on ME, you know?

I always place myself on the end of the pew so that I just have to stand and let people in after they’ve been to communion, that way it’s not so obvious (at least in my mind,) that I’m not going up there. It helps make it less awkward for me…

Also, my son just had his first confession in preparation for his first communion, and I’m trying to explain how wonderful it all is for him without telling him just why I can’t take part. Again, awkward!

My prayers are with you as well. At least we’re both working at getting there!

 

[KatyElizabeth]

Yes, the obligation to attend Mass remains, whether one receives the Eucharist or not. To skip Mass just because one is not able to receive Communion would be to add another mortal sin. We are obligated to attend Mass every Sunday and on the established Holy Days of Obligation. We are only obligated to receive the Eucharist once a year during the Easter season (Code of Canon Law 920). They are separate obligations. Of course, the Church greatly encourages us to recieve the Eucharist as often as possible, but we are only obligated to do so once a year.

I pray that this is a hypothetical situation and not your personal experience! Why would a priest deny absolution? It seems that the only time a priest would do that is if the person is not sorry for their sins and fully intends to commit them again. If this were the case, it would seem the person wouldn’t bother with Confession in the first place, or wouldn’t care about missing Mass.

I would do whatever I had to in order to get absolved as soon as possible!

This happened to people that I know back in the fifties and sixties. It was not infrequent.
When I was a little girl, being scrupulous as I was prone, I confessed a mortal sin and the priest refused absolution for one week. Reminding me that I would go straight to hell if I died suddenly for any reason.
I remained almost catatonic for one week unable to sleep, do homework, etc. etc. My mother kept asking me what was wrong and I could not tell her. On top of that I was expected to go to communion the following day and had to go for fear of physical repercussions and shame.

I had forgotten the emotional impact of this until I read it here today.

 

[paperwight]

Oh, you poor little girl of then, and poor you now, still with that memory!
Why on earth did the priest deny you absolution, and how cruel of him to talk about going to hell!
And what a dilemma about receiving Holy Communion or be punished - it’s so difficult to imagine a time when these plainly wrong things happened.
I really question whether the average child can commit a mortal sin, anyway - I shuddered to read in a Graham Green novel (I think it was) of a child being frightened by the thought of hell-fire because he accepted meat-extract on toast from a kind neighbour when he was cold and hungry one Friday.
But there’s another anecdote about the little boy reading through an examination of conscience before Confession, and confessing the ‘mortal sin’ of sleeping with his grandmother.

 

[Joe_5859]

This happened to people that I know back in the fifties and sixties. It was not infrequent.
When I was a little girl, being scrupulous as I was prone, I confessed a mortal sin and the priest refused absolution for one week. Reminding me that I would go straight to hell if I died suddenly for any reason.
I remained almost catatonic for one week unable to sleep, do homework, etc. etc. My mother kept asking me what was wrong and I could not tell her. On top of that I was expected to go to communion the following day and had to go for fear of physical repercussions and shame.

I had forgotten the emotional impact of this until I read it here today.

Wow, that’s awful! I’m sorry you had to go through something like that. It certainly is a poor way to drive home the point that sin is bad.

 

[rpp]

Getting at the root of the problem, the issue with ABC, take a look at Christopher West’s popular book Theology of the Body for Begginers. Also, one of his other books The Good News about Sex and Marriage. Both book tackle this issue head on, are short, non-judgmental and easy to read.

You can get them here or most any bookstore.

 

[GraceDK]

Yes, the obligation to attend Mass remains, whether one receives the Eucharist or not. To skip Mass just because one is not able to receive Communion would be to add another mortal sin. We are obligated to attend Mass every Sunday and on the established Holy Days of Obligation.

I find this very distressing… after having come so far…after having accepted all the things that converrts normally have problems with … should I now fall on this teaching?.. this statement that stands there on black and white in your post and in church teaching obviously… but which is contradicted in the Bible itself…

Alas. I dont think I can ever in my heart believe that I or anyone else sins to death because they did not make it to the Sunday Mass, or if they chose not to come sometime for reasons of their own.

To me, when you say: non-attendance equals death sin… You have made a new Mosaic law.
for it is written:

“One man considers one day more sacred than another, another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind (and so too with eating meat or abstaining from it) - You then, why do you judge your brother?” (Romans 14:5)

And now you are child of God… “formerly you were a slave… but now, how is it that you want to turn back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved all over again?You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.” (Gal 48-11)

You see, I am not against that the Church comes together on Shabbat or Sunday but when we make ritual observances into laws that, in them selves have power to condemn or save a man… we bring calculation and sin into the picture because the law leads to death…
Its in cases like these where Catholicism reminds me of pharisaic judaism that I become most concerned…

 

[Thing]

People can go to Mass every day. Missing a daily Mass is not a mortal sin. So what is so special about a Sunday Mass;

Remember that thou keep holy the sabbath day.

2 Leviticus 23

24 Say to the children of Israel: The seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall keep a sabbath, a memorial, with [t]he sound of trumpets, and it shall be called holy.

3 Exodus 31

16 Let the children of Israel keep the sabbath, and celebrate it in their generations. It is an everlasting covenant

4 Exodus 31

14 Keep you my sabbath: for it is holy unto you: he that shall profane it, shall be put to death: he that shall do my work in it, his soul shall perish out of the midst of his people.

5 4 Kings 11

7 But let two parts of you, all that go forth on the sabbath, keep the watch of the house of the Lord about the king.

8 2 Esdras 13

22 I spoke also to the Levites that they should be purified, and should come to keep the gates, and to sanctify the sabbath day: for this also remember me, O my God, and spare me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies.

9 Exodus 35

2 Six days you shall do work: the seventh day shall be holy unto you, the sabbath, and the rest of the Lord: he that shall do any work on it, shall be put to death.

Remember that thou keep holy the sabbath day.

If you love me, keep my commandments.

Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.

Presumably the Law to keep Holy the Sabbath always stands, including its penalty, but the motive has shifted in the New Testament to observance from Love, as opposed to a tendancy of motives to stem from Fear in the Old Testament. Sunday Mass is attended from motives of Love of God. Is there any better way of fulfilling this Old Testament Law.