Missing mass on sunday

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What if one would rather not have been created? I mean then they u could avoid all suffering on Earth or in purgatory or hell.
Also Mary had a big advantage- no original sin. God didn’t have to make us with original sin. I mean he chose to make Mary without it. He could have done the same with everyone else regardless of what Adam and Eve did
 
rosejmj said:
Do you think a (former) Catholic who no longer believes in the Church teachings is committing mortal sins for not going to mass on Sunday? If they just no longer believe anymore. Obviously if they don’t believe they think there is nothing wrong with not going to Mass since it’s not true
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There is no such thing as a former Catholic. A sacramentally baptised Catholic remains a Catholic forever, even if they turn away from the Church.
There are only two types of Catholics - those in a state of grace and those in a state of mortal sin.
 
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rosejmj said:
Do you think a (former) Catholic who no longer believes in the Church teachings is committing mortal sins for not going to mass on Sunday?
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Assuming this person knew what the teaching of the Church was, (not to mention if they also knew the precepts of the Church as well as knowing the 10 Commandments) - therefore had been taught that they were obligated to attend Mass. And was not just simply baptised as a one month old baby and then did not recieve any further instruction in the Faith, - in my opinion, then yes.

You say (former) - but once a person is baptized into the Catholic Faith, they are always a Catholic, regardless of whether they are practicing the Faith, are lapsed, have abandoned the Faith altogether and are a “none”, have abandoned the Faith and entered another religious practice.

Because:-
  1. they would know (therefore have full knowledge) that they are expected to attend Mass on Sundays and other Holy Days of Obligation
  2. Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation are grave matter, which they know (or may even have been told it is a mortal sin to miss Mass without grave reason)
  3. then if they decided for whatever reason they were not going to go to Mass anymore and decided to stop, then there is their full consent.
rosejmj said:
If they just no longer believe anymore.
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Perhaps the following are things this person may want to ask themselves and think about -
  1. perhaps this way of thinking could just be due to a lack of faith?
  2. a lack of the will in accepting the authority of the Church for whatever reason?
  3. Or perhaps self-justification as then they would feel less culpable/guilty, and thus falsely think they are free to not go to Mass on these days?
  4. Or if they are struggling to meet these obligations for whatever reasons (spiritual crisis/financial reasons/peer pressure/laziness/it’s just all too hard, they might be tempted to think/feel it’d just be a whole lot easier/simpler/more convenient to just give up?
  5. Perhaps this person may be struggling with everything to do with being a Catholic and living as a Catholic in their situation in life
  6. They may be being tempted to give up the struggle instead of asking God to strengthen them to persevere?
  7. Or perhaps they may just be feeling down or overwhelmed by it all, maybe even depressed? (If so, I hope this person goes to see their doctor for help - councelling and medication if both are needed).
 
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rosejmj said:
How can you commit a sin without knowing.
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Answer is you can’t. A sin is as an example thinking or doing something that you know is wrong - we all know right from wrong. So if you say something unkind to someone , you know you shouldn’t because the other person will be hurt but still you decide to say it anyway. Whether it was out of spite/ anger/ or tit for tat is another circumstance. But the gist is you still know you shouldn’t. “All wrong doing is sin”. Some mortal some venial.
rosejmj said:
So God will punish you for sins you didn’t even know you committed?
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Again, see the example I gave above. People know whether something is right or wrong - their conscience tells them. So if you’ve been uncharitable as in the example above - you’ve still done wrong - you’ve sinned. In that example, the matter is venial. To commit a mortal sin requires the thing to be serious, you have full knowledge it is seriously wrong, and you still decide ’ yep, I’m doing a,b,c’ - so there is your full consent.

God is not a bully. But he is just. If you didn’t know something was grave matter, but it was and you did it willingly, then you will not be judged the same as someone who did/does have full knowledge that the matter is grave and still willingly did it.
rosejmj said:
Isn’t the important thing just to follow your conscience?
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Yes, but your conscience is to be formed according to the teaching of the Church.
rosejmj said:
The main reason we are not perfect is because God made us that way.
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This was explained in another thread which you created - God’s fault we are sinners
rosejmj said:
And purgatory is suffering
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Yes, but it is a just suffering - no more and no less than we deserve. Think of this - a boy is playing cricket and he hits the ball and goes through his neighbours window breaking it. Whilst he didn’t intend for the ball to break his neighbours window, it still did , though his culpability is less compared to if he deliberately took aim at the window and belted the ball directly at the window. So while he sincerely apologizes to the neighbour for the damage done, don’t you think it would be only fair to the neighbour that he in some way also compensated the neighbour for the cost of replacing the window? Mowing the neighbours lawn each week for a month, say?
Well this is one aspect of purgartory. All sins wounds our soul, our relationship with God and our relationship with others.

Part of being a grown-up is accepting responsibility for our actions and the decisions we make, rather than pointing the finger of blame elsewhere as a child might.
The privelege of driving and having a license also comes with obeying the road rules. Run a red light and justice means you cope a fine for doing so.
 
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rosejmj said:
Do you think a (former) Catholic who no longer believes in the Church teachings is committing mortal sins for not going to mass on Sunday?
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Clearly committing grave sin. It would be mortal if they have full knowledge that it’s grave sin and if they’re committing it with complete consent of the will.
 
rosejmj said:
The main reason we are not perfect is because God made us that way.
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No… it was sin – freely chosen! – that made us that way.
rosejmj said:
And purgatory is suffering.
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Purgatory is ‘cleansing’. Sometimes it hurts to get clean, but that’s not ‘suffering’, per se.
EZweber said:
it is possible to believe that it is a sin to attend Mass! In this case, it is a sin to attend Mass.
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No. If I believe that the moon is made of green cheese, that does not make the moon a ball of green cheese. In the context of your claim, the question to ask is “why am I mistaken in my belief that the moon is made of green cheese? Am I culpable for my mistaken belief?”
rosejmj said:
I’m talking about someone who was baptized I to the Catholic Church and received the sacraments and practiced the Faith, but at a certain point came to the conclusion that Catholicism does not hold the fullness of truth and therefore stops attending Sunday mass
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It depends on why they’ve reached that decision, and whether they are culpable for their mistaken conclusion.
rosejmj said:
it still seems wrong to make someone suffer more in purgatory for things they did not believe we’re wrong
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If I murdered someone, but did not believe that it was an evil act, would it be ‘wrong’ to make me suffer in prison?
rosejmj said:
Isn’t the important thing just to follow your conscience?
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“Following one’s conscience” is one important thing, but not the only important thing. A person can be mistaken about something and follow their conscience in performing an evil act, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re not responsible for their decision. “Conscience” is not a “Get Out of Jail Free” card!
 
Yes, I do. But I do not want to pass judgment on others who do not attend Mass for whatever the reason. That is on them.
Because of some personal issues, I did not go to confession for about 40 years, but I continued to try to go to Mass each Sunday and on other days when I could.
Thanks be to God, I was able to resolve my issues and went to confession. Hallelujah. Amen.
I think much of what we do in life has to do with intent.
There are some who must work on Sundays because of their jobs. But they can attend Mass on Saturday nights.
Keeping the Lord’s day holy is doing to church and trying to limit work activities to only what is absolutely necessary. But this is my opinion. I am sure that others may differ on this issue.
 
It should still be noted that if a person has been honestly convinced that missing Mass is not a sin, then there is no sin involved in missing Mass because they have the opposite of full knowledge - complete ignorance. With regard to the wish never to have been created, you would only want that if you thought that you would gain by not having been created, which would only be the case if you are going to Hell, in which case you still want to exist. Also, about original sin and the Immaculate Conception, for God to have created all of humanity without original sin after the Fall would essentially mean that the Fall had no consequence for us. Sorry I didn’t get back sooner, this was my first day and I reached my post limit. I’ll reply to Gorgias in the next post.
 
If they truly do not believe, then, the grave matter of missing Mass is not mortal.
 
Gorgias said:
No. If I believe that the moon is made of green cheese, that does not make the moon a ball of green cheese. In the context of your claim, the question to ask is “ why am I mistaken in my belief that the moon is made of green cheese? Am I culpable for my mistaken belief?”
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I should clarify that going to Mass is not exactly the sin in this case. As I said before, sin is a rebellion against God. I would say that rebellion in this case can be defined as deliberate refusal to obey someone with legitimate authority over you. The interesting thing about this definition is that there doesn’t have to be a command that is disobeyed. For example if a private believes that his liutenant ordered him to shoot a person on sight, and he sees the person, but refuses to shoot them, he is in rebellion against his liutenant even if there was a miscommunication. Also, if there was a miscommunication and the liutenant ordered him not to shoot the person, but he did, he would not be in rebellion. In the case of a lapsed Catholic who honestly believes that he has an obligation not to attend Sunday Mass, he is not guilty of rebellion against God. It can be further noted that in our original analogy, there would still be problems from the miscommunication. If the private shot the person on sight, they would still die whether there was a miscommunication or not. However, the guilt for the death would like on the person who caused the miscommunication.
 
You might have to face the natural results of your sin, however, God does not punish you for accidents.

The important thing is to rightly form your conscience and then follow it.
 
Purgatory is no more a punishment than taking a shower is punishment. Purgatory is a cleansing process.
 
Precisely. A shower can be painful though (I know from experience).
 
EZweber said:
Precisely. A shower can be painful though (I know from experience).
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Right, esp if you are very dirty. You could run out of hot water before you finish scrubbing the filth off you - hence some suffering! 😇
 
While their culpability for missing Mass after that may be lessened, they would still be under the sin of apostasy. Denying Christ’s Church, especially after being in it is a grave matter.
 
AlmaRedemptorisMater said:
While their culpability for missing Mass after that may be lessened, they would still be under the sin of apostasy. Denying Christ’s Church, especially after being in it is a grave matter.
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The sin of apostasy is a difficult matter. The gravity of apostasy is normally significantly lessened
 
Sorry, my post sent accidentally. As I was saying apostasy is normally gravely lessened by the fact that a full blown apostate is usually to some extent honestly convinced that the fullness of truth does not lie in the Catholic Church. A Catholic who believed that the Catholic Church was conclusively proven false and that they had carefully examined the issue morally should convert to a different faith. This would only happen if they are a little naive about how much of a chance they should give the Church, but it could happen.
 
EZweber said:
Sorry, my post sent accidentally. As I was saying apostasy is normally gravely lessened by the fact that a full blown apostate is usually to some extent honestly convinced that the fullness of truth does not lie in the Catholic Church. A Catholic who believed that the Catholic Church was conclusively proven false and that they had carefully examined the issue morally should convert to a different faith. This would only happen if they are a little naive about how much of a chance they should give the Church, but it could happen.
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That is not correct.
An apostate is someone who is baptised as a Christian and once professed the Christian faith and now totally rejects Christianity. It is not restricted to Catholics but all Christians.
 
My point still stands. An apostate is usually to some extent honestly convinced that Christianity is false.
 
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