Reason to miss mass on a sunday

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ongpattersonny

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My family will be traveling to South Korea for a week. The only time we can travel is on a weekend as it would be a 20 hour flight. This will cause us to miss Sunday mass. We will only be there for a week and we need to be there on a Monday due to being there for a conference and we will return on the following Friday and be back on Saturday the following weekend. What are the rules on this?
 
Are able to attend Mass Saturday evening?

If not, you should be excused. However, still try to do your best to make Sunday a day for the Lord.

For example: pray an extra Rosary on the plane, etc.
 
I would talk to my pastor. If there is no way you can attend, you can be given a dispensation.
 
I believe traveling is considered a more or less automatic dispensation. Having said that, you should probably talk to your priest regarding travel as a whole.

Also all that travel for a week stinks.That’s just brutal.
 
DeniseNY said:
I would talk to my pastor. If there is no way you can attend, you can be given a dispensation.
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No need. Travel automatically dispenses.

I’ve travelled 10 times to Korea on business over a 13 year span in my career, from Eastern Canada. Basically, to be available for work on Monday, I would have to leave Saturday morning from my house at 5 am, drive to Montreal, catch a morning flight to Toronto or Vancouver, and transfer to a flight to Seoul. I would arrive in Seoul at around 5 pm local time on Sunday evening. So because of crossing the International Date Line, I would leave on a Saturday morning and be on the plane until Sunday evening. Last I heard, they don’t say Mass very often on planes 😉

By the time I’d actually get to the hotel it would be early Sunday evening. I’d go for a bite to eat, and then crash and burn at around 8 or 9 pm. It is a brutal trip. Even if I could find an 8 pm Sunday Mass in Seoul, I’d be in no condition to get to it.

So no worries, no need to ask the priest for a dispensation, and God doesn’t hold us to the impossible or the unreasonable.
 
Thank you everyone. I decided to speak with my pastor as this has been a concerned for me since I am new to understanding all of the church rules. I just want to be sure.
 
And I will be working that Friday before I leave and then go back to work the following Monday. This is crazy but it is an honorary trip for my son who will be presenting a paper at an international conference. So, I cannot miss this one. Thank you.
 
ongpattersonny said:
What are the rules on this?
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There are no “rules”. We use the virtue of prudence here. The Church gives us guidelines reminding us that the Sunday obligation is a serious one, but that we are excused when unable to meet the obligation. While the Catechism gives some examples such as illness, care of infants, etc., it is not meant to be a comprehensive list. Use common sense. If yo are in doubt talk to your pastor.

Travelers may find themselves in situations where they cannot attend mass if traveling on the weekend, while in other cases it may be no problem.

If you are on a plane you cannot attend mass. It’s as simple as that.

If anyone tells you not to travel, or that it is not a reason to miss mass, please be aware the Church does not require this and some people answering on a public forum may give inaccurate information or be scrupulous.
 
I think you should look into your intentions here. You would go to Mass if it was physically possible. If we can decide when to travel and not be dependent upon other people´s plans or schedules then we travel at a time so that we can go to Mass. Then it is not a problem. It becomes a problem if we deliberately decide to skip Mass without a good reason.

Sometimes when I have visited Granny during the summer holidays I have not been able to make it to Mass.
  1. Lives in another country where the Catholic parishes are very few.
  2. There is a Catholic Mass in that town once a month during the school year.
  3. There is a Mass in one of the neighbouring little towns once a month during school year.
  4. It is a 2.5 hour (one way) drive to the northern parish church.
  5. It is a 4 hour drive (one way) to the parish church.
  6. Catching a bus or train to go to the northern parish would mean I would get there when Mass is finished.
  7. There isn’t an Orthodox liturgy nearby that Sunday either within a reasonable distance.
  8. I wouldn’t be able to see Granny that day at all if I went to the parish church as I would be travelling the whole day.
I discussed it with my priest once and all he asked was if I had prayed that Sunday. We both agreed that I am lucky to have a parish church within walking distance where I live and four churches/chapels within a one hour commute on the public transportation.
 
I’ve made that trip several times myself, as I just came back from a year in South Korea, and it is a kicker. When you fly over you lose a day, and when you fly back you might arrive a few hours before you left (I was sitting in DFW and it was strange to think that I was still two hours from taking off in Seoul…)

In other news - enjoy South Korea! I actually miss it. The people were wonderful, the street food is amazing, and the public markets are not to be believed. It’s pretty hot in June, and the only drawback is yellow dust might be at a high depending on the prevailing winds.
 
1ke said:
There are no “rules”. We use the virtue of prudence here.
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This. Which also implies that those who have said “travel is an automatic dispensation” are wrong. I used to have to travel to the UK on business quite a bit, and sometimes to other cities in Europe. I would often stay at the same hotels in the whichever of the two cities in England I was visiting. Often my first meetings would be on Monday morning, so I would take a Saturday afternoon/evening flight and arrive at my hotel around noon. There so happened to be a Catholic church at these hotels within easy walking distance and they had Sunday evening mass. I never considered it ok to skip mass. As a matter of fact, when I would travel to other cities in Europe and leave Saturday afternoons, I was always able to attend mass, just took a little more planning.
Asia can be much more difficult. I traveled to Singapore once and simply could not make Sunday mass.
So a prudential judgement is key. But lets get past this idea that travel is an automatic dispensation from our Sunday obligation.
 
You don’t need to worry about missing Mass on Sunday in this instance.
 
tafan2 said:
travel is an automatic dispensation
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By travel I meant while travelling, i.e. in transit. Of course if a Mass is available in the city or area we are visiting, we should make every effort to attend. And if travelling more or less locally by car, there is more flexibility.

But international air travel is pretty much automatically dispensing unless coincidentally Mass is available in an airport chapel before, after or between flights. But even there, once airside in the sterile area between flights, it’s not practical to attend if the Mass is street side or in another terminal.

The OP’s situation includes 20 hours of flying across the international date line. It means probably leaving by midday on a Saturday and arriving late on Sunday in order to be available for the Monday event.

It also sounds like these are parents of an adult child, thus “of a certain age”. Even if Sunday evening a Mass is available in Seoul, it would not be reasonable to expect them to attend. I’ve done this very trip multiple times in my life in my 30s and 40s and even at that age it was brutal.

God commands neither the impossible nor the unreasonable. In the latter category I would include leaving the sterile area or terminal between flights, tagging on an extra day, or venturing out into a strange city in the evening after 24+ hours of travel without sleeping in a proper bed.

Of course going across town to visit grandma is another matter, I consider that a short journey, not “travel”.
 
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