Sunday obligation and falling asleep

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Let’s say someone works the third shift on Saturday night into Sunday, they have been awake for 24 hours straight, and are exhausted. They attend Mass on Sunday morning, and inadvertently fall asleep during parts of the first reading and homily.

Has that person met their Sunday obligation?
 
Is there no opportunity for anticipated Mass on Saturday afternoon? How about Sunday night? If you check you may find a mass somewhere that will fit better into your schedule.
 
ae22 said:
Let’s say someone works the third shift on Saturday night into Sunday, they have been awake for 24 hours straight, and are exhausted. They attend Mass on Sunday morning, and inadvertently fall asleep during parts of the first reading and homily.

Has that person met their Sunday obligation?
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Sleep is a gift from God. I fall asleep during the homily at times only to awaken with renewed devotion for the remainder of the Mass. When we attend Mass with the love for God in our hearts we meet our Sunday obligation.
 
You really shouldn’t be awake and driving anywhere after 24 hours without sleep. And even if you could get someone to drive you, staying awake that long is really unhealthy.

I presume after 24 hours awake the only thing you’ll be able to do that afternoon is sleep, so the best option is miss mass as you have a legit excuse.
 
ae22 said:
Let’s say someone works the third shift on Saturday night into Sunday, they have been awake for 24 hours straight, and are exhausted. They attend Mass on Sunday morning, and inadvertently fall asleep during parts of the first reading and homily.

Has that person met their Sunday obligation?
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YES!
 
Yeah, this…kind of happened to me yesterday at Daily Mass. I don’t usually work the night shift, but I did, and went to Mass as I usually do. It was a bit embarrassing because my Pastor saw me dozing off. I apologized to him and told him it wasn’t because his homily was boring.

Coffee might have helped, but I would have broken my Eucharistic fast. Oh, well.
 
gigi_mvn said:
I’ve watched a mass held by Pope Francis where a couple of nuns dozed off. Also, Pope Benedict fell asleep during a mass. huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/18/pope-asleep-benedict-xvi_n_542216.html#s82151
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Pope Benedict was also a very busy man with a schedule so full that most healthy young people would have trouble keeping up with, never mind a frail, 80 something year old man. I doubt he would say that falling asleep at mass is an acceptable thing to do.

Yes, Sunday is a day of rest. But the “rest” one is meant to experience at the Mass is not sleep.
As long as proper body posture is maintained, don’t see a problem. Sunday is a day of rest.
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I don’t think that, under all but the most strange of circumstances, sleeping through mass (and here, I am talking about most/all of the mass not just the first reading or homily) while simply “maintaining body posture” constitutes fulfilling a Sunday obligation. A mere unconscious physical presence does not allow one to assist at mass.

If this is truly the only mass the person who fell asleep could have possibly attended, and he or she made every effort to stay awake, then I would imagine that person either fulfilled the obligation or would be dispensed from their obligation altogether because of the physical inability to attend mass (much like a sick person who cannot make it to mass can be dispensed from the obligation).
 
If I were that tired I’d go home and sleep then go to a late afternoon/evening Mass.
 
:coffee::yawn:
I would say if you inadvertently fall asleep at Sunday Mass you are still fulfilling your obligation. I have momentarily fallen asleep once or twice at a Sunday Mass and I have fallen asleep several times at Daily Mass.

But I agree with a previous poster that if you have been awake for 24 hours straight you have no business driving.:dts::sleep:
 
Sounds like praying the hours of Naps, Snooze and Prone …

Seriously: traditionally, assistance at Mass from the offertory to the priest’s Communion is regarded as the minimum for fulfilling the obligation. Dozing off during readings or the homily would not mean the sleeper has missed Mass.
 
^^and at that point, everyone is standing/kneeling, so dozing off is unlikely.
 
:yawn: homily, oh there was a homily, oh there was a homily?! Remember to sit in the back if you are apt to doze off.😛
 
At my parish, falling asleep during the homily is considered a blessing. 😃
 
There’s many a husband been jabbed awake by a wife’s elbow during the homily. Now I’ll admit to having fallen asleep during the homily before. I usually close my eyes to listen to it to avoid distraction but I’ve found that if I do that following a bout of insomnia it’s a pretty good cure.

For some reason the question just pitched me back home during the 50s and early 60s when a good number of men got up right after the Gospel and went to stand on the steps outside to smoke while the women folk listened to the sermon. They’d usually come back in in time for the collection and I seriously doubt any of them questioned whether or not they’d met their obligation.
 
And it just figures…yesterday’s Gospel reading is among my favorites, and Father never disappoints with his sermons.
 
I once went to a 4pm Mass after working a day shift and fell asleep during the homily and pitched forward and crashed into the pew ahead of me. I caught myself before I injured my head, but boy was I embarrassed!

I never even considered I hadn’t fulfilled my obligation. I nearly had the scars to prove it. 😃
 
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