Weekend Mass Obligation

[jplewis002]

Hello,

Recently I’ve been working a lot of hours during the weekend where it forces me to go to the latest mass offered during the weekend (5pm on Sunday). Work today was really busy and we had a few people not show up, and my manager offered me overtime. In this case, would it be acceptable to take the overtime and miss mass? Or would it be considered a mortal sin?

I am a college student, and I could use some of that extra money to go towards tuition and paying off loans, so I would just like to clarify this situation.

Any (name removed by moderator)ut on the situation would help!

Thanks–

John

 

[MidnightSun12]

I think it depends on your intentions for taking the overtime.

If your boss was really in a squeeze and you would be putting him in a very difficult position by not taking the overtime, then I think what you’re doing would be an act of charity and I think that would justify missing mass on a single occaison.

If your intentions were just to make money, then I think you need to ask if you have a serious need for money right now or are you just looking to get a little ahead. If the answer is the former, then I think you would be justified to miss mass and attend sometime during the week, but if there’s no pressing need for money right now I think you owe it to God to let Him provide for your long-term financial needs and do what would be pleasing to Him in the short term (which, in this case, would be to attend mass ).

God bless!

 

[Fortiori]

If your intentions were just to make money, then I think you need to ask if you have a serious need for money right now or are you just looking to get a little ahead. If the answer is the former, then I think you would be justified to miss mass and attend sometime during the week…

Going to a weekday Mass is a great idea, but it doesn’t fulfill the Sunday obligation. :dts:

You could see if there are any other churches around that have a Mass you could make it to. I occasionally use Masstimes.org for this purpose if I can’t make it to my normal Mass time.

 

[Catholic80]

From my understanding, unless you had a grave reason to miss Mass, then you missed the Sunday obligation. You should talk to a priest to find out if it is a mortal sin or not. He will be better to direct you.

Even an act of “charity” wouldn’t be reason enough to miss Mass, unless the act of charity was absolutely necessary. For example, if you witnessed a car accident on the way to Mass and you went over to help them, and by doing so, missed Mass, that would, I think, constitute as a “reason” to miss Sunday Mass. But, if the act of charity was simply to help someone out of a difficult, but not dire situation (i.e. helping a friend move his apartment), then it would not be excusable.

Really, talk to a priest and explain the situation to him. There might be more necessary details that affect the morality of the situation that you have not listed here, or, you may have, in fact, not fulfilled your Sunday obligation.

 

[MidnightSun12]

From my understanding, unless you had a grave reason to miss Mass, then you missed the Sunday obligation. You should talk to a priest to find out if it is a mortal sin or not. He will be better to direct you.

Even an act of “charity” wouldn’t be reason enough to miss Mass, unless the act of charity was absolutely necessary. For example, if you witnessed a car accident on the way to Mass and you went over to help them, and by doing so, missed Mass, that would, I think, constitute as a “reason” to miss Sunday Mass. But, if the act of charity was simply to help someone out of a difficult, but not dire situation (i.e. helping a friend move his apartment), then it would not be excusable.

Really, talk to a priest and explain the situation to him. There might be more necessary details that affect the morality of the situation that you have not listed here, or, you may have, in fact, not fulfilled your Sunday obligation.

This is good advice.

My post may not have given the best guidance on this topic…

 

[LilyM]

I think it depends on your intentions for taking the overtime.

If your boss was really in a squeeze and you would be putting him in a very difficult position by not taking the overtime, then I think what you’re doing would be an act of charity and I think that would justify missing mass on a single occaison.

If your intentions were just to make money, then I think you need to ask if you have a serious need for money right now or are you just looking to get a little ahead. If the answer is the former, then I think you would be justified to miss mass and attend sometime during the week, but if there’s no pressing need for money right now I think you owe it to God to let Him provide for your long-term financial needs and do what would be pleasing to Him in the short term (which, in this case, would be to attend mass ).

God bless!

Did you even read this guy’s post? He is a college student, planning to put the money towards paying off his tuition. He’s not buying himself a second Porsche or a bigger yacht or anything.

I would say paying off tuition usually counts as a serious need for a student - in some cases you can’t be enrolled to study for the next semester without your tuition for the previous semester being paid off.

 

[MidnightSun12]

Did you even read this guy’s post? He is a college student, planning to put the money towards paying off his tuition. He’s not buying himself a second Porsche or a bigger yacht or anything.

I would say paying off tuition usually counts as a serious need for a student - in some cases you can’t be enrolled to study for the next semester without your tuition for the previous semester being paid off.

I would say that our definition of “serious” in this case should be defined by the immediacy of the need. For example, if a tuition payment is due this week and working Sunday is a person’s only means to make the payment then I would say that this would qualify as a sufficiently serious reason to miss mass on Sunday (but as mentioned above, the OP should consult a priest on this matter as this is a fine line and we may be lacking some of the details here). On the other hand, if a person has debt but is not in immediate and certain trouble with payments then I would not consider this to be a sufficiently good reason to miss your Sunday obligation.

 

[LilyM]

I would say that our definition of “serious” in this case should be defined by the immediacy of the need. For example, if a tuition payment is due this week and working Sunday is a person’s only means to make the payment then I would say that this would qualify as a sufficiently serious reason to miss mass on Sunday (but as mentioned above, the OP should consult a priest on this matter as this is a fine line and we may be lacking some of the details here). On the other hand, if a person has debt but is not in immediate and certain trouble with payments then I would not consider this to be a sufficiently good reason to miss your Sunday obligation.

If I have a debt of tens of thousands of dollars which is due in six months, and no savings, and no rich daddy to pay it for me, but can only work weekends between now and then because I study during the week, then I will obviously need to work every available weekend between now and then (unless the job is extremely well paid, unlike most weekend jobs!) to make enough money to pay the debt on time. That makes it urgent, even though the debt is due in six months. Whereas for someone with the luxury of not having to study it would be much less so.

We have a serious obligation to debtors to pay our debts as and when it falls due unless we are incapable of doing so. Someone who can work Sundays and has a job available allowing them to do so is not incapable. And we cannot lightly or without sin renege on our financial obligations when we are able to avoid doing so.

I don’t think God wants you to sit on your backside and do nothing until the day before the debt is due in such a case - and then what? You haven’t worked, you’ll have no money. Hope a rich uncle dies? Default on the debt? Borrow? When you can and should have been a good steward of your resources and worked those Sundays to earn it?

 

[Holly3278]

I think it depends on your intentions for taking the overtime.

If your boss was really in a squeeze and you would be putting him in a very difficult position by not taking the overtime, then I think what you’re doing would be an act of charity and I think that would justify missing mass on a single occaison.

If your intentions were just to make money, then I think you need to ask if you have a serious need for money right now or are you just looking to get a little ahead. If the answer is the former, then I think you would be justified to miss mass and attend sometime during the week, but if there’s no pressing need for money right now I think you owe it to God to let Him provide for your long-term financial needs and do what would be pleasing to Him in the short term (which, in this case, would be to attend mass ).

God bless!

I disagree. If he was only offered the over time then he should not do his boss an act of charity and work over time. However, if he was demanded to work over time then he would have no choice in the matter. It is better to worship God at Mass than to work over time if it is optional.

 

[thistle]

I think it depends on your intentions for taking the overtime.

If your boss was really in a squeeze and you would be putting him in a very difficult position by not taking the overtime, then I think what you’re doing would be an act of charity and I think that would justify missing mass on a single occaison.

If your intentions were just to make money, then I think you need to ask if you have a serious need for money right now or are you just looking to get a little ahead. If the answer is the former, then I think you would be justified to miss mass and attend sometime during the week, but if there’s no pressing need for money right now I think you owe it to God to let Him provide for your long-term financial needs and do what would be pleasing to Him in the short term (which, in this case, would be to attend mass ).

God bless!

CCC 2181 The Sunday Eucharist is the foundation and confirmation of all Christian practice. For this reason the faithful are obliged to participate in the Eucharist on days of obligation, unless excused for a serious reason (for example, illness, the care of infants) or dispensed by their own pastor. Those who deliberately fail in this obligation commit a grave sin.

 

[LilyM]

CCC 2181 The Sunday Eucharist is the foundation and confirmation of all Christian practice. For this reason the faithful are obliged to participate in the Eucharist on days of obligation, unless excused for a serious reason (for example, illness, the care of infants) or dispensed by their own pastor. Those who deliberately fail in this obligation commit a grave sin.

I think working because you have to in order to pay tuition is a serious reason, just as working to keep food on the table and nappies on the backside for those infants would also be serious reason.

 

[teachccd]

The average Mass is one hour. Please tell me that we are not arguing about giving God one hour. There are 167 hours that one can work in a week to pay off any immediate need. Come on people let’s get real here. If Jesus was hanging on the Cross would you say. “sorry Lord I cannot come and stand with You because I have a debt to pay”? What about the infinite debt He paid for you and me?

I think that the OP should discuss this with his confessor to iron out the details. I could not disagree more that one cannot give God one hour a week because of student loans. At our parish we have multiple Mass times and there are other parishes as well. There would have to be extreme circumstances to warrant missing Mass. And the $10.00 or so bucks that one might make in that hour against the $10,000 loan would not merit that exception.

I want to stress here that I am not judging the OP’s decision as that is to only be discerned in the confessional and not on a forum. I am merely making a general statement using his/her example as a reason. The OP needs to talk to a priest for a valid answer to his/her question…teachccd

 

[thistle]

I think working because you have to in order to pay tuition is a serious reason, just as working to keep food on the table and nappies on the backside for those infants would also be serious reason.

Honestly, I don’t know. The OP should talk to his priest. If the priest thinks its okay he can give a dispensation.

 

[LilyM]

The average Mass is one hour. Please tell me that we are not arguing about giving God one hour. There are 167 hours that one can work in a week to pay off any immediate need. Come on people let’s get real here. If Jesus was hanging on the Cross would you say. “sorry Lord I cannot come and stand with You because I have a debt to pay”? What about the infinite debt He paid for you and me?

I think that the OP should discuss this with his confessor to iron out the details. I could not disagree more that one cannot give God one hour a week because of student loans. At our parish we have multiple Mass times and there are other parishes as well. There would have to be extreme circumstances to warrant missing Mass. And the $10.00 or so bucks that one might make in that hour against the $10,000 loan would not merit that exception.

I want to stress here that I am not judging the OP’s decision as that is to only be discerned in the confessional and not on a forum. I am merely making a general statement using his/her example as a reason. The OP needs to talk to a priest for a valid answer to his/her question…teachccd

That’s assuming a ready availabilty of jobs - and that you aren’t doing something like studying where the number of hours that you have free to work is limited to evenings and weekends - and/or understanding bosses who will be flexible with your need to take off time for Mass.

Which in the current economy is assuming a heck of a lot.

 

[Canuck000]

Hmmm. Reading this, and currently studying RCIA I’m feeling very guilty right now. I go to mass every Sun and also at least once during the week. I am an RN, and I work a Thurs., Fri., and Sat schedule. 7am till 7:30pm. Once in a while, like last week I am asked to work Sun also as they are very short staffed on Sundays. Sure I could stand my ground and say “no”, but the staff rhat are there will suffer badly as will patient care will be in trouble. So, i’m certainly not working on Sun for the money but…what really us the answer?

 

[LilyM]

Hmmm. Reading this, and currently studying RCIA I’m feeling very guilty right now. I go to mass every Sun and also at least once during the week. I am an RN, and I work a Thurs., Fri., and Sat schedule. 7am till 7:30pm. Once in a while, like last week I am asked to work Sun also as they are very short staffed on Sundays. Sure I could stand my ground and say “no”, but the staff rhat are there will suffer badly as will patient care will be in trouble. So, i’m certainly not working on Sun for the money but…what really us the answer?

Emergency services workers, which includes medical personnel as well as police, firefighters and even workers in public transport and at power stations, are exempt.

These services must of necessity be kept running 24/7 - it’s not like people stop getting sick on Sundays, nor do criminals take a break on Sundays, nor do we stop needing electricity or busses and trains.

 

[Canuck000]

Thank you for that answer. No one likes to work on Sundays but when I work Sundays or Christmas or Easter I didn’t ever begrudge it. My patients deserve a good post operative recovery too. It’s not like they wish to be in the hospital .
Thankyou!