I just got a new job that has me working on the weekends and I don’t know how I can make it to Sunday Mass. I haven’t missed a Sunday service in sixty-nine weeks and I’m really bothered by this.
I very much doubt that your job has you working 48 hours straight. Go to MassTimes.org or to your diocese’s web site – where parishes are listed, and links to parish web sites oftentimes are provided – and start researching the Mass schedules for parishes in your diocese. Then compare those schedules to your work schedule. If there is a time on Saturday evening or daytime/evening Sunday that you could go to Mass, then you’ll know you can go and should do so. (You might even check to see if you can use a lunch-hour break for Mass attendance.) Of course, if you do this and discover that there is absolutely no time during which you can go to Mass, then you have just reason to miss Mass on Sunday. But if you don’t make a reasonable effort to find a Mass you could attend, then there is a real possibility that you are just making excuses.
It should also go without saying that Catholics should be more pro-active about mentioning religious obligations to employers. There is nothing wrong with accepting a schedule that does not allow for Mass attendance if there is absolutely no choice in the matter. However, a Catholic should be more assertive in explaining to an employer that he has an ordinary obligation to attend Mass on Sundays and holy days, and he would appreciate it if the employer could create the schedule with that need in mind whenever possible. If non-Christians, such as Jews and Muslims, can have the courage to ask for accommodation for their religious obligations, there is no reason Catholics should not do so as well.
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