What do you do when you can't afford to go to Mass?

[ballard5610]

My family is really struggling financially. With the price of gas and food skyrocketing we are really having a tough time. We don’t even have enough money to get to Sunday Mass. It’s a 30- mile round-trip, we have a whopping two hundred bucks in the bank, and it has to last us two weeks.

If we watch the Sunday Mass on EWTN and say a rosary as a family, would this be okay? I am sure it may sound lame to a lot of folks not having the gas to get to church, but this what we are dealing with. Getting to confession on Wednesday is pretty much out of the question too, at least for another two weeks.

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

As a general principle, a genuine inability to go to Mass excuses someone from the Sunday/holy day obligation. So, yes, if you can’t drive and have no other way to get to Mass, you do not sin by not going to Mass on Sunday or a holy day. While a televised Mass and a home rosary do not satisfy the Sunday/holy day obligation, they can allow those who are homebound to participate in some way in the holiness of the day.

That said, it needs to be noted that this presumes that you have done everything reasonably possible to remedy the situation. For example, is it possible to carpool with another family? Is it possible to use public transportation? Have you checked with your parish office to see if the church offers assistance to needy families? (Some parishes offer financial assistance for genuine necessities to registered families who tithe to the parish. Gas money to get to Mass should count as a genuine necessity.) I encourage you to keep searching for ways to get to Mass on Sundays, even when money is tight. As the old proverb goes, God is never outdone in generosity.

As for confession, if you are absolutely unable to get to church and need to receive confession, call the parish and ask if a priest can come to your home. Most parishes can arrange to bring the sacraments to the homebound.