What do you do when you miss mass?
- Thread starter Nelka
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Q
Quis_UtDeus
Guest
Try finding another time to go, or maybe an evening mass for the night before that holds sunday mass during Saturday night.
Or talk to the boss for next time and say how you’re obligated to go to Mass for your religious beliefs
Or talk to the boss for next time and say how you’re obligated to go to Mass for your religious beliefs
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Gertabelle
Guest
Really would depend on the day and the schedule. Nowadays I don’t have to worry about work because I’m a teacher.
I could recommend praying the Office of Readings and Morning Prayer, praying through the mass readings, praying the rosary, even watching the mass online or on television – these would all be ways to include prayer in our day when we cannot attend Sunday mass for any legitimate reason.
po18guy
Well-known member
- Go to the next mass, as you are offering yourself as a living sacrifice at each mass in atonement for the sin of the world. Saturday vigil mass, earlier or later Sunday masses at the same or other parishes. Take an hour from work to attend the mass closest to your work. Lots of ways to solve this.
- Confess before receiving communion.
- Speak with your boss, as has been mentioned.
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Mintaka
Guest
“Love always finds a way” is not actually Church teaching.
Church teaching is that if Mass attendance is impossible or seriously difficult*, you are dispensed. What is impossible cannot be required.
I want to emphasize this point. I have been stupid before about stubbornly trying to attend Mass, and it did not benefit me or anyone else.
Back then, I usually caught the bus and then walked a few blocks to my church for Mass. There had been an icestorm the day before, and the weatherman warned people to stay home; but I thought I could still do my normal thing. After all, the buses were still running, right?
What I didn’t realize was that the sidewalks and parking lots had not been salted, and they were like glass. Black glass, in some cases.
When I was still a bit far from church, I fell and broke my arm in several places. I had to call an ambulance. I had to call my parents to come and get me from the hospital. I had to take the time of hospital staff when they were having a day full of falls by people who did have a good reason to be walking on ice. I put several other people in the position of driving icy roads and negotiating icy sidewalks and parking lots, and I needed the help of many people for many weeks. None of it had to happen; it was all my pride and stupidity.
All because I mistook stubborn idiocy for love and devotion.
Now, that doesn’t mean that I stopped going to Mass. It means that I take people’s weather advice more seriously, and do not try to do the impossible. (I’m still stubborn, but it’s a more humble stubborn.)
It is pious and good to do something else devotional, if one really cannot attend Mass, but such things are not required because one has been dispensed.
(And “making a spiritual communion” is always a good idea.)
Church teaching is that if Mass attendance is impossible or seriously difficult*, you are dispensed. What is impossible cannot be required.
I want to emphasize this point. I have been stupid before about stubbornly trying to attend Mass, and it did not benefit me or anyone else.
Back then, I usually caught the bus and then walked a few blocks to my church for Mass. There had been an icestorm the day before, and the weatherman warned people to stay home; but I thought I could still do my normal thing. After all, the buses were still running, right?
What I didn’t realize was that the sidewalks and parking lots had not been salted, and they were like glass. Black glass, in some cases.
When I was still a bit far from church, I fell and broke my arm in several places. I had to call an ambulance. I had to call my parents to come and get me from the hospital. I had to take the time of hospital staff when they were having a day full of falls by people who did have a good reason to be walking on ice. I put several other people in the position of driving icy roads and negotiating icy sidewalks and parking lots, and I needed the help of many people for many weeks. None of it had to happen; it was all my pride and stupidity.
All because I mistook stubborn idiocy for love and devotion.
Now, that doesn’t mean that I stopped going to Mass. It means that I take people’s weather advice more seriously, and do not try to do the impossible. (I’m still stubborn, but it’s a more humble stubborn.)
It is pious and good to do something else devotional, if one really cannot attend Mass, but such things are not required because one has been dispensed.
(And “making a spiritual communion” is always a good idea.)
- St. Alphonsus de Liguori even said that if Mass was farther away than a fifteen minute donkey ride on a dirt road, you could be dispensed. The point is that Church law understands that what’s “seriously difficult” is different for different people. Some people are too hard on themselves, some are too easy on themselves, and some are just shrewd and prudent, unlike the rest of us.
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Odilon
Guest
I have my Missal and read the days readings and gospel. I am a long distance truck driver and sometimes cannot get to a church so I do the next best thing.
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anon64350612
Guest
All this and I would add making a spiritual communion in lieu of receiving Holy Communion.
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mVitus
Guest
Thanks for sharing. I find that interesting. I’m curious what other factors there may have been or what factors I’m,missing that led him to say that since, to me, 15 minutes wouldn’t be much. It’d be nice to know more of his reasoning.
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Bluebright
Guest
I would say the mass prayers in my mass book and ask for spiritual communion. I would make a sacrifice of some kind and make a sincere effort not to do it again, ie to move things around so it doesnt happen again, but work is work, so if you can’t then see if you can go on the Saturday night. I would also go to an extra mass during the week. I’d miss Jesus so do this out of love.
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