Why is missing mass a mortal sin?

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As much as I love defenders of the Catholic faith. I attend mass regularly. I do not always think it is good to start telling people missing mass is a mortal sin. That never got me to go. While it is a sin to miss mass. I feel like there is a legalistic attitude behind that statement. Maybe people go to church and do not change for the better. I am not saying church is a waste or anything. I am a regular churchgoer. I do not think it is any better just be going to church because you are afraid of hell. I think it is realistic to attend church every sunday, most jobs give you sunday off. Holy days of obligation. I get it is one-hour - honestly not everyone has time.
 
Missing Mass is only a mortal sin if you do it on purpose. If you miss mass through no fault of your own - sick, flat tire, etc., then it is not a sin at all.

Worship is a matter of justice.

God holds us in existence from moment to moment and therefor we owe God worship. To deny someone something which belongs to them by right is the definition of injustice. Worship is God’s by right. To deny God worship which is his by right is an injustice.

We even say so in the Mass.

*Priest: Lift up your hearts.
People: We lift them up to the Lord.
Priest: Let us worship the Lord our God.
People: It is right and just. *

All injustice is sin and all sin is injustice. A world without sin would be perfectly just. A world where there is no injustice would be without sin. These words are not in the Mass for no reason.

-Tim-
 
Because, as a Pp said, it is offensive to God.

If you were supposed to meet a friend for lunch, you wouldn’t just not show up without a reason. This would be offensive to your friend. So why do it to our Lord?
 
I guess I’d also reflect on the corporate and communal nature of the Eucharist. Jesus said, “do this in memory of me.” He didn’t just mean that the priests were supposed to do it, but the whole community.

St. Paul is very clear on this point in 1 Corinthians 11. The whole community is to take part in the Eucharist.
 
You should go to mass every Sunday. If you ever find that you’re too busy and just can’t make the time then go on Sunday and Wednesday as well. If you are really, really busy and can’t do that then you should probably go every day.

🙂
 
That Commandment is really the fourth, not the third. Catholic Church took out the second one about idolatry.
 
Graceful_Lamb said:
That Commandment is really the fourth, not the third. Catholic Church took out the second one about idolatry.
Click to expand...
This is really a statement that shows many people do not know their Bible and Church history, and is absolutely, 100% false, and shows also a bigotry against the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church did not take out any Commandments whatsoever, and in fact the Lutheran church uses the same numbering. Here is an article about this, and if you don’t believe it, I can pull up a number of articles from Protestant biblical scholars, all of whom would tell you your statement is false. Please have a little intellectual honesty here instead of a preconceived prejudicial statement.

ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/NUMBERNG.htm
 
CB_Catholic said:
This is really a statement that shows many people do not know their Bible and Church history, and is absolutely, 100% false, and shows also a bigotry against the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church did not take out any Commandments whatsoever, and in fact the Lutheran church uses the same numbering. Here is an article about this, and if you don’t believe it, I can pull up a number of articles from Protestant biblical scholars, all of whom would tell you your statement is false. Please have a little intellectual honesty here instead of a preconceived prejudicial statement.

ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/NUMBERNG.htm
Click to expand...
thank you Carolyn!
 
I actually agree that it shouldn’t be a mortal sin, but at the same time I think that if it wasn’t then a lot of people would become lax in attendance and it would be a major detriment to their relationship with God, and to their lives in general. Thus, I understand, from a human psychology and concern for souls standpoint, why the church would declare it to be a mortal sin. The Bible says to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy, but that doesn’t necessarily mean going to church. It also says that we should gather ourselves together regularly, but that also doesn’t always mean church or church every week. The same with “wherever two or more are gathered in my name…” However, all of these things together mean that we should have a regular habit of gathering to worship, and it is right and proper for the church, as God’s authority on Earth, to delineate what that means. Just like it wouldn’t be a sin to eat meat other than fish on Fridays during Lent, except that the church, as God’s authority, has declared that we all must do so as a proper recognition of the sacrifice of Good Friday.

As to only priests taking the Eucharist or everyone, as one poster said, I recently studied something in church history which suggested that there was an extended period of time when only priests did receive the Eucharist, and there was even a group declared heretics because they spoke against it. I wish I remembered the details or the name of the heresy. Maybe I’m confusing it with the group who insisted that we must have both species, both the bread and the chalice, and it was only priests who had the chalice. I’m new to the church and I have only read about these things once so far, so it’s not firmly in my memory.
 
Attending Mass and keeping the Lord’s Day is a different issue than receiving weekly.
We are required to give the Lord due worship. We are not required to receive Eucharist weekly. It’s highly recommended fro those in a state of grace, but not required.

Anyone who thinks that missing Mass is not an affront to the Lord…He asks so little of us.
He gave His life for our Redemption.
I can think of many other things that people wouldn’t consider skipping.
But people are quick to say they are too busy for God.

This is not addressed to any poster in this thread, only something to think about.
 
It is a mortal sin to miss Mass (given the requisite conditions) because it is objectively evil; it amounts to grave ingratitude.

If we knew what the Mass is, say the Saints, we would die of joy, and we would risk our lives to attend this sacred oblation.

“If Christ did not want to dismiss the Jews without food in the desert for fear that they would collapse on the way, it was to teach us that it is dangerous to try to get to heaven without the Bread of Heaven.”
  • St. Jerome
“A person whom, by a special permission of God, he [Satan] was allowed to harass very much and even drag about on the ground, was exorcised by a priest of our Congregation [the Redemptorists] and the devil was commanded to say whether or not Holy Communion was very useful and profitable to the soul. At the first and second interrogatory he would not answer, but the third time, being commanded in the name of the blessed Trinity, he replied with a howl: **‘Profitable! Know that if this person had not received Holy Communion so many times, we should have had her completely in our power.’ **Behold, then, our great weapon against the devil! “Yes,” says the great St. John Chrysostom, “after receiving the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist, we become as terrible to the devil as a furious lion is to man.”
  • Fr. Mueller
 
Graceful_Lamb said:
That Commandment is really the fourth, not the third. Catholic Church took out the second one about idolatry.
Click to expand...
Gee, hon, you’re forgetting the Lutherans number the commandments the same way as Catholics. Guess they missed the memo about how wrong it was. :rolleyes:
 
jediliz said:
The 4th commandment is honor your father and your mother.
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It would be nice if all Christians would ‘get it together’ (and since the Catholics were the first to put in things like punctuation, I think the Catholic numbering should stand), and it would also be nice if more of us, Catholic and nonCatholics, would realize that the 10 commandments, so-called, are NOT listed in the Bible, 1, 2, 3, and in fact, that there are something like 14 separate passages. While the Catholic Church includes the ‘thou shalt make no idol’ under #1 instead of giving it a separate #2 to itself, the nonCatholic Churches such as Graceful Lamb take as their 10th commandment, “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his ox, nor his goods” as one ‘entire’ commandment while the Catholic/Lutheran make #9 "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife’ and #10, 'thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s ox, nor his goods.

The Catholics actually thought enough of women to treat them as separate beings (the 9th commandment) instead of property (the nonCatholic 10th commandment lumps wife and goods together as PROPERTY. Not cool).

Every time I hear a nonCatholic/nonLutheran rant about how the Catholic Church subjugates women, I want to smile sweetly at them and inquire, “Well, sugar, why does YOUR Church include women with property?” After they picked their jaws up from the floor, I wonder how many would have the intellectual honestly to address that!!
 
Graceful_Lamb said:
That Commandment is really the fourth, not the third. Catholic Church took out the second one about idolatry.
Click to expand...
You get your info about Catholics from anti-catholic folks, don’t you? I did too when I was a protestant. Stick around on these forums. You might learn something correct about what we believe. Maybe some good history lessons too. You know The Catholic Church is almost 2000 years old. That would mean that the commandments were first numbered by our Church. It was later denominations that adjusted the numbering. First commandment still forbids idolatry for us, even if you do not believe it 🙂

No competent person would say that The Catholic Church changed the numbering of the commandments. How could The Catholic Church have changed the numbering when we were the first to number them? No protestant denomination is older than 500 years. The way most protestant number The Commandments is the change. Not the other way around. I am not saying that you are incompetent, but I am saying that about whoever gave you that false info. That is not a accusation even a smart anti-Catholic would make because he would have done his homework about The history of Christianity. God bless.
 
From a legalistic point of view The obligation of Sunday Mass does carry the sanction of Mortal sin. But it is an artificial man-made obligation ,only operative because the Church has imposed it. Perhaps someday it too will be rescinded. In the meanwhile, Catholics are “under the Law” since the issue assumes that God is obliged to back up whatever the Church “Binds or loosens” ( a sort of Carte Blanche…). ( the Church may have authority but no promise is given that it will use it wisely or fairly.) .In the same vein ,the Church celebrates feast days etc by making it easier for souls to risk Hell , again artificially, but affectively…
Axman
 
CRATUS said:
As much as I love defenders of the Catholic faith. I attend mass regularly. I do not always think it is good to start telling people missing mass is a mortal sin. That never got me to go. While it is a sin to miss mass. I feel like there is a legalistic attitude behind that statement. Maybe people go to church and do not change for the better. I am not saying church is a waste or anything. I am a regular churchgoer. I do not think it is any better just be going to church because you are afraid of hell. I think it is realistic to attend church every sunday, most jobs give you sunday off. Holy days of obligation. I get it is one-hour - honestly not everyone has time.
Click to expand...
I would not say missing Mass (or the Divine Liturgy) is a mortal sin. If anything it would only be a venial sin and all venal sins can be taken care of in your next Mass. A story that might explain this is from St. Maria Faustina. She thought she had committed a mortal sin so she decided to skip Mass. The Lord Jesus appeared to her and asked her why she did not come to Mass? She told Him because she thought she had committed a mortal sin. He told her that she did not and in fact let her know that her missing Mass was a more of a sin than what she thought she had committed. Now the Lord said that missing Mass was not a mortal sin only that it was a venial sin that was worse than the venial sin the saint had committed. The Lord assured her she did not commit any mortal sin and in fact told her that she had never committed any in her life. This was the problem which this Catholic saint had. She was too hard on herself. The Lord had to remind her often not to put herself down so much. Why? It was because she would not unite herself with her Lord when the opportunity actually presented herself to do so. She decided to make herself more guilty which in the Lord’s eyes presented Him from uniting with the saint. He admonished her never to do this. He taught her what sins were actually mortal and which ones were not. These lessons from the Lord actually made her better equipped to judge herself properly.
 
CB_Catholic said:
This is really a statement that shows many people do not know their Bible and Church history, and is absolutely, 100% false, and shows also a bigotry against the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church did not take out any Commandments whatsoever, and in fact the Lutheran church uses the same numbering. Here is an article about this, and if you don’t believe it, I can pull up a number of articles from Protestant biblical scholars, all of whom would tell you your statement is false. Please have a little intellectual honesty here instead of a preconceived prejudicial statement.

ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/NUMBERNG.htm
Click to expand...
I am NOT bigoted against the Catholic Church. That is a false statement. Because if I was, then I guess I wouldn’t be attending Mass every Sunday with my Roman Catholic husband. Also, I wouldn’t be looking to marry my husband in the Catholic church, either. Third, why would I be on a website that is obviously Catholic if I was that bigoted towards the Catholic Church? Does that really make any sense?

[edited]
 
LaughingBoy1503 said:
You get your info about Catholics from anti-catholic folks, don’t you? I did too when I was a protestant. Stick around on these forums. You might learn something correct about what we believe. Maybe some good history lessons too. You know The Catholic Church is almost 2000 years old. That would mean that the commandments were first numbered by our Church. It was later denominations that adjusted the numbering. First commandment still forbids idolatry for us, even if you do not believe it 🙂

No competent person would say that The Catholic Church changed the numbering of the commandments. How could The Catholic Church have changed the numbering when we were the first to number them? No protestant denomination is older than 500 years. The way most protestant number The Commandments is the change. Not the other way around. I am not saying that you are incompetent, but I am saying that about whoever gave you that false info. That is not a accusation even a smart anti-Catholic would make because he would have done his homework about The history of Christianity. God bless.
Click to expand...
I actually talk to my ROMAN CATHOLIC husband quite a bit about the Catholic Church. Also, I have researched quite a bit on my own and have read about many subjects here. I have been on these forums for a while and I have learned many things about the church here.

I attend ROMAN CATHOLIC Mass every Sunday with my ROMAN CATHOLIC husband. So, it isn’t like I’m not around Catholics or the church. I am around it quite a bit, actually., for someone who isn’t Catholic.

As for sticking around, I should stick around so that I can read your condescending posts? Yeah, I’ll be right on that.
 
Graceful_Lamb said:
I actually talk to my ROMAN CATHOLIC husband quite a bit about the Catholic Church. Also, I have researched quite a bit on my own and have read about many subjects here. I have been on these forums for a while and I have learned many things about the church here.

I attend ROMAN CATHOLIC Mass every Sunday with my ROMAN CATHOLIC husband. So, it isn’t like I’m not around Catholics or the church. I am around it quite a bit, actually., for someone who isn’t Catholic.

As for sticking around, I should stick around so that I can read your condescending posts? Yeah, I’ll be right on that.
Click to expand...
So, does your Roman Catholic husband concede that The Catholic Church changed the commandments and/or their numbering? Is he the one that told you that?

If you have done research, great. Good for you. Your statement about The Church changing the commandments in your previous post does not reflect that. As was pointed out, even competent protestant Bible scholars know that it simply is not true. Sorry for talking down on you like it did. It is not a excuse, but we get a lot of people who come on these forums not to learn anything but simply to attack Catholic beliefs. You did not think it might offend anyone by a statement on a Catholic website that “The Catholic Church took out the commandment about Idolatry”? Let me try to redo say what my original post should have said…

If a Catholic has told you that The Catholic Church took out the commandment about Idolatry, they are mistaken. If you learned this from a non-catholic source, they are not a good source to learn about History or The Catholic Church because even a competent anti-Catholic protestant Bible scholar knows that it is not true that The Catholic Church took out any commandment. The Church has numbered the commandments different. Idolatry is still forbidden by The First commandment. The commandments where simply re-numbered by later denominations. If you do not believe this, research the subject from a completely unbiased source. Not Catholic, nor protestant.
 
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