A listener offers a scenario to Father Dave about fulfilling the obligation of attending Mass on Sundays.
Tom says, “A friend of mine was trained to be an usher. He said, if he finds a suspicious package in the gathering space and he feels it could be a threat to the church, he should inform the priest who will immediately end Mass and dismiss everyone through safe exits. He went on to ask, ‘Does this fulfill the Sunday obligation?’ I proposed a scenario where he goes to his favorite restaurant, he orders the supreme meal. It is served and he just tastes the first morsel when there is a bomb scare and the restaurant is evacuated. I asked him, ‘Have you eaten?’”
Father Dave begins, “Tom responded to his friend with the meal analogy. I don’t know if Tom was specifically meaning that, if we didn’t get to the point in Mass that we receive Communion, then it doesn’t feel like we’ve had the meal and that wouldn’t fulfill what it is we’re looking for. But if Tom is implying that receiving Communion is the way to fulfill your Sunday obligation, that is not the teaching of the Church.”
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He continues, “The Church does desire for us to long for and receive Holy Communion in the Eucharist, as often as we are in a state of grace. There was a time, actually a couple of centuries in the Church, where people felt so unworthy that they only would receive Communion once a year. In the early 20th century, the Pope had to begin encouraging more frequent reception of Communion.” Father Dave notes that the pendulum might have swung in the other direction in our modern era, with people receiving the Eucharist more out of habit without examining their conscience.
“But it’s important to draw that distinction, that the Sunday obligation has absolutely nothing to do with receiving Communion. And if we look back to that time [where people felt unworthy], they were still fulfilling their Sunday obligation, because the obligation is to show up at church. That’s what the obligation is about,” he says, “The obligation is to gather together around the table of the Lord with the community of the faithful.”
Father Dave says, “So back to your friends scenario: what if everybody left their couch, chose not to go to soccer games with the kids and actually did show up at church? And then some emergency happened where we had to evacuate and go home? Yes, they fulfilled their Sunday obligation, because they showed up.”
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With this in mind, Father Dave says it’s important to account for the spirit of the law, as Tom does in his response scenario regarding the meal. He says, “Like any law, privilege, right, or blessing, we can abuse it, because we are selfish humans and we tend to do that. So certainly, the spirit of the law is that we would participate. At the Second Vatican Council in the mid 60s, the focus largely having to do with the Mass was full conscious and active participation in the liturgy. Full participation, not participation for four minutes and saying, ‘I checked the box and I’m going home.’”
“Individually choosing to do the minimum is very different from the Church itself saying [not to come],” he continues. “We can look at 2020 when there was a global pandemic, and the Church herself said, don’t show up. And you’re not penalized for missing out on your Sunday obligation.”