Fulfilling Sunday Obligation On A Day Other Than Sunday

[Guest Puff the Magic Dragon]

My Mother is unable to attend Sunday Mass. She is 86 years old and the only Sunday Mass is at 8:00 a.m. and there is no way I can get to her to take her that early on a Sunday morning. The parish has no Saturday Evening Mass of Anticipation.

The nearest mass would be Friday Evening Mass. Could this Mass be counted as her obligation?

[cappie]

If someone cannot go to Mass, truly cannot, then that person’s obligation is suspended. You can’t, fulfill your Sunday obligation, by watching Mass on TV. or going another day. If you can go, you go. If you can’t you can’t. God doesn’t ask the impossible.

If you are sick, you don’t have to fulfill the obligation. If you are old and afraid to go out alone, or that you might slip on the ice, or as you have said the Mass is too early, you don’t have to fulfill the obligation. If you are far from a church while travelling and don’t know where to go or can’t get to a church, you don’t have to fulfill the obligation.

Of course, if a person really can go to Mass, and doesn’t… well… don’t get hit by a truck. But in the case mentioned, the Sunday obligation doesn't apply.

Finally, the 1983 Code of Canon Law, in can. 1245 gives to pastors the right to grant a dispensation from the obligation in individual cases or else he can commute the obligation into other pious works.