Is New Years Day A Holy Day Of Obligation?

[TheresaThoma]

AL those are really yucky choices. I know at my parish at least we have three massed. I 5pm vigil, a 9am and an 11am. I also hear that another local parish is offering 11pm adoration and then Midnight Mass. It is a FSSP parish too. I really wish I could go!

[AnneLine]

Yeah, there are some other parishes with other choices. 

 

But i do think sometimes the people who run parishes and dioceses just don't think about what it is like for people on the other side of the altar rail (for lack of a better term.)

 

Usually this comes up for us on Thanksgiving and New Years.  When we might be traveling.  You, know, with wings?   :cupid:   So at 9AM you know what your obligation is.... but by 3pm it might be a totally different set of rules and/or Mass Times!    Trying to find the actual schedule of what is happening THIS week in THIS parish in THIS diocese is a real killer!   As Tony noted, often for holidays the 'holiday' 'holy day' schedule gets switched around.  I've learned the hard way to NOT trust websites or even calling and listening to a recording in a parish website.  They are just too often WRONG.   So... I hunt a parish website that has LAST WEEK's BULLETIN... because they list the Mass intentions for each time for each of the days of the coming week... which means.... I know when the Masses will be offered!

 

I just don't understand why it would kill the diocese (horrors) to post a chart that said something like this:

 

======================================================

 

 

New Year's Day - Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God

Holy Day of Obligation in THIS diocese

 

Holy Day Masses in this diocese:

 

All Masses are in BIG CITY, except as otherwise noted:

 

6:30 AM     St. Joseph (in Town A)

 

9:00 AM     St. Mary of Egypt, St. Paul (in Town B), St Joseph

 

10:00 Am    St. Ignatius, St. Lucy, Sacred Heart, St. Joseph (in Town A)

 

12:15 PM    St. Patrick, St. Stanislaus

 

5:00 PM      Holy Souls (in Town A)

 

======================================================

 

Maybe I hope for too much?

 

 

AND.... while I am on my mini-rant:   Why do they run ALL the Spanish Language masses at the same time all around the diocese?  ALL of them are either at 11:30 am OR AT 1:00 pm.   It makes it really hard for my husband (who NEEDS a 1 or 1:30 PM mass but doesn't speak any Spanish) to get to a Mass in which he can participate.... and it can't be really helpful to the Spanish Language community to have only one or two options all across three counties as well....

 

Am I the only one who has experienced this?

 

 

[ToJesusMyHeart]

My church bulletin doesn't say anything about this solemnity....and I can't find any word on the diocese website either.

 

Diocese of Dallas, anybody know?

[Tony]

My church bulletin doesn't say anything about this solemnity....and I can't find any word on the diocese website either.

 

Diocese of Dallas, anybody know?

 

This parish http://www.stpatrickdallas.org/ says it is a day of Obligation. I believe it is everywhere in the US.

[ToJesusMyHeart]

thanks, man.

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

Can't find anything for my diocese on there website. I will ring the local parish now. Unfortunately i don't even know what the holy days of obligation are except for christmas, easter, ash Wednesday, all souls day and i think the immaculate conception, how many holy days of obligation are there in the u.s.a ?

[AnneLine]

Here you go, Tab!!!!

 

This is what it says from the Sydney Catholic 

 

http://www.liturgy.sydneycatholic.org/documents-a-resources/catholicism-101/holidays-of-obligation

 

The Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference determined that, in addition to all the Sundays in the year, the only feast days to be observed in Australia as holydays of obligation are the solemnities of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

 

 

 

=================================================================================

 

In the US there are a few more:

 

http://old.usccb.org/liturgy/q&a/general/obligation.shtml

 

In addition to Sunday, the days to be observed as holy days of obligation in the Latin Rite dioceses of the United States of America, in conformity with canon 1246, are as follows:

 

January 1, the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God;

Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter, the solemnity of the Ascension;

August 15, the solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary;
November 1, the solemnity of All Saints;
December 8, the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception;
December 25, the solemnity of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Whenever January 1, the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, or August 15, the solemnity of the Assumption, or November 1, the solemnity of All Saints, falls on a Saturday or on a Monday, the precept to attend Mass is abrogated.

 

 

 

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

Thanks anneline. But what about ash Wednesday ? And does that mean in Australia most of the holy days of obligation are on sundays now ?

[AnneLine]

I don't think ash Wednesday ever WAS on the list of Holy Days, nor Good Friday.  They are just days people traditionally attend Church!

 

Many places have transferred Ascension and Corpus Christi (some places outside the US this was a Holy Day, apparently) to Sundays, and that resolves the problem.

 

As noted in blue above in my copying about the US Holy Days, some of them get moved if they fall on a Saturday or a Monday.  I think this is to help take the work load off the priests (and perhaps the lay people) but I'm not sure.

 

The other days just stay as solemnities on the calendar, but are not 'of obligation'

 

BUT, as someone said a year or so ago, they are OF PRIVILEGE -- we have the PRIVILEGE of celebrating them with Mass!