Holydays of Obligation - Fr. Andrew Reckers
Most Catholics are familiar with the First Precept of the Church listed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “You shall attend Mass on Sundays and on holy days of obligation and rest from servile labor (CCC 2042).” However, many Catholics are unfamiliar with the list of holy days of obligation other than Sundays. This unfamiliarity is quite understandable because, while the list of holy days of obligation is defined in the 1983 Code of Canon Law (Canon 1246, Section 1), there is a great deal of variation from diocese to diocese around the world as to which of these days are actually observed as obligatory (see Canon 1246, section 2). The goal of this article is to list the holy days of obligation and show how they are observed in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.
To begin, I list the ten holy days of obligation that are found in Canon 1246, along with their traditional dates: 1. The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary: December 8th; 2. The Nativity of the Lord: December 25th; 3. Mary, Mother of God: January 1st; 4. The Epiphany: January 6th; 5. Saint Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary: March 19th; 6. The Ascension of the Lord: The Thursday in the Sixth Week of Easter; 7. The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ: The Thursday after Trinity Sunday (the first Sunday after Pentecost); 8. Saints Peter and Paul: June 29th; 9. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary: August 15th; 10. The Solemnity of All Saints: November 1st.
While all ten of these holy days of obligation are observed in Vatican City, not all of them are observed as holy days of obligation in other parts of the world. In the dioceses in the United States, two of them are not observed as holy days of obligation: Saint Joseph, and Saints Peter and Paul. The remaining eight are observed in three categories that I list below. (The exception to this is Hawaii, which is part of the Conference of Bishops of the South Pacific. In Hawaii, the only non-Sunday holy days of obligation are the Immaculate Conception and the Nativity).
The first category are holy days of obligation that must be observed, regardless of which day of the week on which they fall. The two holy days of obligation in the United States that fall under this category are the Immaculate Conception (when it is on Dec 8; see the exception below), and the Nativity (Dec 25).
The second category are those feast days that are observed as holy days of obligation, unless the feast falls on either a Monday or a Saturday. In the United States, the feasts that fall under this second category include: Mary, Mother of God (Jan 1), The Assumption (Aug 15), and the Solemnity of All Saints (Nov 1). In addition, whenever December 8th falls on a Sunday, the Immaculate Conception is transferred to the following Monday (Dec 9). It gets transferred in this case because the Second Sunday of Advent outranks it. When the Immaculate Conception gets transferred to Monday December 9th, the feast day then falls under this second category. Thus, in this case only, the Immaculate Conception is not observed as a holy day of obligation.
The third category are those feasts that are transferred to a Sunday. In the United States, they include the Epiphany (transferred to the first Sunday after January 1st), and The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (transferred to the second Sunday after Pentecost). Moreover, The Ascension of the Lord is transferred to the Seventh Sunday of Easter in most dioceses in the United States, including the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. However, in some dioceses in the United States, the Ascension is observed on the Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter rather than transferred to the following Sunday.
These are indeed complex rules for determining which days are holy days of obligation, so I conclude by giving my best summary. First, all Sundays are holy days of obligation. In addition, there are five holy days of obligation in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati that may not fall on a Sunday: The Immaculate Conception (Dec 8); The Nativity (Dec 25); Mary, Mother of God (Jan 1); The Assumption (Aug 15); and All Saints (Nov 1). The obligation to attend Mass on a Monday or Saturday depends on which category the feast falls under (see above). If you have any questions, I am always happy to help.