"Very impressed with their commitment to Sunday Mass"

1) Advent Penance Service for GW students on Monday (Dec. 7) at 7:30 pm at St Stephen’s. We will have several priests there to offer confessions. As I said in my homily this past weekend, making a good Advent includes going to Confession at least once before Christmas. “We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled with God” (2 Cor 5:20).

2) Tuesday, Dec 8, is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and a Holy Day of Obligation! Masses at the Newman Center will be at 12:00 pm and 5:30 pm. Masses at St Stephen’s will be at 6:30 am, 12:10 pm, 5:30 pm, and 7:00 pm.
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Anon posted the following question: “is missing mass cause of having a college baseball game a sin?”

Thanks for the question, Anon. Let me begin with a story from my days in the seminary. I helped out for a few years with the men’s lacrosse team at Mount St Mary’s (University and Seminary) in Maryland. I was a chaplain for the team; some seminarians were chaplains of the sports' teams. One weekend, I went with the team to their conference tournament in New York. The Mount made it to the championship game on Sunday. The night before, I told the players (most of whom were Catholic) that Mass was early Sunday morning at a Church about 15 minutes away and invited them to join me. Many guys came! I was very impressed with their commitment to Sunday Mass! We took up at least a row in the Church and were acknowledged by the celebrating priest. (Btw, they won the championship later that day)

Here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about the Sunday obligation:
“The Sunday Eucharist is the foundation and confirmation of all Christian practice. For this reason the faithful are obliged to participate in the Eucharist on days of obligation, unless excused for a serious reason (for example, illness, the care of infants) or dispensed by their own pastor. Those who deliberately fail in this obligation commit a grave sin” (#2181).

The most relevant word in this paragraph to your question is “deliberately”. For something to be a sin, it has to be chosen….it has to be intentional…it has to be deliberate. Did you deliberately choose to miss Mass on the day of your baseball game? If yes, it is a sin. If no, it is not a sin.

It might not have been possible for you to get to Mass that day. Maybe you were playing in a tournament with games all weekend. Maybe you were playing an away game with no chance of getting to Mass. If it was the case that you did not have the opportunity to get to Mass, God knows this. He knows that you were choosing to honor your commitment to the team, not choosing to miss Mass.

In most cases, though, you should have the opportunity to both play the game and attend Mass. Masses are offered on Saturday nights, Sunday mornings, and Sunday nights in every area of the country. So, I would ask you to plan ahead next time; if you see a conflict with a baseball game or other commitment, plan on attending Mass at another time. A really good resource for this (especially when traveling) is www.masstimes.org. Yes, it involves some planning and inconvenience in order to attend Mass sometimes, but it’s right and it’s worth it. It was right and worth it for the Mount lacrosse players to honor God in an extraordinary way. It is right and worth it for all of us to do the same.