- Alexandra Clark | The Daily Knight
Sunday Obligation: Are We Keeping Holy the Lord’s Day by going to the Novus Ordo Mass?
Alexandra Clark | The Daily Knight
There was a recent poll on Facebook that you can see was asking a very important question:
First things first we must, “Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.” 3rd Commandment of God
St. Thomas Aquinas states:
“This is the Third Commandment of the law, and very suitably is it so. For we are first commanded to adore God in our hearts, and the Commandment is to worship one God: “Thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.” In the Second Commandment we are told to reverence God by word: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” The Third commands us to reverence God by act. It is: “Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.” God wished that a certain day be set aside on which men direct their minds to the service of the Lord.” (page 10: https://d2y1pz2y630308.cloudfront.net/1161/documents/RCIA/StThomasAguinasTenCommendments.pdf )
And just as in the Old Testament, where God ordained every detail of how He wanted to be worshiped, the same is in the New Testament, whereby Christ set up the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Fr. Cochem said it well, that:
“Therefore, in His divine wisdom. He devised a means whereby He could remain on earth after His death, continue His saving Passion, unceasingly plead with God for man, as He did when nailed upon the Cross. What was this wondrous means? None other than the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, wherein He daily, continually, suffers mystically upon the Cross; suffers for us, pleads for us, calls upon God for grace and mercy on our behalf with irresistible urgency.” (The Reason Why Christ Renews His Passion in Holy Mass: https://www.knightsrepublic.com/single-post/the-reason-why-christ-renews-his-passion-in-holy-mass)
Truly, “If we really understood the Mass, we would die of joy.” ~ St. John Vianney
The Douay Reims Catechism Q. 945, asks: “WHAT is the Mass? Answer: It is the unbloody sacrifice of Christ's body and blood, under the forms of bread and wine. The word Mass, used in English, being derived from Missa, Latin; and the word Missa, though it may have other derivations, may be well taken from the Hebrew word Missach, which signifies a free voluntary offering.”
The Catechism of the Council of Trent says further that: “The Mass Is a True Sacrifice. The Mass Is The Same Sacrifice As That Of The Cross. We therefore confess that the Sacrifice of the Mass is and ought to be considered one and the same Sacrifice as that of the cross, for the victim is one and the same, namely, Christ our Lord, who offered Himself, once only, a bloody Sacrifice on the altar of the cross. The bloody and unbloody victim are not two, but one victim only, whose Sacrifice is daily renewed in the Eucharist, in obedience to the command of our Lord: Do this for a commemoration of me.”
Therefore, in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass we accomplish in a most perfect way the worship of the Most Holy Trinity. Most Catholics today have not been taught that Holy Mass is always offered for four ends: adoration, atonement, thanksgiving, and petition.
“Know, O Christian, that the Mass is the holiest act of religion. You cannot do anything to glorify God more, nor profit your soul more, than by devoutly assisting at it, and assisting as often as possible.” – St. Peter Julian Eymard
Thus, our Sunday Obligation helps us accomplish:
1. ADORATION: Offering through the priest the one perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ to the Eternal Father an infinitely perfect act of praise and adoration.
2. ATTONMENT: We can unite and be truly present to Christ’s one Holy Sacrifice on the Cross at Calvary and thus can apply the Blood of Christ in an act of infinite reparation/atonement for the forgiveness of our sins.
3. THANKSGIVING: ‘Eucharist’ comes from the Greek word meaning “thanksgiving.” Therefore, through Our Lord Jesus Christ, we can offer infinite thanks to God Almighty for all the many benefits we receive from Him. Our debt of gratitude that we owe to God can only be fulfilled by offering Him the Heart of His Beloved Son.
4. PETITION: The Holy Mass is the greatest prayer a soul can ever say and it is through the Savior’s intercession we hope to obtain the assistance of God for the intentions in our own life.
Contemplate these two quotes:
“The celebration of Holy Mass has the same value as the Death of Jesus on the Cross.” -St. Thomas Aquinas
“Martyrdom is nothing in comparison with the Mass, because martyrdom is the sacrifice of man to God, whereas the Mass is the Sacrifice of God for man!” ~ St. John Vianney
Now, we all know as Catholics that it is a mortal sin to miss Mass on Sunday.
However, one is not obliged to attend the new Mass (novus ordo missa) to fulfil one’s Sunday Obligation as the well know Fr. Gregory Hesse has logically and Theologically pointed out.
In this video HERE he starts talking around the 25 minute mark, how he came to that conclusion. He mentions that what is in doubt is never to be followed and can never be obligatory in the Catholic Faith. The new mass is a doubtful ceremony. The fact that the Holy Faith is based on prayer, thus, if the prayer is changed, then the Faith can be changed and we have seen this in the fruits of the new mass. You can read more about that HERE.
Fr. Hesse makes the point that because of the Divine Law: Keep Holy the Sabaoth Day (3rd Commandment), this command cannot be fulfilled by going to a Mass that is not pleasing to God, that has been altered from its Apostolic origin, and given to us by God. Certainly, going to a Mass that has many liturgical abuses, just to name a few: ad populum worship, altar girls, Eucharistic Ministers, dancing, weird prayer changes, Communion in the Hand….can NOT be fulfilling our duty to give God perfect praise, adoration, reparation and thanksgiving.
Again listen here to Fr. Hesse discuss this in a logic and theological argument for the Sunday Obligation, https://youtu.be/tojDubuBKME
We must remember that our first obligation is to honor God and save our soul. No one can legitimately oblige you to assist at a Mass that both dishonors God through its irreverence and endangers your salvation through undermining the Catholic Faith.
Our situation today is akin to that of Catholics in 16th-century England. Nearly all the bishops and priests in those days had adopted new doctrines — Protestantism — and attempted to impose a heretical new Mass on the faithful. Martin Luther knew that the Mass needed to be destroyed in order to make all the changes in doctrine that he desired. As he said:
“It is indeed upon the Mass as on a rock that the whole papal system is built, with its monasteries…its altars…its doctrine, i.e. with all its guts. All these cannot fail to crumble once their sacrilegious and abominable Mass falls.”
Catholics in England at that time simply ignored the innovators’ laws and pronouncements which commanded them to fulfill their Sunday obligation at what was in fact a non-Catholic service. Instead, good Catholics sought out faithful priests who would provide them with a true Catholic Mass & with sound Catholic doctrine.
The Novus Ordo Mass has changed the way Catholics believe thus effecting the change in Catholic beliefs.
Various saints taught souls of the importance of assisting at Mass with prayerful active participation. This participation is of the heart, mind, will and strength. Modernist today would like us to believe their version of "active participation" which is to be in a "dialogue" and to have some part to play in the ceremonies of the Mass. True active participation is not the clapping hands, holding hands, dancing, playing a guitar, reading the Gospel or being a Eucharistic Minister. Those are all distractions, corruptions and liturgical abuse of just the last 60 years. This modernistic idea has destroyed the actual participation a soul must have in order to participate as Mary did at the foot of the Cross. You can delve into what the Church always understood by active participation in this article HERE.
A Critical Study and layout to why the New Mass (Novus Ordo) is not proper Catholic worship, was put together by Cardinals opposing this new Mass at the time of the Second Vatican Council and was presented to Pope Paul VI. It is highly recommended to read to better understand the major differences of the Mass of All Times and the Novus Ordo: http://www.catholictradition.org/Eucharist/ottaviani.htm
“No human tongue can enumerate the favors that trace back to the Sacrifice of the Mass. The sinner is reconciled with God; the just man becomes more upright; sins are wiped away; vices are uprooted; virtue and merit increases; and the devil’s schemes are frustrated.”
– St. Lawrence Justinian
"Our Mass goes back, without essential change, to the age when it first developed out of the oldest
liturgy of all. It is still redolent of that liturgy, of the days when Caesar ruled the world and thought he could stamp out the faith of Christ, when our fathers met together before dawn and sang a hymn to Christ as to a God. The final result of our inquiry is that, in spite of unsolved problems, in spite of later changes, there is not in Christendom another rite so venerable as ours."
--Fr. Adrian Fortescue, The Mass: A Study of the Roman Liturgy [1912], p. 213
“O you deluded people, what are you doing? Why do you not hasten to the churches to hear as many Masses as you can? Why do you not imitate the angels, who, when a Holy Mass is celebrated, come down in myriads from Paradise and take their stations about our altars in adoration to intercede for us?” --St. Leonard of Port Maurice
Two final notes, Saturday evening Masses does not fulfil your Sunday obligation, that is a novelty and an abuse of power that contradicts what the Church has always done. watch video discussion HERE with Fr. Albert.
And if you have questions about going to a daily Mass and there is only the novus ordo, Fr. Albert also discusses that HERE: Going to a Reverent New Rite Daily Mass?
Finally, if you desire to know more of what has happened with Catholic worship, Archbishop Viganò Urges Souls to Read This Article: The hermeneutic of Cain’s envy against Abel
