In the Catholic Church, holy days of obligation are the most important days in the liturgical year, when the faithful are required to participate in Mass, including Sundays. Because it is the day Jesus rose from the dead and therefore signifies our “new creation” in him, Sunday is “the foremost holy day of obligation in the universal Church” (CCC 2174; 2177). These holy days celebrate key events in salvation history and honor the central mysteries of our faith.

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms,  those who deliberately miss Mass on a holy day of obligation—“unless excused for a serious reason (for example, illness, the care of infants) or dispensed by their own pastor”—commit a mortal sin (CCC 2181). These sacred days call us to give our Lord Jesus Christ the worship he is due, “and through him to the Father in the Holy Spirit” (CCC 1325; see 1354; 1366; 1408). They also require us to abstain from unnecessary servile work on such days, which encompasses “refraining from engaging in work or activities that hinder the worship owed to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s Day, the performance of the works of mercy, and the appropriate relaxation of mind and body” (CCC  2185; see 2042; 2193).

Church Authority and Holy Days of Obligation

Some Christians argue that the Catholic Church’s laws which require the faithful to participate in religious worship are, apart from perhaps Sunday, manmade and arbitrary. However, throughout salvation history, God has always worked through visible human leaders in ministering to his people. That includes the New Covenant, as Jesus restores and fulfills the kingdom of Israel by founding his one Catholic Church. To foster both our earthly and eternal fulfillment, Jesus gives Peter (the first pope) and the other apostles the power to “bind and loose” in governing his Church (see Matt. 16:18-19; 18:15-18).

The Church law expresses this power. Because Peter and his apostolic confreres would only live so long, Jesus also provides that their apostolic successors, i.e., the bishops, receive this same power, lest Christ’s Church be left without visible, unifying human leaders for the hierarchy he had divinely established to guide it (see, e.g., Acts 1:15-26; 2 Tim. 2:2). Consequently, bishops must exercise their ministry in full communion with the pope (see Luke 22:31-32; John 21:15-17).

Furthermore, what the Church binds on earth God binds in heaven, and what the Church looses on earth God looses in heaven. Consequently, Catholics must realize that, if we flout such liturgical laws, we don’t simply oppose human authorities; we also oppose the God who founded, empowers, and sustains his one Church.