The problem with ‘Sunday obligation’

Fresh off celebrating Independence Day, I’m reminded of an essential truth about Americans: We don’t like being told what to do.

It’s an element of the American ethos that runs through our history and national mythology, from the “Don’t Tread on Me” banners of Revolutionary War origins to the celebrated “rugged individualism” of the Western frontier.

As part of the American experiment, U.S. Catholics certainly aren’t immune to having a fierce “independent streak” of our own.

Which is why I bristle a bit when I hear talk about our bishops lifting the pandemic-induced dispensation from the Lord’s Day Mass framed solely in terms of restoring our “Sunday obligation.” Not because I don’t believe we have such an obligation, but because I know how this kind of language might be heard by many in the contemporary U.S. of A.: as a restriction of personal freedom and an imposition from authorities bent on control.

And if the call for Catholics to participate in the Sunday Mass were only that — a mandated “obligation” — then I think this take would be right. If going to church on Sunday were simply a box that we had to check, or an arbitrary law by which we had to abide, it would seem like a stifling imposition. That’s certainly how I experienced going to church during my adolescent years.

Fortunately, as I’ve learned over the years, there’s much more to going to Mass than simply an obligation to do so. In fact, the obligatory aspect of it doesn’t actually make sense if we don’t hear the rest of the story.

To make this point, I want to first talk about how the Church speaks about human freedom, another fitting post-Fourth of July topic. In the context of modern democracies, the Church has certainly been a fierce defender of things like human rights and free societies.

But the Church’s way of speaking about human freedom is radically different than, say, an ardent libertarian’s. Instead of speaking about freedom as a sort of unencumbered status of individual autonomy, the freedom from outside coercion and imposition, the Church always speaks of human freedom as the freedom “for” something — namely, to live a life consistent with our God-given nature and dignity.

This understanding of human freedom has certainly been informed by sources like natural law philosophy and the Mosaic law, but it is most firmly grounded in the person of Jesus Christ, who reveals humanity to itself. For Jesus, freedom is to do “the will of the one who sent me” (Jn 6:38): to be in relationship with God, to receive fully from him and to pour that love out into the world. Not because this is imposed on Jesus as some sort of outside obligation, but because, as the Son, it’s the essence of who he is.

As adopted sons and daughters of God, we’re invited by Jesus into the same experience of freedom. “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly,” he says (Jn 10:10). Yet this abundant life is not opposed to the law or any sense of obligation, which Jesus has come “not to abolish but to fulfill” (Mt 5:17). Instead, the law and abundant life are meant to go together. In other words, we are obliged to do nothing more and nothing less than those things that truly fulfill us as human persons.

If we’re honest, we can admit that we’re not always good at determining what truly fulfils us — but Jesus is. This is why each of us should “do whatever he tells you” (Jn 2:5) — not out of fear of punishment, but from the conviction that Jesus is offering us fulfilment and flourishing!

One thing that Christ clearly tells us to do? To take part in the Eucharist: “Do this in memory of me” (Lk 22:19). Jesus did not eradicate the Jewish sabbath, but fulfilled it by recentering it upon himself, the Lamb of God and the only one capable of bridging the gap between God and man. Estranged from God by sin, we desperately need to experience this reconciliation. Faithful to Christ’s command, the Church calls us to gather every Lord’s Day, to participate in Christ’s sacrifice and to be brought into deeper union with God.

So yes, we have an obligation to come to Mass on Sunday. But not as an outside imposition, a dictate that’s foreign to our nature and contravenes our freedom. Rather, the Church gives us this obligation precisely because we need the Mass to live more free and fully human lives. For it is “truly right and just, our duty and our salvation” to offer God thanksgiving at the eucharistic table.

Liedl writes from the Twin Cities.