Canon 1248

Canon 1248

Code	1983 Code of Canon Law
Book and title	Book IV, Part III, Title II — Sacred Times
Subject	Fulfillment of the Sunday and holy-day Mass precept
Binding scope	Latin Church, subject to the general law on persons bound
Eastern parallel	CCEO canons 881 and 883 together with the proper law of each Church sui iuris

Canon 1248 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law is the Latin Church norm that states how the Sunday and holy-day Mass precept is fulfilled and recommends forms of worship when participation in Mass is impossible. It permits fulfillment at Mass anywhere in a Catholic rite, on the day itself or in the evening of the preceding day; it does not make a broadcast into attendance or displace the proper law governing Eastern Catholic faithful.

Authority level: Authoritative doctrine

Place in the law of sacred times

Canon 1248 must be read with canons 1246 and 1247. Canon 1246 identifies Sunday and the universal Latin holy days of obligation, while allowing the conference of bishops, with the prior approval of the Apostolic See, to suppress certain obligations or transfer them to Sunday. Canon 1247 states the duties to participate in Mass and to refrain from work and business that impede worship, the joy proper to the Lord's Day, works of mercy, or suitable rest. Canon 1248 then answers two narrower questions: what participation satisfies the Mass precept, and what the faithful should do when such participation is impossible.

The canon regulates fulfillment of a positive ecclesiastical precept. It does not determine the liturgical rank or formulary of the Mass, require reception of Holy Communion, or supply a numerical rule for late arrival and early departure. Those matters have their own sacramental, liturgical, and moral principles. The related article Mass Obligation treats the precept as a whole; Canon 1248 is concerned with the juridical means of fulfillment and the response to impossibility.

Mass anywhere in a Catholic rite

Under §1, a person subject to the Latin precept fulfills it by participating in a Mass celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite. The canon does not require attendance in one's territorial parish, diocese, country, customary church, or the Roman Rite. A Latin Catholic can therefore fulfill the precept at a lawful Eastern Catholic Divine Liturgy just as at a Latin Mass. The phrase concerns a Eucharistic celebration within the Catholic Church; the distinct rules for sacramental sharing with non-Catholic ministers do not rewrite the express condition in Canon 1248.

The object is participation in the Eucharistic celebration, not the exercise of a particular ministry and not reception of Communion at that Mass. The faithful participate according to their capacity through bodily presence, attention, responses, listening, prayer, posture, and interior union with the sacrifice. A person who should refrain from Communion remains obliged to participate unless excused. The Easter-duty discipline governing reception of Communion is therefore distinct from fulfillment of the Sunday or holy-day attendance precept.

The day itself or the preceding evening

Canon 1248 §1 allows fulfillment either on the day of obligation itself or in the evening of the preceding day. This provision creates a canonical window for the faithful; it does not make the preceding civil day a holy day of obligation and does not by itself decide which liturgical texts the celebrant must use. The Roman Missal, the calendar, and the law governing occurrence and precedence determine the formulary. Vigil Mass and Anticipated Mass explains the difference between a Mass with a proper vigil formulary and a Mass whose time permits anticipated fulfillment of an obligation.

The universal canon says evening and does not establish a clock time applicable in every circumstance. It should not be silently replaced by folklore that any afternoon hour necessarily qualifies. Competent particular norms and legitimate authoritative interpretation should be followed. What matters for §1 is that an actual Catholic Mass is celebrated within the canonical period and that the person participates in it; the title informally given to the scheduled Mass is not decisive.

Personal participation and broadcasts

Participation for purposes of §1 is personal participation in the celebration at the place where it occurs. Watching or listening to Mass by television, radio, livestream, or recording does not place the viewer in the liturgical assembly and therefore does not fulfill the attendance precept. Saint John Paul II taught explicitly in Dies Domini that a broadcast does not in itself fulfill the Sunday obligation, which requires participation in the assembly gathered in one place. This principle remains true even when the transmission is live, reverent, interactive, or spiritually fruitful.

Broadcast Mass can nevertheless serve a real pastoral and devotional good. A person prevented from attending can hear the readings and homily, join prayers, make an act of Spiritual Communion, and unite his or her desire with the Church's Eucharistic worship. Saint John Paul II commended this spiritual union for those legitimately impeded while distinguishing it from taking part in the Eucharistic assembly. The absence of canonical fulfillment is not a fault where the person is not bound because participation is impossible or a serious reason excuses attendance.

No sacred minister or another grave cause

Section 2 addresses the case in which participation in a Eucharistic celebration becomes impossible because no sacred minister is available or for another grave cause. The Catechism gives illness and the care of infants as examples of serious reasons excusing attendance. Other cases must be judged according to the actual obligation and circumstances; danger, serious infirmity, an unavoidable duty of care, or the absence of a reasonably accessible Catholic Mass can make attendance impossible without turning ordinary inconvenience into a general exemption.

When Mass is impossible, the canon strongly recommends participation in a liturgy of the Word if one is celebrated in the parish church or another sacred place according to the diocesan bishop's prescriptions. Otherwise it recommends prayer for a suitable time, personally, as a family, or, as occasion permits, in groups of families. These are recommended means of sanctifying the day and preserving ecclesial prayer; they are not described as a substitute Mass and do not create a second attendance precept for a person whom grave cause excuses.

An excuse arising from impossibility differs from a dispensation or commutation granted by competent authority. Canon 1245 governs those juridical acts for individual cases. A person need not obtain a dispensation to make the physically or morally impossible possible, although pastoral counsel can resolve doubt and a prospective dispensation can provide certainty where an impediment is foreseeable. Dispensation and Commutation of Liturgical Obligations treats those faculties separately.

Eastern Catholic law

Canon 1 of the Latin Code states that its canons regard only the Latin Church unless another matter is expressly established. Canon 1248 consequently governs Latin faithful; its wording should not be projected wholesale onto members of the Eastern Catholic Churches. The Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches likewise governs all and only the Eastern Catholic Churches unless relations with the Latin Church are expressly involved. Questions about an Eastern Catholic's obligation begin with CCEO canon 881 and the proper law and legitimate customs of that person's Church sui iuris.

CCEO canon 881 binds Eastern Catholic faithful on Sundays and days of precept to participate in the Divine Liturgy or, according to the prescriptions or legitimate customs of their own Church sui iuris, in the celebration of the divine praises. Proper law determines more precisely a fitting manner of fulfilling the obligation. CCEO canon 883 also addresses Eastern faithful outside the territorial boundaries of their own Church and families whose members belong to different Churches sui iuris. These provisions preserve genuine Eastern discipline rather than treating Latin practice as the universal default.

The two bodies of law meet without contradiction. A Latin Catholic who participates in an Eastern Catholic Divine Liturgy within the period allowed by Canon 1248 fulfills the Latin precept because it is a Mass in a Catholic rite. That result follows from the law binding the Latin person; it does not prove that every Eastern Catholic Church has adopted the Latin rule about the preceding evening. Conversely, an Eastern Catholic's participation at a Latin Mass must be evaluated under the Eastern common and proper law that binds that person.