(CCC 1804).”Īmong the human (or moral) virtues are what we call the cardinal virtues. But we forget about the human virtues sometimes, which the Catechism calls “firm attitudes, stable dispositions, habitual perfections of intellect and will that govern our actions, order our passions, and guide our conduct according to reason and faith… The virtuous man is he who freely practices the good. Those three virtues are faith, hope and, charity. If someone asked you to name the theological virtues, you’d probably know them by heart even if you didn’t remember their “official” title. Why is it oftentimes so hard for us to break out of our own bad habits and recognize that we also owe God a great deal? Delving into the Church’s point of view on these things can get us back on the right track.

What do the Catechism and the Tradition of the Church say on this matter? We as people in our modern, Western culture have a sense of duty and justice when it comes to other things in our daily lives. But what’s wrong with calling these days “obligatory”? Is it really a bad thing to look at Mass in this way? The Virtue of Religion To be sure, we do have a great opportunity to receive our Lord in the Eucharist twice in the same week. I’ve heard more than one person tell me that we shouldn’t call feasts like the Assumption “Holy Days of Obligation”, but instead call them “holy days of opportunity”. The second thing I realized is that people don’t like it when someone tells them they are obligated to do something. One was that a good number of Catholics don’t know which feasts are holy days of obligation, let alone that willfully and purposely missing Mass on that day is the same as missing a Sunday Mass. We have a school attached to my parish, so it was a bit perplexing to see that the church was not full for Mass. While it was a morning Mass, you’d expect all the families with children to be in attendance as school had not yet started. As I reflected on the particular feast throughout the day, I couldn’t help but notice the somewhat sparse attendance at Holy Mass that day. Last month I found myself reflecting on several aspects of one of our principal holy days of obligation in the Church, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

St john ascension program director