Is It Okay to "Parish Shop"?
Posted by AGroup in Faith on Thursday, January 14, 2010 11:00 AM
Q: Is it required that we attend our home parish (just a few blocks away) when possible, or is it acceptable to attend Mass in another town on a regular basis? Our reasons are many, and probably too personal to go into here.
A: This question has a short answer and a long answer. I will try to land in between the extremes.
The Bottom Line
Strictly speaking, the Church is quite reasonable in what she requires as regards participation in the sacraments. We are obliged to attend Mass every Sunday and holy day of obligation, to receive Holy Communion at least once a year (during the Easter Season), and to confess grave sins at least once a year. As long as the priest is in good standing and the rites are validly celebrated, we are free to go where we wish. You can read more about what Canon law has to say on the legalities.
God’s Solution to Church-Shopping
We should not leap-frog our local parish lightly. Parishes are the main cells of the Church. In a sense, our local parish is an extension in time of the Incarnation. The local Eucharistic Celebration is Christ coming into our the here-and-now of our lives, including our geography. The God who is in charge of history is also in charge of these kinds of conjunctions. Providence isn’t blind to where we end up living, and which parish coincides with that. With prayer, faith, and humility, we can usually discover what God wishes to give us through our local parish, and also what he wishes us to contribute to our local parish.
I remember the first time I experienced this personally. I was still a Protestant, but already exploring the Catholic faith (and feeling attracted by it). I moved back home after graduating from college. As I rented my first apartment and settled in for my first full-time job, I started looking around for a good church to go to.
I must have visited 28 different Protestant churches looking for just the right combination of doctrine, worship style, and like-minded folks. As the search went on, I became tired and frustrated. Then it occurred to me, “Hey, wait a minute. If I were Catholic, I wouldn’t have to go church-shopping, because God would already have picked a church out for me — the local parish.”
So, with great relief and giddy excitement, I called up the diocesan chancery office, told them my address, and asked what parish I was in. They told me, and I started going to Sunday Mass — that local parish (what I considered God’s choice for me) became “my church,” although it met none of the personal-preference criteria I had set for myself (I mean, absolutely none). That was the parish where I ended up entering the Catholic Church.
Reality Check
Your question implies that you have strong reasons for not attending your local parish on a regular basis. That can certainly happen. No need to feel guilty about it. Nevertheless, I would encourage you to be very honest with yourselves, making sure that there really are strong, objective reasons, and that you are not merely falling into the “church-shopping” mentality. There is no perfect parish, and when we shop around, we can subconsciously start setting ourselves up as our own judge and jury regarding all Church affairs, which, generally speaking, is not a good idea (unless becoming a heretic is on our agenda).
(Do you have a question for Fr. John? Leave it in the comments here or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)!)
Print Blog
Email a FriendPost a Comment
By submitting this form, you give Faith And Family Magazine permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.
