A Holy Day of Obligation in the United States

Growing up, there were plenty of things that separated kids who went to parochial schools from their peers (a.k.a., pubs) who attended public school.  Wearing w a uniform was the obvious difference. And because we wore uniforms, we were warned by the nuns that we were always visible and recognizable to the general public, who would be judging the entire Roman Catholic Church based on the behavior of students from Our Lady of Angels Grammar School. Thus, it was a double sin to swipe a yoyo from Woolworth’s or throw an ice ball at a car. (Not that a goody two-shoes like me would have done either of those things.)

Even at the time, I had to wonder who these folks were who were doing the judging.Worcester at the time was about 2/3rds Catholic, and the neighborhood I grew up in about 90% Catholic. But, whatever Sta (that’s “Sister” in Worcester-ese) said went.

Another thing that separated parochial schoolers from pubs was that, the occasional yoyo swipe aside, parochial schoolers were honest, and pubs were thieves. Thus, on Catechism day, when the pubs, in their anything-goes clothing, came in after school to sit at our desks, in our chairs, to receive an hour’s worth of the indoctrination we got from the opening bell to the final prayer of the day, we were told to take home anything of value, and push our pens and pencils to the furthest reaches of our desks. Because pubs stole.

The best thing about going to parochial school, however, was that we got Holy Days of Obligation off.

Some Holy Days – Christmas and New Year’s (which when I was a kid was called the Feast of the Circumcision – ouchy- but is now a celebration of Mary Mother of God) – were general holidays. Thus no special benefit accrued to Catholic schoolers. August 15th – the Feast of the Assumption wasn’t worth a damn. We were off for the summer, plus we had to go to Mass, which is what the obligation in Holy Day of Obligation is all about.

The good Holy Days were November 1st, All Saints Day and, not at all coincidentally, the day after Halloween. Getting up and going to Mass was a reasonably good trade-off for having the rest of the day to loll around and eat any candy that your mother hadn’t commandeered. The Feast of the Ascension – 40 days after Easter – was another good one. It was typically a nice enough spring day, a good break between Patriots’ Day and Memorial Day, and an opportunity to taunt pubs who, on a nice enough spring day, would of course rather be outside playing than inside learning.

December 8th is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

Many Catholics, let alone outsiders, are under the false impression that the the conception that was immaculate was when Jesus was conceived by the Holy Ghost. Not so. It refers to Mary having been herself conceived without original sin on her soul, unlike the rest of us poor schnooks.

Anyway, December 8th was a very fine day to have off. It meant you could head down to Woolworth’s to do your Christmas shopping, wearing your civvies, so that no one who saw you swipe that yoyo would judge the Catholic Church based on your behavior. Plus, if you did swipe that yoyo, you’d only be guilty of the sin of stealing, not the sin of causing scandal.

I am not taking the day off, let alone going to church.

And I don’t think that Catholic schools get the day off, either. Too many working parents who wouldn’t be thrilled to have their kids home on a weird-ball day.

Still, it’s fun to recall the good old days, when there was something mighty valuable – beyond learning how to diagram sentences and do mental arithmetic -  about going to parochial school.