A Holy Day of Obligation in the United States

I don't spend a lot of time pining for my lost days as a Catholic. I remain a staunch cultural Catholic - there's no escaping the way I was brought up, which included 16 years in Catholic schools - but I consider myself a natural born atheist. If I'm in a church, it's for a funeral or a wedding. Period.

Oh, once in a while, a little weird residual Catholicism will pop out.

After my husband died, I washed his body with "holy water." (In preparation, I'd brought a little vial into a downtown Catholic church and filled it from the holy water dispenser.) I actually don't consider this an act akin to "no atheists in foxholes," but rather as an atavistic little whatever, akin to my irreligious grandmother's sprinkling holy water around during a severe thunder storm. As much Druid, as much pagan, as anything. So. There.

Anyway, I'm enough of a cultural Catholic to know that today is the Feast of the Assumption, a Holy Day of Obligation in the United States.

I don't know what the current rules are, but when I was a kid, a Holy Day was like a Sunday: you had to go to Mass, under pain of mortal sin.

Having a Holy Day in the middle of summer was a colossal drag.

Who wanted to get up on a weekday, during the waning weeks of summer vacation, and schlepp off to church? 

Nobody I knew.

The one good thing about it was that it signaled that school would be starting soon. Don't get me wrong. I loved do-nothing summers hanging out - reading endless books, running through the sprinkler, all day game-playing sessions (Monopoly, Clue, Sorry...) on my father's old Navy blanket, under a tree in the backyard. Trips to a local lake for a dip. Evening "spins" that ended in an ice cream stop at the Cherry Bowl. But I was a nerd, and although grammar school involved an awful lot of sheer terror and sheer boredom, I loved school, and always looked forward to going back.

If you were in a Catholic grammar school, one of the best things was that, unlike the public schools, our schools were off on Holy Days of Obligation. 

A couple didn't count. Christmas. New Year's Day (Feast of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God). Everyone got those days off.

But November 1st? All Saints' Day?

What could be more perfect that having the day after Halloween off of school?

The inconvenience of having to go to Mass was well worth it.

And having December 8th off was great, too. Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Sure, whatever. (Most folks seem to think that the immaculate conception refers to Mary becoming impregnated without the help of a man. Amusing as that might be: Nope. Us catholic Catholics know full well that being immaculately conceived meant that when Mary was conceived by her parents, Saints Joachim and Anne, there was no original sin on her soul. This separates Mary the Mother of God from the rest of us, who were born sinners.)

On December 8th, there was a lot to do after you got the obligation part over with.

If it had been cold enough, you could go skating.

If it had been snowy enough, you could go sledding.

If you had saved up your allowance, you could go Christmas shopping at Woolworth's and get your mother a cutesy salt and pepper shaker set. (E.g., smiling turnips.) And buy your father a beanbag ashtray. And gifts for your sibs: a Nancy Drew book that you could read after; a rubber toy race car; a cap gun; a rattle. 

And if it was crappy out - sleety, nasty - you could lounge around the house watching game shows and inhaling the fragrance of the Christmas tree.

Ascension Thursday was another bonus day. 

Forty days after Easter, it almost always falls in May. Generally an excellent time of year for outdoor play: jump rope, baseball, or endless games of jacks on the sidewalk in front of your friend Susan's house.

Do Catholic schools still get Holy Days off? 

I have no idea.

Even if they do, today wouldn't be a school day anyway. 

But it did get me thinking of a prime benefit of going to parochial school. And that was having Holy Days off.

Kids who went to public schools? Those poor pubs...