Q. Is it possible to have a Sunday vigil Mass celebrated on a Saturday before 4 p.m.?
A. The Church has a rich history of celebrating vigil Masses in anticipation of a feast day, with Holy Saturday being the most significant.
In the early Church period, the faithful would gather for prayers and Mass the night before, celebrate during the morning, and then gather for the celebration of the feast day itself with Mass in the afternoon. Both St. Jerome and St. Augustine speak of these practices. However, St. Jerome also speaks about issues coinciding with these vigils, as the morning celebrations would at times lose their sense of it being a holy celebration, and lead to impropriety.
As feast days multiplied and issues continued, these long celebrations were halted or in some cases moved to the afternoon prior to the feast day until, eventually, the Church observed very few vigils. In 1953, Pope Pius XII permitted local ordinaries (bishops and those equivalent in law to bishops) to allow anticipated Sunday Masses to be celebrated on Saturdays, but no earlier than 4 p.m.
In the 1970s, the Apostolic See granted the request of the U.S. bishops to allow the faithful in the U.S. to fulfill their Sunday obligation by attending Mass “in the afternoon hours of Saturday and the days before holy days of obligation.”
The Code of Canon Law states that “A person who assists at a Mass celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite either on the feast day itself or in the evening of the preceding day satisfies the obligation of participating in the Mass” (c.1248 §1). Evening (vespere), not afternoon, is the language of the Universal Law of the Catholic Church, and as such, anticipated Sunday Masses on Saturdays are not to be celebrated before “evening.” Admittedly, there is no strict, legal definition for when evening begins, but the traditional understanding that is presumed binding is 4 p.m.
It is always important to remember that the Apostolic See has the authority to dispense from this requirement, as occurred on Christmas Eve 2020 when permission was given to celebrate Christmas Eve Masses as early as 3 p.m. (the fact that the Apostolic See felt it necessary to grant this is a strong indicator that Mass before 4 p.m. is not normally permissible). It is possible that, in places where a Vigil Mass is celebrated before 4 p.m. on a Saturday, that that particular diocese has received permission from the Apostolic See to do so. Without this permission, a Mass celebrated before 4 p.m. on a Saturday should not be a Sunday Mass and would not fulfill one’s obligation.
This question was answered by Father Caleb La Rue, vice chancellor of the Diocese of Lincoln. Write to Ask the Register using our online form, or write to 3700 Sheridan Blvd., Suite 10, Lincoln NE 68506-6100. All questions are subject to editing. Editors decide which questions to publish. Personal questions cannot be answered. People with such questions are urged to take them to their nearest Catholic priest.
