Sunday Mass Obligation Precept

[Acolyte]

The Commandment aside, when was the actual precept declared ?

[Christe Eleison]

The Commandment aside, when was the actual precept declared ?

Dear Acolyte,

I hope that someone smarter than me will add to the discussion.
I believe that this has been around forever. It has been in every single catechism.
Since Constantine I, also known as Constantine the Great, Roman Emperor from 306-337.

As early as the time of Constantine I, special insistence was put upon the obligation to hear Mass on Sundays and Holy Days, to receive the sacraments and to abstain from contracting marriage at certain seasons. In the seventh-century Penitentiary of Theodore of Canterbury we find penalties imposed on those who contemn the Sunday.

According to a work written by Regino, Abbot of Prüm (d. 915), entitled "Libri duo de synodalibus causis et disciplinis", the bishop in his visitation is, among other inquiries, to ask                               

"If anyone has not kept the fast of Lent, or of the ember-days, or of the rogations, or that which may have been appointed by the bishop for the staying of any plague; if there by any one who has not gone to Holy Communion three time in the year, that is at Easter, Pentecost and Christmas; if there by any one who has withheld tithes from God and His saints; if there by anyone so perverse and so alienated from God as not to come to Church at least on Sundays; if there be anyone who has not gone to confession once in the year, that is at the beginning of Lent, and has not done penance for his sins (Hafner, Zur Geschichte der Kirchengebote, in Theologische Quartalschrift, LXXX, 104)."

[Christe Eleison]

"The precepts here implied came to be regarded as special Commandments of the Church. Thus in a book of tracts of the thirteenth century attributed to Pope Celestine V (though the authenticity of this work has been denied) a separate tractate is given to the precepts of the Church and is divided into four chapters, the first of which treats of fasting, the second of confession and paschal Communion, the third of interdicts on marriage, and the fourth of tithes.

In the fourteenth century Ernest von Parduvitz, Archbishop of Prague, instructed his priests to explain in popular sermons the principal points of the catechism, the Our Father, the Creed, the Commandments of God and of the Church (Hafner, loc. cit., 115). A century later (1470) the catechism of Dietrick Coelde, the first, it is said, to be written in German, explicitly set forth that there were five Commandments of the Church.

In his "Summa Theologica" (part I, tit. xvii, p. 12) Antoninus of Florence (1439) enumerates ten precepts of the Church universally binding on the faithful. These are:

*to observe certain feasts
*to keep the prescribed fasts
*to attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days
*to confess once a year
*to receive Holy Communion during paschal time
*to pay tithes
*to abstain from any act upon which an interdict has been placed entailing
   excommunication
* to refrain also from any act interdicted under pain of excommunication latæ sententiæ
* to avoid association with the excommunicated
   finally, not to attend Mass or other religious functions celebrated by a priest living in
   open concubinage.
In the sixteenth century Martin Aspilcueta(1586), gives a list of four principal precepts of obligation:

*to fast at certain prescribed times
*to pay tithes
*to go to confession once a year
*and to receive Holy Communion at Easter (Enchiridion, sive manuale confessariorum
et poenitentium, Rome, 1588, ch. xxi, n. 1).
At this time there began to appear many popular works in defence of the authority of the Church and setting forth her precepts. Such among others were the "Summa Doctrinæ Christianæ" (1555) of Peter Canisius and the "Doctrina Christiana" of Bellarmine (1589)."

God Bless you!

[Christe Eleison]

Dear Acolyte

Thanks for the interesting thread Like I mentioned above, I hope that someone else, smarter, more educated on the matter will contribute to this thread.
I will keep looking to see what I can find out.

God Bless you!

[Acolyte]

Thanks Christe Eleison for taking time to offer those sources !

I was just curious and now I have a good idea. I need to brush up on Church history !

[Christe Eleison]

Thanks Christe Eleison for taking time to offer those sources !

I was just curious and now I have a good idea. I need to brush up on Church history !

Dear Acolyte,

I hope that this finds you doing well.
You are more than welcome. I am glad that I could be of help. I hope that someone else will see this & maybe add more information to your thread.

Take good care of yourself!
May God Bless you & yours,

PAX