“Ask a Priest: Should I Miss Mass to Appease My Husband?”

Q: I’m going on holiday in a couple of weeks with my husband. I’m a practicing Catholic and my faith is very important to me, increasingly so in recent years. My husband isn’t Catholic or religious at all, and he struggles with this change in me. He’s made a couple of comments about how, surely, I won’t be going to Mass on holiday. I don’t want to cause an argument. but I’m not sure what to do. It doesn’t feel right not to go to Mass on Sunday, but it also feels wrong to push something that I know will cause friction. My husband has had a tough year with health issues, so I want to give him the best holiday possible, but I know God has to come first. I’ve tried to think of a compromise — whether it’s watching a Mass online or just going to for part of the Mass (communion) and streaming the rest — but I know that’s not right. If you have any advice at all, I would be really grateful. – H.J.

Answered by Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC

A: As you say, God has to come first.

No one, including your husband, has the right to hold you back from attending Mass. You won’t help your husband by pushing God onto a back burner.

Missing Mass to appease your husband will only bring a false peace in the household.

You yourself won’t be at peace, knowing that you are ignoring Our Lord’s command to give him due worship. At the end of life, you will answer to God, not to your husband.

Moreover, pushing God out of the marriage certainly won’t help the bond. So it seems a bit of tough love is called for here, for the benefit of your husband. Intensify your prayers and sacrifices for him, and remember him in a special way during the time you are at Mass,

The only way you can hope to convince your husband of the value of the Catholic faith is by practicing it well.

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