Holy Days of Obligation

The holy days of obligation are indicated in canon 1246 of the Code of Canon Law:

§1. Sunday, on which by apostolic tradition the paschal mystery is celebrated, must be observed in the universal Church as the primordial holy day of obligation. The following days must also be observed: the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Epiphany, the Ascension, the Body and Blood of Christ, Holy Mary the Mother of God, her Immaculate Conception, her Assumption, Saint Joseph, Saint Peter and Saint Paul the Apostles, and All Saints.

§2. With the prior approval of the Apostolic See, however, the conference of bishops can suppress some of the holy days of obligation or transfer them to a Sunday.

Placed in the order of the civil calendar, the ten days (apart from Sundays) that this canon mentions are:

• 1 January: Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

• 6 January: the Epiphany

• 19 March: Solemnity of St. Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary

• Thursday of the sixth week of Easter: the Ascension

• Thursday after Trinity Sunday: the Body and Blood of Christ

• 29 June: Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles

• 15 August: the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

• 1 November: All Saints

• 8 December: the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

• 25 December: the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ (Christmas)

The number of holy days of obligation was once much greater. With the motu proprio Supremi disciplinae of 2 July 1911, Pope Pius X reduced the number of such non-Sunday holy days from 36 to 8 (the above 10 minus the feasts of the Body and Blood of Christ and Saint Joseph). The present list was established in 1917.

In many countries the bishops had obtained, even before the time of Pope Pius X, the Holy See's approval to diminish the number of non-Sunday holy days of obligation, making it far less than 36. Today too, Episcopal Conferences have availed themselves of the authority granted them in law to reduce the number below the ten mentioned above.

Non-Sunday holy days of obligation all have the rank of solemnity. Accordingly, if in Ordinary Time one of them falls on a Sunday, the Sunday celebration gives way to it; but the Sundays of Advent, Lent and Eastertide take precedence over all solemnities, which are then transferred to another day.