Holy Days of Obligation

This is the list for Catholics of the Latin Church in the United States, worked out for 2026 from the calendar and the bishops’ rules rather than typed by hand. Your own diocese’s calendar is the final word, but it will match this.

Holy days of obligation in the United States, 2026, in addition to every Sunday (Latin Church; in the State of Hawaii only the Immaculate Conception and Christmas oblige):

• Mary, Mother of God: Thursday, January 1, 2026. Obligation: yes. It falls on a Thursday, an ordinary weekday, so the rule that lifts it does not come into play.
• The Ascension of the Lord: Thursday, May 14, 2026. Obligation: yes. Kept on this Thursday, and obligatory, in the ecclesiastical provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Omaha and Philadelphia. Everywhere else in the United States it moves to the following Sunday, Sunday, May 17, 2026, and the Sunday obligation covers it.
• The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary: Saturday, August 15, 2026. Obligation: lifted this year. It falls on a Saturday, so in the United States the obligation to attend Mass is lifted that year. The solemnity is still celebrated, and going is still encouraged.
• All Saints: Sunday, November 1, 2026. Obligation: yes. It falls on a Sunday, so the Sunday obligation already covers it.
• The Immaculate Conception: Tuesday, December 8, 2026. Obligation: yes. It falls on a Tuesday. In the United States this one obliges on any weekday, Saturday and Monday included: the Saturday/Monday rule names only January 1, August 15 and November 1.
• Christmas, the Nativity of the Lord: Friday, December 25, 2026. Obligation: yes. It falls on a Friday. Christmas obliges on any day of the week, and the Saturday/Monday rule never touches it.

A Mass on the evening before any of these fulfils the obligation, exactly as a Saturday evening Mass does for Sunday (canon 1248 §1).

The same list for the following year, so you can put the dates in a calendar now.

Holy days of obligation in the United States, 2027, in addition to every Sunday (Latin Church; in the State of Hawaii only the Immaculate Conception and Christmas oblige):

• Mary, Mother of God: Friday, January 1, 2027. Obligation: yes. It falls on a Friday, an ordinary weekday, so the rule that lifts it does not come into play.
• The Ascension of the Lord: Thursday, May 6, 2027. Obligation: yes. Kept on this Thursday, and obligatory, in the ecclesiastical provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Omaha and Philadelphia. Everywhere else in the United States it moves to the following Sunday, Sunday, May 9, 2027, and the Sunday obligation covers it.
• The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary: Sunday, August 15, 2027. Obligation: yes. It falls on a Sunday, so the Sunday obligation already covers it.
• All Saints: Monday, November 1, 2027. Obligation: lifted this year. It falls on a Monday, so in the United States the obligation to attend Mass is lifted that year. The solemnity is still celebrated, and going is still encouraged.
• The Immaculate Conception: Wednesday, December 8, 2027. Obligation: yes. It falls on a Wednesday. In the United States this one obliges on any weekday, Saturday and Monday included: the Saturday/Monday rule names only January 1, August 15 and November 1.
• Christmas, the Nativity of the Lord: Saturday, December 25, 2027. Obligation: yes. It falls on a Saturday. Christmas obliges on any day of the week, and the Saturday/Monday rule never touches it.

This is the rule that makes the same feast oblige one year and not the next, and it is narrower than most people think. The US bishops’ decree, approved by the Holy See and in force since January 1, 1993, says:

“Whenever January 1, the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, or August 15, the solemnity of the Assumption, or November 1, the solemnity of All Saints, falls on a Saturday or on a Monday, the precept to attend Mass is abrogated.”

Three things follow from the wording.

• Only those three days. The Immaculate Conception and Christmas are not in the sentence, so they oblige on a Saturday or a Monday like any other day. When Christmas falls on a Saturday, that means Mass on Saturday for Christmas and again on Sunday for Sunday; one Mass cannot count for both.
• The feast is not cancelled. Only the obligation is lifted. The Assumption on a Saturday is still the Assumption, parishes still celebrate it, and going is still a good thing to do.
• December 8 on a Sunday is a separate case. A Sunday of Advent outranks the solemnity, so it moves to Monday, December 9. For years it was unclear whether the obligation moved too, and in 2019 the US bishops’ calendar said it did not. The last time it came up, the Holy See’s Dicastery for Legislative Texts answered that “the feast must be observed as a day of obligation on the day to which it is transferred”, and dioceses announced the Monday as obligatory. Expect that reading the next time December 8 is a Sunday.

The Ascension has its own arrangement. Since 1999 each ecclesiastical province may move it from the Thursday to the following Sunday, and almost all have. The provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Omaha and Philadelphia still keep the Thursday, and there it is a holy day of obligation; everywhere else the Sunday obligation covers it. Hawaii is the other exception: by a decree of the Bishop of Honolulu in 1992, only Christmas and the Immaculate Conception oblige there.

“What are the 10 holy days of obligation?” is a question about the universal law of the Latin Church, canon 1246 §1 of the Code of Canon Law:

“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.”

With their dates, that is: Christmas (December 25), the Epiphany (January 6), the Ascension (forty days after Easter), Corpus Christi (the Thursday after Trinity Sunday), Mary, Mother of God (January 1), the Immaculate Conception (December 8), the Assumption (August 15), St. Joseph (March 19), Sts. Peter and Paul (June 29) and All Saints (November 1).

The very next paragraph, canon 1246 §2, is why almost nobody keeps all ten: “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.” In the United States the Epiphany and Corpus Christi are kept on Sundays, and St. Joseph and Sts. Peter and Paul are not days of obligation, which is how ten becomes six.

Each of the Marian days has its own page: Mary, Mother of God on January 1, the Assumption on August 15, and the Immaculate Conception on December 8, the patronal feast of the United States.

The Catechism answers in one sentence and qualifies it in the same breath: “the faithful are obliged to participate in the Eucharist on days of obligation, unless excused for a serious reason (for example, illness, the care of infants) or dispensed by their own pastor. Those who deliberately fail in this obligation commit a grave sin” (CCC 2181).

Read the whole of it. Grave describes the matter. Whether a particular missed Mass is a mortal sin depends on the other two conditions the Church always names: “Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent” (CCC 1857). So:

• If you did not know it was a holy day, you did not deliberately skip it.
• If you were ill, caring for a small child or a sick relative, snowed in, or working a shift you could not change, you were excused. That is not a loophole; it is in the sentence.
• If you knew, could have gone, and chose not to, that belongs in your next confession. Priests hear it constantly, and it is forgiven like everything else.

If a missed holy day is weighing on you, the place to settle it is the confessional, not a web page. An examination of conscience is a good way to prepare, and the Church would rather you came than stayed away worrying.

The Catechism calls keeping them one of the precepts of the Church, the minimum asked of every Catholic, and says what it is for: it “completes the Sunday observance by participation in the principal liturgical feasts which honor the mysteries of the Lord, the Virgin Mary, and the saints” (CCC 2043). The letter to the Hebrews puts the older instinct behind it:

Because canon 1246 §2 lets each bishops’ conference decide, the list really is different from country to country. These are taken from each conference’s own published list; if your country is not here, your diocese’s website or calendar will have it.

• England and Wales: Christmas, the Epiphany (January 6), the Ascension (Thursday), Sts. Peter and Paul (June 29), the Assumption and All Saints. Corpus Christi is kept on a Sunday. When a holy day falls on a Saturday or a Monday it is transferred to the Sunday. The Immaculate Conception is not a holy day of obligation there.
• Ireland: the Immaculate Conception, Christmas, the Epiphany, St. Patrick (March 17), the Assumption and All Saints.
• Canada: only two, Mary, Mother of God (January 1) and Christmas.
• Australia: only two that can fall on a weekday, Christmas and the Assumption; the Epiphany, the Ascension and Corpus Christi are kept on Sundays.
• The Philippines: Mary, Mother of God, the Immaculate Conception (the country’s patronal feast) and Christmas; the other days in canon 1246 move to the nearest Sunday.

Eastern Catholic Churches keep their own calendars and their own days of obligation, under their own law. If you belong to one, follow your eparchy.