Sunday Mass obligation

Sunday Mass obligation in the novel is more than a rule of church attendance: it becomes a test of who can define religious duty, what counts as a legitimate priority, and whether a promise made under pressure must be kept. In Domenico Tempesta’s account, Monsignor McNulty turns the parish’s decline in attendance into a personal charge against him; Domenico answers with a conditional promise, then makes his refusal to return to church a point of lasting pride.

The Demand for Attendance

Monsignor McNulty confronts Domenico while he is building a house, rebuking him for neglecting Sunday Mass and failing to honor the Lord’s day. He presents the obligation as a matter of holy law, not a private preference. Because attendance among the parish’s Italian families has fallen, the monsignor places responsibility on Domenico personally: he must bear not only his own sins but those of the people who do not attend. The demand extends beyond his individual conduct into a claim that his absence has consequences for the whole community.

The order is also explicitly public. Monsignor McNulty tells Domenico to confess his transgressions and return the following Sunday as a communicant, where everyone can see him. The required return would therefore function as both religious observance and visible submission to the parish’s authority. McNulty’s warning that Domenico may have a terrible price to pay adds a threat of future consequence to the immediate demand.

Work, Promise, and Defiance

Domenico initially responds with a promise to return to Mass, but makes it conditional on finishing the house. He names the work still before him: four doors to hang, twenty-two windows to glaze, and the roof to complete. The pledge sets the practical labor of construction against the spiritual duty asserted by the monsignor. Domenico presents his delay as temporary and tied to a concrete task, while McNulty treats the priority itself as a sign of spiritual failure.

Domenico also tries to turn the confrontation into a joke. Pointing to Pasquale Tempesta, who is climbing the half-finished roof with Filippa on one shoulder and shingles on the other, he remarks that his brother works like a plowhorse while he works like a well-oiled machine. The boast is a defense of his labor and competence, but the monsignor reads it as pride and condemns Domenico for revering worldly possessions over spiritual matters. Their disagreement is therefore not simply about whether Domenico has missed a service: it is about whether building a home can justify postponing an obligation, and whether work is evidence of responsibility or misplaced devotion.

The Refusal After Pasquale’s Death

Father Guglielmo continues to counsel Domenico after Pasquale dies, visiting him several times. Yet Domenico does not return to church when winter comes. He vows never again to cross the threshold of the house of God while Monsignor McNulty is alive, directly tying his refusal to the priest’s authority and the earlier confrontation. He then emphasizes that he kept this promise. The declaration turns nonattendance into a deliberate, sustained act rather than a temporary lapse caused by unfinished construction or grief.

The episode also shows how the obligation’s religious and interpersonal dimensions remain entangled. The demand had called Domenico to confess and resume visible participation; his answer becomes a vow of permanent distance from the church for as long as the monsignor lives. Father Guglielmo’s repeated visits do not undo that decision. Domenico’s account records no reconciliation with the institution during this period, and its emphasis falls on the force of his refusal and the satisfaction he takes in keeping his word.

Religious Practice Beyond the Rule

The wider narrative places formal attendance alongside other forms of religious and spiritual practice without treating them as interchangeable. Thomas Birdsey repeatedly recites Scripture and describes a divinely appointed mission, while his belief in Saint Agatha connects the saint to fire, volcanoes, and cancer. At another point, he asks to wash with water from the river in the hope that it will purify him and heal an infection. These acts show faith expressed through private interpretation, prayer, and bodily ritual rather than through the public parish observance demanded of Domenico.

In the account of Prosperine, religious time also shapes an intimate, household form of instruction: Ciccolina begins teaching her at midnight on Christmas Eve, as church bells ring for the birth of Christ. The episode concerns folk belief and the evil eye, not Sunday attendance, but it further distinguishes institutional worship from religious practices carried through family, ritual, and inherited knowledge. Against these varied forms of belief, Domenico’s conflict with Monsignor McNulty makes the Sunday obligation a concrete question of authority and allegiance: attendance is demanded as an act before the community, while refusal becomes a defining act in Domenico’s own record of his life.