A. What is the relationship between Mass intentions and Mass stipends?
Q. The relationship between Mass intentions and Mass stipends is a complicated one that is not without controversy.
The Mass by its nature is sacrificial. It is a re-presentation of the one Sacrifice offered by Christ at Calvary and therefore the fruits of the Mass are a true, sacramental sharing in “the merits gained for humanity by Christ’s redemptive death on the cross” (CLSA New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law). Because Christ’s one Sacrifice bears infinite fruit, the fruits of the Mass are also unlimited and, as the Council of Trent taught, are “rightly offered not only for the sins, punishments, satisfactions and other necessities of the faithful who are living, but also for those departed in Christ but not yet fully purified.”
In the earliest days of Christianity, the faithful participated in the sacrificial nature of the Mass by providing the bread and wine for Mass, giving the fruits of their labor to the Lord. The leftover bread and wine would be given to the priest and the poor for their support.
By the seventh century, this offering became a monetary one. For many priests (especially monks) the Mass “stipend” became the primary (if not only) source of their livelihood, and by the 12th century the practice of giving a Mass stipend to a priest to have a Mass offered for a specific intention was pretty well established.
As with any time money is involved, abuses began, as priests would offer many Masses a day so as to collect multiple stipends. As the tradition (and later law) settled in that a priest was to offer only one Mass a day, this practice came to end. But issues still remained around the idea of giving money for a Mass to be offered, as various voices both inside and outside the Church decried the practice as simony.
Sensitive to this, the current law of the Church heavily regulates the practice of accepting a Mass offering (the term “stipend” is no longer to be used as it implies an economic transaction) by allowing a priest to only accept one offering a day, regardless of how many Masses he might celebrate. Priests are strongly encouraged to offer a Mass for an intention even if the person does not give an offering. Priests are not able to request an offering larger than what is the custom of the region ($10 here) and if someone gives them a larger offering but does not specify how many Masses the priest is asked to offer, the priest must offer as many Masses as the offering implies (for example $50 would mean five Masses). A priest who unlawfully profits from trafficking in Mass offerings is to be punished with a censure.
The question can be asked, why continue the practice if it has to be regulated so heavily just to prevent misuse?
However, it is important to remember that there are still parts of the world where priests truly rely on Mass offerings for their support. Additionally, the theological value of offering something for a Mass cannot be dismissed. Pope St. Paul VI in Firma in traditione said those who donate a Mass offering “associate themselves more closely with Christ’s act of offering himself as victim and in so doing experience its effects more fully.”
It remains a means of entering into the sacrificial nature of the Mass more fully and is still a worthy practice for the faithful. It is just incumbent upon priests to not fall back into the sins of the past and allow the practice to lose its worthiness and become a simple monetary transaction.
This question was answered by Father Caleb La Rue, vice chancellor of the Diocese of Lincoln. Write to Ask the Register using our online form, or write to 3700 Sheridan Blvd., Suite 10, Lincoln NE 68506-6100. All questions are subject to editing. Editors decide which questions to publish. Personal questions cannot be answered. People with such questions are urged to take them to their nearest Catholic priest.
