Can priests attend Mass without utilizing their Office

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This is a clearly an “in the weeds” sort of question, but if a priest was to attend Mass, is he obligated to be a part of the celebratory…crew(?) And wear the robes and consecrate the Eucharist with the presiding priest?

I’m just thinking if, say, a priest was visiting his family for the holidays or a rare weekend off, could he just sit with them as an attendee?
 
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Episcopalian said:
is he obligated to be a part of the celebratory…crew(?
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My parish priest says he often just sits in the pews when he’s at home at his convent.
Episcopalian said:
consecrate the Eucharist with the presiding priest?
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This is called “concelebrating” and it is completely optional, and only found in the Novus Ordo. Some priests like to sit in choir (with the celebrating priest or with the altar boys) without concelebrating. This is also completely fine as long as the celebrant agrees.
 
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If the Mass is celebrated in a language the priest doesn’t understand he could choose to sit with the lay people. If he concelebrates, he could choose to not say any parts loud or pray parts of the Eucharistic prayer in a language he speaks.

One priest I know, said that he prefers to sit in the pew when there are already priest/priests celebrating Mass when he is in a foreign country even if he speaks the language. This is especially if he has never celebrated Mass in that language. Besides, as he also said “It is good to see how another priest celebrates Mass every once in a while.”.

Learning how to read in a different language is fairly easy most of the time. Being able to communicate is a totally different ballgame.
 
Not obligated to concelebrate.

Some priests I know will always ask to concelebrate when they travel, others like to simply be in the pew for a Mass.
 
I wonder if they tell the celebrant that they’re priests. Or is it sort of like spying…😁
 
Only in the Novus Ordo? Forgetting for a moment that the “Novus Ordo” of the Roman Rite is what 95+% of Catholics know and experience, concelebration also exists in the EF…just under more rare circumstances. It also exists in the various Oriental rites.
 
Of course they can just attend. I’ve been at large diocesan Masses for things like anniversaries of a bishop’s ordination or some other special commemoration, where something like 100 - 150 priests from all over the diocese or region will show up and just sit in the pews and attend Mass. Obviously they could not possibly all concelebrate the Mass; there wouldn’t even be room in the sanctuary for 20 to 40 pews full of priests.
 
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Our parish has 5 Masses a weekend. Our priest normally says 4 of the Masses and the 5th Mass is said by a priest from a smaller parish nearby that we are paired with. The main priest still attends and sits with the cantor and musicians. He still wears the collar though. Not exactly stealthy. 😂
 
twf said:
concelebration also exists in the EF
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You are right of course. It’s customary that priests celebrate their first mass with the Bishop for instance in the Extraordinary Form, yes. I was only trying to impress that A: Concelebrating in its present form is a fairly new development; and B: It’s completely voluntary. I must have oversimplified for emphasis. 😉
 
They have a priest ID card that they show if they are unknown to the local priest.
 
Since the celebration of the holy sacrifice of the mass is the high point of a priest’s day, I cannot image one sitting idly by, as he is intended by the Lord to concelebrate the mass. I’m sure that the G.I.R.M. and/or canon law speak to this.
 
po18guy said:
Since the celebration of the holy sacrifice of the mass is the high point of a priest’s day, I cannot image one sitting idly by, as he is intended by the Lord to concelebrate the mass. I’m sure that the G.I.R.M. and/or canon law speak to this.
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Aren’t priests limited by canon law on how many Masses they can say each day? If a priest has to celebrate the daily Mass at his own parish but also wants to attend a Mass said by someone else, let’s say it’s a Mass for the soul of a friend of his or a Mass said by a visiting priest with whom he is friends, then I can see a priest simply going to Mass and staying in the pew. Also, as I mentioned there are cases of Masses said where many priests attend and it would be impractical to have them all up there concelebrating, they’d be falling over each other.

In the case mentioned above of a priest who has to say 4 Masses during a weekend, and then chooses to sit in the pew for the 5th Mass with the visiting priest, I would think after he did 4 Masses in 2 days he’s pretty burned out and ready to take a break and let the other priest deal with the 5th Mass. I’m actually surprised he even shows up for the Mass rather than going and taking a rest break.

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This particular priest loves to sing and sitting with the musicians gives him a better chance to do that than when he is saying a Mass. I also know that he is very good about taking time off during the week when he needs it. So those probably help reduce the burn out factor.
 
TheMortenBay said:
This is called “concelebrating” and it is completely optional, and only found in the Novus Ordo.
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  1. It’s not the “Novus Ordo.” That was the title for the initial Mass after VII, and not for the Missal as promulgated by subsequent popes.
  2. AFAIK, concelebration is normative for every Eucharistic liturgy in Apostolic Christianity, East and West, from the first century to the present, save for the Tridentine liturgies and the pre-Treent abuses that were codified there (the “low mass” was a monastic abuse to make more Mass stipends possible. In one of history’s peculiar twists, it, rather than the standard liturgy, was codified as the norm, with the regular liturgy becoming “High Mass.” (although I assume that the same trend happened with the Ambrosian,. Mozarabic, and so forth in the west).
I can’t speak for the West (whether pre-tridentine or today), but it is normative in most (all?) of the East for non-concelebrating priests present to enter the Holy Place with a stole or otherwise for the Anaphora, and to receive as clergy, rather than with the laity. When the local latin bishop attended my priest’s ordination a decade ago, he sat on a chair just outside the Iconostasis, and entered for this portion [guided by other clergy in what to do]. At Fr. Vivona’s funeral last year, though, he was in there with our bishop [Fr. Vivona also served as the RC chancellor for many years, and opened a couple of RC parishes in town {at one of which, I was surprised to see that the Tabernacle in the chapel was a miniture Hagia Sophia!}]
HeDa said:
One priest I know, said that he prefers to sit in the pew when there are already priest/priests celebrating Mass when he is in a foreign country even if he speaks the language. This is especially if he has never celebrated Mass in that language. Besides, as he also said “It is good to see how another priest celebrates Mass every once in a while.”.
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Being a popular vacation destination (Las Vegas), we see many visiting priests, both Eastern and RC. Some have never been to an Eastern liturgy before, but Father still brings them in, and often has them take parts that he points to, even in the Anaphora. We don’t mind at all that they are speaking instead of chanting; we’re happy to have them!

(continued)
 
(continuing)
Tis_Bearself said:
where something like 100 - 150 priests from all over the diocese or region will show up and just sit in the pews and attend Mass.
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For Fr. Vivona’s funeral (also known as Fr. Francis), we had more than three dozen priests (it might have been 50.) Most of the local RC, most of the ones from our Eparchy [which is roughly the western half of the US]–and it’s a small church. We couldn’t fit them all in the Holy Place! 😱:crazy_face: {but we sure got a bunch of bishops and priests in there!}

So we had rows and rows of them, but almost all of them rose in place to join, as far as they could, the Anaphora, and all received as clergy, I believe, filing in and out . . .

Also the largest KofC honor guard I’ve ever been in. [when filing out at the end, one of the priests stopped to lean over and tell me how much better my regalia was than the new third world paratrooper outfit that is taking its place!]
TheMortenBay said:
A: Concelebrating in its present form is a fairly new development;
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No. Just, no.

It’s lifting the western suppression of this ancient practice that’s a recent development. As I said above, in the early church, it was the norm.
Tis_Bearself said:
Aren’t priests limited by canon law on how many Masses they can say each day?
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That would be “1”, which is also the number of Masses a parish is supposed to have. 😱🤣

As a practical matter, almost all western priests and parishes have an indult(?) permitting more. I want to say a priest is still limited to celebration three times a calendar day. I haven’t a clue whether being a concelebrant t counts to wards this limit.

hawk
 
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