EDITED: Priests celebrate OF Masses alone?

[a83192]

I know that all priests of traditional orders that do the EF Mass many times do it in private without server for either devotion or a special intention.

Now I want to know if such a thing can be done with the OF? If so how would the priest go about doing it compared to a normal Mass with people?

 

[curlycool89]

I know that all priests of traditional orders that do the EF Mass many times do it in private without server for either devotion or a special intention.

Now I want to know if such a thing can be done with the OF? If so how would the priest go about doing it compared to a normal Mass with people?

There are specific instructions in the GIRM for how to say a Mass without people. I can’t remember any examples, I just remember seeing them as I read through the GIRM at the end of November.

 

[FrDavid96]

I know that all priests of traditional orders that do the EF Mass many times do it in private without server for either devotion or a special intention.

Now I want to know if such a thing can be done with the OF? If so how would the priest go about doing it compared to a normal Mass with people?

First yes, it can be done.

For the most part the Mass occurs as usual. The difference is that the priest omits certain parts–the obvious ones that require “interaction” like saying “the Lord be with you” since there’s no one to answer “and with your spirit.” And the words “At the Saviors command and formed…” before the Our Father. He still does all the required readings. The final blessing at the end of Mass is omitted (no one to bless). Just little omissions.

 

[jimrob]

One of my school friends is a retired priest who is too ill to say Mass in church. He says OF Mass privately in his house. The rite of Mass without a congregation is in the Missal. It’s not much different to Mass with a congregation, but obviously there is no scope for congregational responses or dialogue.

 

[Matthew_Holford]

First yes, it can be done.

For the most part the Mass occurs as usual. The difference is that the priest omits certain parts–the obvious ones that require “interaction” like saying “the Lord be with you” since there’s no one to answer “and with your spirit.” And the words “At the Saviors command and formed…” before the Our Father. He still does all the required readings. The final blessing at the end of Mass is omitted (no one to bless). Just little omissions.

This post will be vague because I can’t remember the exact words I want or the sources. As to private Masses (or Mass sine populo (is that right?)), don’t they require at least one server or someone to make the responses? I believe it says somewhere (maybe in Canon Law) that a priest can celebrate completely alone for a ‘just’ reason. I think Bl. John Paul II said that a priest’s desire to celebrate the Mass was in itself a ‘just’ reason.

 

[FrDavid96]

This post will be vague because I can’t remember the exact words I want or the sources. As to private Masses (or Mass sine populo (is that right?)), don’t they require at least one server or someone to make the responses? I believe it says somewhere (maybe in Canon Law) that a priest can celebrate completely alone for a ‘just’ reason. I think Bl. John Paul II said that a priest’s desire to celebrate the Mass was in itself a ‘just’ reason.

Yes–to all of the above.

What a lot of people don’t realize is that under the old 1917 Code, a priest needed a “serious reason” to celebrate by himself (w/o even a server). Bl John Paul II in the 1983 Code, actually lowered the standard to a “just cause” for just the reason you stated, that the priest’s desire to celebrate Mass is sufficient.

Most people think it’s the other way around, that a priest alone was permitted more in the past than in the present. It’s actually the reverse of that.