Illicit or invalid?

[Batfink]

I was at a Mass the other day with quite a number of things done against the rubrics. I know that it was definitely illicit (I won’t list all the reasons, but it certainly was), I was just wondering whether it was actually invalid…there’s nothing I can do about it either way, the bishop is well aware of the situation, I would just like to know for my own conscience. I was really trying to concentrate on the Mass and say to myself that it was still a privilege to be able to spend time with Our Lord in the Eucharist, focus on that and my own prayers and just block out the rest, it was only afterwards that I wondered whether in fact it had been valid at all.

The point in question is that at the consecration the priest said the lines from ‘take this…’ correctly both times, but messed around a bit with the preceding lines. As I say, I was trying to block it out, but e.g. said ‘friends’ instead of ‘disciples’, had some weird line instead of the ‘when supper was ended…’ and so on.

So, boiling it down to two issues: 1) was it an invalid Mass?
2) bearing in mind that I thought it to be valid at the time and only later reflected and worried, did I sin in acting as an EMHC?

Any help?

 

[MarkThompson]

I was at a Mass the other day with quite a number of things done against the rubrics. I know that it was definitely illicit (I won’t list all the reasons, but it certainly was), I was just wondering whether it was actually invalid…there’s nothing I can do about it either way, the bishop is well aware of the situation, I would just like to know for my own conscience. I was really trying to concentrate on the Mass and say to myself that it was still a privilege to be able to spend time with Our Lord in the Eucharist, focus on that and my own prayers and just block out the rest, it was only afterwards that I wondered whether in fact it had been valid at all.

The point in question is that at the consecration the priest said the lines from ‘take this…’ correctly both times, but messed around a bit with the preceding lines. As I say, I was trying to block it out, but e.g. said ‘friends’ instead of ‘disciples’, had some weird line instead of the ‘when supper was ended…’ and so on.

So, boiling it down to two issues: 1) was it an invalid Mass?
2) bearing in mind that I thought it to be valid at the time and only later reflected and worried, did I sin in acting as an EMHC?

Any help?

There are approximately thirteen Eucharistic prayers, counting the prayers for reconciliation, for children, and for various needs. Are you sure it wasn’t any of these? Some of them use “friends”; some don’t say “when supper was ended,” etc.

In any event, only the words of institution themselves need be correct. Changing or screwing up the rest of the narrative, although a grave abuse (if he wasn’t in fact using one of the approved prayers) would not invalidate the Mass.

 

[Matthew_Holford]

I was at a Mass the other day with quite a number of things done against the rubrics. I know that it was definitely illicit (I won’t list all the reasons, but it certainly was), I was just wondering whether it was actually invalid…there’s nothing I can do about it either way, the bishop is well aware of the situation, I would just like to know for my own conscience. I was really trying to concentrate on the Mass and say to myself that it was still a privilege to be able to spend time with Our Lord in the Eucharist, focus on that and my own prayers and just block out the rest, it was only afterwards that I wondered whether in fact it had been valid at all.

The point in question is that at the consecration the priest said the lines from ‘take this…’ correctly both times, but messed around a bit with the preceding lines. As I say, I was trying to block it out, but e.g. said ‘friends’ instead of ‘disciples’, had some weird line instead of the ‘when supper was ended…’ and so on.

So, boiling it down to two issues: 1) was it an invalid Mass?
2) bearing in mind that I thought it to be valid at the time and only later reflected and worried, did I sin in acting as an EMHC?

Any help?

Hi Batfink

You said you won’t give us all the reasons so it’s difficult for anyone to give you a complete answer. For the Mass to be valid the following are required (paraphrased rather than direct quotes from Church documents):

1. 
   *]The Celebrant or all the Concelebrants must be male and validly ordained priests or bishops (i.e. Eucharistic Ministers);
   *]The Intent of the Celebrant/Concelebrants must be what the Church intends: that is to confect the Eucharist;
   *]The Matter, i.e. the bread and wine: the bread must be made from flour milled from wheat and made into unleavened bread with water; the wine must be the fermented juice of grapes and contain alcohol;
   *]The Form, i.e. the words said by the Celebrants/Concelebrants “This is my Body …” and “This is my Blood …” must be said as in the Eucharistic Prayer. (Changing other parts of the Eucharistic Prayer is illicit but does not invalidate the Mass.)
   
   Doing anything not in the red and saying words other than in the black is illicit but not does not invalidate the Mass but can mean the Celebrant/Concelebrants commit grave sin.
   
   Matt

 

[PacoG]

Hi Batfink

You said you won’t give us all the reasons so it’s difficult for anyone to give you a complete answer. For the Mass to be valid the following are required (paraphrased rather than direct quotes from Church documents):

1. 
   *]The Celebrant or all the Concelebrants must be male and validly ordained priests or bishops (i.e. Eucharistic Ministers);
   *]The Intent of the Celebrant/Concelebrants must be what the Church intends: that is to confect the Eucharist;
   *]The Matter, i.e. the bread and wine: the bread must be made from flour milled from wheat and made into unleavened bread with water; the wine must be the fermented juice of grapes and contain alcohol;
   *]The Form, i.e. the words said by the Celebrants/Concelebrants “This is my Body …” and “This is my Blood …” must be said as in the Eucharistic Prayer. (Changing other parts of the Eucharistic Prayer is illicit but does not invalidate the Mass.)
   
   Doing anything not in the red and saying words other than in the black is illicit but not does not invalidate the Mass but can mean the Celebrant/Concelebrants commit grave sin.
   
   Matt

1. 
   I wish the Moderator of the Liturgy Forum would put up a sticky on what makes a Mass invalid. One form or another of the OPs question is posted on a weekly basis (by different posters of course).

 

[Matthew_Holford]

I wish the Moderator of the Liturgy Forum would put up a sticky on what makes a Mass invalid. One form or another of the OPs question is posted on a weekly basis (by different posters of course).

Why have you linked your comments to my post rather than to the OP?

 

[PacoG]

Why have you linked your comments to my post rather than to the OP?

Because your response is typical of the response has been given 1000 times over and over by several of us.

 

[Matthew_Holford]

Because your response is typical of the response has been given 1000 times over and over by several of us.

Yes, but isn’t the premiss of what you say in Post #4 aimed at the type of question posed by the OP rather than my response.

 

[PacoG]

I was nominating your post to be the sticky.

 

[Matthew_Holford]

I was nominating your post to be the sticky.

OK, thanks for the complement bu it just didn’t read like that. I fully agree with you that this question is asked repeatedly.

 

[joandarc2008]

This is not going to be a popular comment - at some point - especially if we are traveling to different areas of the country or other countries - we have to have more faith in our priests. They have a tough job. It takes ALOT to make a mass invalid - and if it was an invalid mass I have a feeling a lot more people than just one or two people in the congregation would notice. Just some thoughts. However, with liturgical abuses in your own parish there are parish counsels - and those would be good places to take some of these concerns up after charitably speaking to the priest as those people are USUALLY well versed and if not then work up from there.

 

[Matthew_Holford]

I suspect that very few Masses are invalid. Whereas a lot may be illicit. The difference between the two is vitally important. An invalid Mass is no Mass at all and the congregation would receive nothing more than unleavened bread and wine.

Technically, any Mass where the red isn’t followed and/or the black isn’t said those mistakes are illicit and may be termed liturgical abuses.

I’ve been to Mass where the words said by the priest weren’t EXACTLY those printed in the Missal. It was quite clear that the priest had slipped up, it wasn’t a deliberate, conscious attempt to amend the text. Frequently, if I ask a student to read something out loud although the words are clearly there in black and white they don’t always say out loud what is in the text. It’s an error and all humans, and priests are human too, can make these simple mistakes.

To me it really becomes a liturgical abuse when its clear the priest has deliberately changed the words.

I know priests have a tough job and they are going to make the occasional mistake but I think it should just be as easy to do the red and say the black as it is to do the opposite.

 

[joandarc2008]

I suspect that very few Masses are invalid. Whereas a lot may be illicit. The difference between the two is vitally important. An invalid Mass is no Mass at all and the congregation would receive nothing more than unleavened bread and wine.

Technically, any Mass where the red isn’t followed and/or the black isn’t said those mistakes are illicit and may be termed liturgical abuses.

I’ve been to Mass where the words said by the priest weren’t EXACTLY those printed in the Missal. It was quite clear that the priest had slipped up, it wasn’t a deliberate, conscious attempt to amend the text. Frequently, if I ask a student to read something out loud although the words are clearly there in black and white they don’t always say out loud what is in the text. It’s an error and all humans, and priests are human too, can make these simple mistakes.

To me it really becomes a liturgical abuse when its clear the priest has deliberately changed the words.

I know priests have a tough job and they are going to make the occasional mistake but I think it should just be as easy to do the red and say the black as it is to do the opposite.

Right now agreed -except for maybe brand new priests or a very old priest at the end of a long day. However come next advent we may have some priests getting tongue tied or getting a little liturgically confused - especially the ones that have been saying the same Mass for the last 30 years or so. We need to be charitable as we will probably mess up some responsorials as well.

 

[Matthew_Holford]

Right now agreed -except for maybe brand new priests or a very old priest at the end of a long day. However come next advent we may have some priests getting tongue tied or getting a little liturgically confused - especially the ones that have been saying the same Mass for the last 30 years or so. We need to be charitable as we will probably mess up some responsorials as well.

I think we may end up going round in circles here. In my previous post I said priests can and do make mistakes. That’s understandable and to me acceptable although not to those in the ‘liturgy police’. Those mistakes could be made for numerous reasons - new priests who are nervous, a priest celebrating evening Mass after a very trying day.

It is also highly likely that we’re all going to make some mistakes with the new edition of the Mass.

The point I was attempting to make in my previous post was that (a) some priests do quite deliberately change things; (b) that I know some priests get it wrong for a variety of reasons but I think that it should on most occasions (allowing for genuine mistakes) be just as easy to follow the rubrics than to disregard them and to say the proper texts as disregard them.

Many of us are pressurised in our jobs but that doesn’t mean we always get away with making mistakes.

 

[joandarc2008]

I think we may end up going round in circles here. In my previous post I said priests can and do make mistakes. That’s understandable and to me acceptable although not to those in the ‘liturgy police’. Those mistakes could be made for numerous reasons - new priests who are nervous, a priest celebrating evening Mass after a very trying day.

It is also highly likely that we’re all going to make some mistakes with the new edition of the Mass.

The point I was attempting to make in my previous post was that (a) some priests do quite deliberately change things; (b) that I know some priests get it wrong for a variety of reasons but I think that it should on most occasions (allowing for genuine mistakes) be just as easy to follow the rubrics than to disregard them and to say the proper texts as disregard them.

Many of us are pressurised in our jobs but that doesn’t mean we always get away with making mistakes.

I apologize - I misread your post. My fault. We are saying the same thing. Doh!

 

[Matthew_Holford]

I apologize - I misread your post. My fault. We are saying the same thing. Doh!

May be you’re tired and should be in bed asleep not on the Net at 2.30 in the morning.

 

[joandarc2008]

May be you’re tired and should be in bed asleep not on the Net at 2.30 in the morning.

Probably - if I could sleep it would be a wonderful thing. But I do agree it is a bad thing when priests choose to willfully ignore the rubrics. Also the red and black did not show up - but oh well.

 

[Batfink]

Sorry for annoying people with my faq I do know what makes a Mass invalid (the list posted by Matt), my only question was whether the words of consecration included the inbetweeny bits I asked about (‘When supper was ended…’ etc.), but that was answered in the negative, so thank you. Mark, I am absolutely sure that it was made up and from none of the approved Eucharistic Prayers.

I agree about giving priests the benefit of the doubt, and my only reason for not posting all the ways in which the Mass was illicit was to not identify myself/the priest to any of our local community who may read the post and cause trouble - as I said the bishop is already aware of the situation so I don’t see the need to stir it up unnecessarily. I will give examples of what made it illicit though, so that you can see it was a definite choice of the priest and not a mistake - e.g. made up penitential rite, no Liturgy of the Word except a gospel which was read by a layperson. I know that none of these would make the Mass invalid, hence why I didn’t at first list them

Thank you for all your help, anyway, and I’m sorry if I upset anyone.

 

[mardukm]

I recall participating in a thread criticizing a Mass for a special conference several months ago. The priest (a bishop) used a Eucharistic prayer than no one knew was one of the approved prayers, and everyone was adamant about it being invalid. Unfortunately, I came into the discussion rather late to point that out. However, despite the fact that it was an approved EP, the critics maintained their general attitude about the invalidity of the Mass. There were also Liturgical dancers, and they were clearly not dancing during the Liturgy, but that didn’t matter. I think it is just human nature to always look for the negative, without giving the benefit of the doubt (though I’m not addressing that comment to the OP at all).

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[malphono]

I recall participating in a thread criticizing a Mass for a special conference several months ago. … There were also Liturgical dancers, and they were clearly not dancing during the Liturgy, but that didn’t matter.

I remember that thread quite well, and while I have neither the patience nor the interest to review the whole geschichte, the above prompts a comment: it is not (and was not at the time) at all clear to me that the so-called “dancing” (more like “gyrating” but I digress) did not occur during the liturgy.