Mass during the Night

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In particular parishes, especially in urban areas, they indicate in their Christmas Schedule about two Masses during the Night (Midnight Mass) at 8pm and 10pm. Some parishes have it at 7pm and 9pm. Is this practice of having multiple Masses during the Night allowed (with its prayers and readings?)
 
On particular Holy Days (such as Christmas & Easter) I don’t think priests have a hard cap in how many Masses they can celebrate. They’re also not obligated to fast in between when performing back-to-back Masses.
 
Is this practice of having multiple Masses during the Night allowed (with its prayers and readings?)
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Do you suspect that they would do it if it wasn’t allowed? Note that many large parishes will have several Masses on Sundays and Holy Days.
 
PaulfromIowa said:
Do you suspect that they would do it if it wasn’t allowed? Note that many large parishes will have several Masses on Sundays and Holy Days.
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They would. But why would they do it if there is a Mass during the Day on the 25th? (IMO) Usually the Day Mass follows the Sunday Schedule.
 
GoGoDiego said:
They would. But why would they do it if there is a Mass during the Day on the 25th? (IMO) Usually the Day Mass follows the Sunday Schedule.
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Often they do it to accommodate the number of people who will be in attendance. It’s the one day of the year where we see parishioners we haven’t seen since the same time a year ago.

Our parish has one at 6:30 pm, dubbed “family Mass”. Most of the young families attend that one with their kiddos. Many seniors attend that one too, a lot of them because they are the grandparents children attending.

Then we have one at 10 p.m. rather than midnight. The last time I was here for it (we usually travel at Christmas) I noted that the church was about 1/2 full.

The Mass during the day is at 10:30 a.m and very poorly attended. The last time I attended that one, because I was reading, there were only about 30 people in attendance.

Personally I would get rid of the 6:30 pm Mass but I’m pretty sure it’s done because priests realize that of the families that attend that one more than 1/2 wouldn’t bother coming at all if that Mass wasn’t available. One priest commented sadly that many of the parents just want to “get it over with”. One year he sarcastically suggested that the Family Mass should be at 10 am on Christmas Eve he was greeted with delight that they could get that out of the way early and get on to the important things about Christmas. 😦
 
We’re having 4 Christmas Masses:
5 pm Children;s Mass
8 Pm Mass in SPanish
Midnight Mass
and
10 AM Christmas Day Mass.

Remember, many people come to the Catholic church because their churches don’t hold services of their own on Christmas. I would hate fro them to find the doors closed.
 
GoGoDiego said:
In particular parishes, especially in urban areas, they indicate in their Christmas Schedule about two Masses during the Night (Midnight Mass) at 8pm and 10pm. Some parishes have it at 7pm and 9pm. Is this practice of having multiple Masses during the Night allowed (with its prayers and readings?)
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Our parish Church has 10 Masses every Sunday and also on all other Holy Days of Obligation.
 
thistle said:
Our parish Church has 10 Masses every Sunday and also on all other Holy Days of Obligation.
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10 Masses EVERY Sunday? Wow, your parish must be huge.
We have the Vigil Mass on Saturday, and 4 Masses on Sunday. We have 2000+ families in our parish.
 
Faith1960 said:
10 Masses EVERY Sunday? Wow, your parish must be huge.
We have the Vigil Mass on Saturday, and 4 Masses on Sunday. We have 2000+ families in our parish.
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We have 14,000 people in our parish and the reason for the 10 Masses is we get on average 80% Mass attendance.
 
The only Mass not packed is the Christmas Day Mass. Mostly elderly folks who live alone and don’t want to drive at night. Every other Mass is standing room only.
 
Our parish has three “midnight” masses on Christmas Eve. The English Mass is at 7pm, the Igbo Mass at 9pm and the Polish Mass at midnight. Those will all be standing room only. The one Christmas Day Mass in English will be lightly attended.
 
porthos11 said:
That is not unheard of in large Philippine cities. And overflowing too (literally).
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Yes that’s true. There are normally lots of people standing in the street outside our church because its completely full inside. They have speakers so those outside can hear the Mass.
 
thistle said:
We have 14,000 people in our parish and the reason for the 10 Masses is we get on average 80% Mass attendance.
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Filipinos take their faith seriously. That is why, in urban cities, there are so much Sunday Masses. In a particular church, their schedule of Masses are: 5am, 6am, 7am, 8am, 9am, 10am, 11am, 12pm, 2pm (Children’s Mass), 3pm, 4pm, 5pm, 6pm, 7pm, 8pm and 9pm (The last four Masses are in Filipino) for Sunday
 
GoGoDiego said:
In particular parishes, especially in urban areas, they indicate in their Christmas Schedule about two Masses during the Night (Midnight Mass) at 8pm and 10pm. Some parishes have it at 7pm and 9pm. Is this practice of having multiple Masses during the Night allowed (with its prayers and readings?)
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I believe it is allowable to use the readings for “Mass during the Night” at any of the Christmas Liturgies. I think many parishes do so. (It would certainly make things simpler for a priest who is celebrating multiple Masses not to have to prepare a homily for multiple readings!) Just because there are Masses for for the Eve, Night, Dawn, and Day of Christmas doesn’t mean they will be used.

As for the total number of Christmas Masses offered at my parish, we have one at 4:00pm Christmas Eve, one at 4:15pm in our hall, one at 6:30pm, and one at 11:00pm. We normally have just one Mass on Christmas Day but since Christmas falls on a Sunday we are going to have two this year: one at 9:00am and one at 11:00am.
 
Is there anything special about a “midnight mass” or is it about convenience? I know there’s a large variety of ways to answer and think about this one, and convenience isn’t necessarily a bad reason so long as it’s within reason. I’ve been going to midnight mass (at midnight) for years because it seemed ‘special’ to welcome Christ into the world on a cold winter’s night, but now I’m feeling bad for the daytime mass!
 
I love Midnight Mass the most…for the reason that it seems to take me to how it must have been that night in Bethlehem. Also, even though the music is great, it seems less “frantic” than the other Masses. Less people noise, I guess you could say.
 
Wesrock said:
Is there anything special about a “midnight mass” or is it about convenience? I know there’s a large variety of ways to answer and think about this one, and convenience isn’t necessarily a bad reason so long as it’s within reason. I’ve been going to midnight mass (at midnight) for years because it seemed ‘special’ to welcome Christ into the world on a cold winter’s night, but now I’m feeling bad for the daytime mass!
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In my experience, the closest Mass to midnight in a given parish is often celebrated with more pageantry than the other Masses. Many people like that.

As for why that particular Mass… I think it goes back to the days when Mass could not be celebrated after noon so a Mass at midnight would be the first Mass of Christmas. And I also believe there is some tradition (small ‘t’) of Christ being born at midnight.
 
Wesrock said:
Is there anything special about a “midnight mass” or is it about convenience? I know there’s a large variety of ways to answer and think about this one, and convenience isn’t necessarily a bad reason so long as it’s within reason. I’ve been going to midnight mass (at midnight) for years because it seemed ‘special’ to welcome Christ into the world on a cold winter’s night, but now I’m feeling bad for the daytime mass!
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Certainly, yes!

Christmas happens at (ok, approximately) the “midnight” of the year, i.e. the winter solstice, when we transition from darkness (days growing shorter) to light (days growing longer). Midnight is (again, approximately) the transition from night-overcoming-day into day-overcoming-night.

Pope Benedict has a great explanation of this in his book “Spirit of the Liturgy.” I would cite the chapter, but I can’t recall it offhand, nor do I have the book handy.

The texts of the Midnight Mass speak to this theme of the Light overcoming the darkness. So, yes, it is a very special Mass and a very special time for that Mass!
 
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