Mass Stipend/Intentions - How many is too many?

[yellow8yellowM]

I am about to start requesting Masses to be offered for my family. But just immediate family is around 30 people and growing. If everybody in our parish did this there is no way all of these Masses could be offered.

What is customary?

Should I go to religious orders or group intentions as one family all together?

Please help me as I have no experience with this.

 

[coachdennis]

A Mass intention that says simply “for the members of the __________ family” is perfectly appropriate and all that is needed.

 

[pensmama87]

At our parish, which is pretty large, in the fall a form goes out and each registered household can initially request three Masses in the next calendar year to be said for special intentions. After those requests, you can add more if there is space on the calendar. Sometimes, if there are too many, the Mass intentions will be passed on to other parishes (this goes by order in which they are received).

A lot of people do the entire family route, including saying something like “the living and deceased members of the Jones family.” I usually request one said for our family around my anniversary.

 

[Neofight]

Cut out the middle man, and offer each Mass you attend for the intentions you desire to receive attention from God, by praying to the saints for intercession and to offer your petitions with you.

 

[JimG]

Our parish routinely receives more Mass intentions that can be offered throughout the year. The excess Mass intentions are sent to the mission, so they are all fulfilled, but not necessarily at the local parish.

 

[midori]

Support the Missions. The downside, is of course, that once you get on their radar, you’ll get swamped with mailings from a hundred different organizations… But while it’s awesome to be able to attend the Mass that’s being said for your intentions, it’s also charitable to help out priests abroad, retired priests, or non-diocesan priests who may be too isolated to have regular mass intentions coming their way.

 

[Sunbreak]

It’s not unusual for Masses to be said for members of an entire family, or it can be broken up into the separate family units.

 

[ineeda]

Support the Missions. The downside, is of course, that once you get on their radar, you’ll get swamped with mailings from a hundred different organizations… But while it’s awesome to be able to attend the Mass that’s being said for your intentions, it’s also charitable to help out priests abroad, retired priests, or non-diocesan priests who may be too isolated to have regular mass intentions coming their way.

It is nice to have Missions say the mass, as we can have it on the exact day we request. It was difficult to get the date that we requested through our parish.

 

[biffoqueen]

I just have a mass said for my dad and his departed family around the time of his anniversary and then a mass for my mothers parents and siblings around the time of my grandmothers anniversary. no need to mention them all by name you can do this if you want in November when doing your list of the dead. in my parish the mass on a first Friday is dedicated to the list of the dead and candles are lit in their memory its a really lovely mass.

 

[FrDavid96]

I am about to start requesting Masses to be offered for my family. But just immediate family is around 30 people and growing. If everybody in our parish did this there is no way all of these Masses could be offered.

What is customary?

Should I go to religious orders or group intentions as one family all together?

Please help me as I have no experience with this.

Every parish is different. Some have more intentions than they can schedule and some have very few requested.

Where I am located, the larger parishes will often ask the priests at the smaller ones to say the Masses they cannot fit into their own schedules. That keeps things local (at least somewhat local).

At my place, I happen to know 2 recently ordained priests who are working on advanced degrees. Since they don’t have parish assignments, they don’t get a lot of Mass requests. When we get a small backlog we send them to one of those priests.

The usual procedure is that when a parish has too many Masses (a parish cannot have more than 1-year’s worth to avoid abuses), the ones they cannot handle are sent to the diocese. The diocese then forwards them to priests who have open dates—typically that means retired priests, or priests on academic assignments, or those in smaller parishes or missions.