Priests in Congregation

  • Thread starter Thread starter coeyannie
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
C

coeyannie

Guest
I don’t know the answer to this, so I hope someone can enlighten me. On Saturday’s I attend the 8:00 am Mass at a local parish. Usually every Saturday in walks the spiritual director from the seminary across the river. I am told that he grew up in this parish. Anyway, he attends Mass just like everyone else and receives Holy Communion from the Extra-ordinary minister. This morning there were “two” fully ordained priests attending Mass. I realize they have days off, I realize they need relaxation time, but since when is concelebrating a Mass considered a “job”. We wouldn’t need the “extra-ordinary” ministers if those two priests would distribute Holy Communion.

For about four or five days one of the priests was as Mass during the week in the congregation. The other priest concelebrates when he is there during the week.

What’s with Saturday’s? As long as they are there, why don’t they participate. When I hear talk of the laity taking over priestly responsibilities, this is just one incidence and I don’t like it.

Thanks. God Bless.

:confused:
 
40.png
coeyannie:
I don’t know the answer to this, so I hope someone can enlighten me. On Saturday’s I attend the 8:00 am Mass at a local parish. Usually every Saturday in walks the spiritual director from the seminary across the river. I am told that he grew up in this parish. Anyway, he attends Mass just like everyone else and receives Holy Communion from the Extra-ordinary minister. This morning there were “two” fully ordained priests attending Mass. I realize they have days off, I realize they need relaxation time, but since when is concelebrating a Mass considered a “job”. We wouldn’t need the “extra-ordinary” ministers if those two priests would distribute Holy Communion.

For about four or five days one of the priests was as Mass during the week in the congregation. The other priest concelebrates when he is there during the week.

What’s with Saturday’s? As long as they are there, why don’t they participate. When I hear talk of the laity taking over priestly responsibilities, this is just one incidence and I don’t like it.

Thanks. God Bless.

:confused:
Click to expand...
You ask a fair question, and I’m going to respond from the perspective of a deacon since I’m not a priest, but have talked to several priests about this.

Celebrating the Mass is an expensive proposition in terms of energy. Both priest and deacon expend energy tghat is far beyond just the apparent physical effort. Sometimes we go to Mass to be fed spiritually and, therefore, do not minister from the altar but, rather, are ministered to.

As a wise priest once told me, you can’t drink from an empty cup. If all we do is give, then eventually we’ll be empty with nothing left to give. Sometimes we have to receive in order to have something to give.

Deacon Ed
 
Is he stationed in another diocese? I’m not sure if I’m on target here, but I remember from my days as parish secretary that a visiting priest from another diocese needed permisssion to say Mass in the parish since many parishioners would import friends of theirs to officiate at their weddings, etc…

I remember one time when the new pastor who was assigned to our parish was very upset by a certain priest being brought in to say an annual Mass for a deceased loved one of a “well known” family without his permission. So maybe this/these priests aren’t being asked…:twocents:
 
Well, I don’t know about being asked. One priest is the “spiritual director” in the seminary, so he is diocese priest, the other one is maybe just a deacon.

I am sorry, Deacon, but I just don’t agree with you. I don’t think that concelebrating Mass expends a whole lot of energy. The priest is not on the altar during the whole Mass, only part of it, and I don’t think distributing Holy Communion is exactly a work-out. I just feel that the reverence and respect for the priesthood is diminished every time a lay person is substituted for what was exclusively the priest’s responsibility. I’m an old fuddy-duddy and proud of it. I have been to too many wishy-washy parishes since Vatican II to be patient.

In one parish I was in, the celebrating priest used to sit in the congregation during the readings. He left the priesthood.
 
40.png
coeyannie:
I am sorry, Deacon, but I just don’t agree with you. I don’t think that concelebrating Mass expends a whole lot of energy. The priest is not on the altar during the whole Mass, only part of it, and I don’t think distributing Holy Communion is exactly a work-out. I just feel that the reverence and respect for the priesthood is diminished every time a lay person is substituted for what was exclusively the priest’s responsibility. I’m an old fuddy-duddy and proud of it. I have been to too many wishy-washy parishes since Vatican II to be patient
Click to expand...
If he is to concelebrate he *must *be in the sanctuary for the whole Mass.

Deacon Ed
 
40.png
coeyannie:
I don’t know the answer to this, so I hope someone can enlighten me. On Saturday’s I attend the 8:00 am Mass at a local parish. Usually every Saturday in walks the spiritual director from the seminary across the river. I am told that he grew up in this parish. Anyway, he attends Mass just like everyone else and receives Holy Communion from the Extra-ordinary minister. This morning there were “two” fully ordained priests attending Mass. I realize they have days off, I realize they need relaxation time, but since when is concelebrating a Mass considered a “job”. We wouldn’t need the “extra-ordinary” ministers if those two priests would distribute Holy Communion.

For about four or five days one of the priests was as Mass during the week in the congregation. The other priest concelebrates when he is there during the week.

What’s with Saturday’s? As long as they are there, why don’t they participate. When I hear talk of the laity taking over priestly responsibilities, this is just one incidence and I don’t like it.

Thanks. God Bless.

:confused:
Click to expand...
A priest should not celebrate Mass more than once a day, twice if necessary. Three times in a day he needs the permission of the Bishop. (at least that is the way it used to be.) So this priest may have already celebrated Mass Saturday and so is not obligated to concelebrate. However if he is present he should distribute Holy Communion. I believe he can do this in a clerical shirt and just a a small white stole. (the stole may not be necessary) But that is one way I have seen it done.
 
is it preferred that if a non-celebrating preist is present, that he distribute communion instead of the EMHCs?
 
In the new Vatican document on the Eucharist Redemptionis Sacramentum (I am probably misspelling this) they made it pretty clear the concelebrating was a priests right but he was not obligated to do so.

Distributing Communion on the other hand is different. It is not required that a priest in the congragation distribute Communion. However, no EMHC may be used UNLESS there are not enough regular Ministers of Holy Communion (Priests or Bishops). So the Priest receiving from the EMHC is not correct according to the RS.

I will find the citation tomorrow.
 
I have experienced the same thing in our diocese. They cancelled one Mass at the basilica parish & the pastor used to come to mass & sit in the pews. I never understood it either.
 
I was hesitating to fill the need for an EMHC one day because one of our deacons was in the congregation. He told me to go forward because he could not. He said that he may distribute communion only if he is vested and assisting at the altar.

I don’t know whether this is a universal rule.
 
40.png
coeyannie:
I am sorry, Deacon, but I just don’t agree with you. I don’t think that concelebrating Mass expends a whole lot of energy.
Click to expand...
How many Masses did you concelebrate in order to reach this conclusion?
 
I’d like to stand up for the priests here.

Let’s be careful not to take them for granted. Here we are, complaining that sometimes a priest from the seminary or some other place, etc is sitting at mass and not concelebrating.

Great. OK. So. Let’s remember that this is their job, their live’s work, and they put far more of themselves into this “job” than any of us ever will into ours. They are called to be “workaholics” when the rest of us are chastized and lose our families for the same thing. They are called to meet a certain standard 100% of the time…not like the rest of us.

I would be thrilled to be seated next to a priest during the Mass (as long as he’s not the celebrant!).

Everyone needs time off, and the right to attend Mass without being hands-on involved.

Think about it. Consider how wonderful it is to recieve Communion and then return to our pews with the opportunity to sing or to meditate on the miracle? When do priests get that chance if they are constantly in service and never allowed the gift of simply recieving and meditating???

Priests are humans who walk in the footsteps of Jesus, who was divine. Whereas they are called to walk exactly the same steps, sometimes their human nature needs some renewal…and definitely some slack from us.

I am in no way “liberal” but we can’t forget that our priests are human and need just as much love, consideration, and relaxation as the rest of us.

I would rather see an EMC there than an overworked priest who just needs time to experience the Mass and remember why he’s there to begin with.

Today I watched the new priest in our church (it’s his first assignment) proceed down the aisle after Mass…and the joy on his face was indescribable. I hope he never loses that joy.
 
At many parishes visiting priests are disinvited to concelebrate Mass because of the alleged appearance of “male domination” of the priesthood.
 
This is not directly applicable, but in our diocese (and probably most in the world now), priests from outside the diocese are forbidden from doing any ministry work unless our chancery office has had a chance to clear the priest with his bishop. This has always been true (that priests need permission from the local bishop before they do ministries within a diocese) but the process was often much more prefunctory in the past than it is now. This a good thing, for the obvious reasons… but if your relative from out of state is coming to do your daughter’s wedding, don’t forget to get that paperwork in early!
 
Joe Kelley:
I was hesitating to fill the need for an EMHC one day because one of our deacons was in the congregation. He told me to go forward because he could not. He said that he may distribute communion only if he is vested and assisting at the altar.

I don’t know whether this is a universal rule.
Click to expand...
Could someone point on the rule on this, because if so, That’s news to me.
 
The current edition of the GIRM specifies, in part:

"114. . . .Further, it is fitting that priests who are present at a Eucharistic celebration, unless excused for a good reason, should as a rule exercise the function of their own order and hence participate as concelebrants, wearing sacred vestments. "

Food for thought.
 
40.png
BLB_Oregon:
This is not directly applicable, but in our diocese (and probably most in the world now), priests from outside the diocese are forbidden from doing any ministry work unless our chancery office has had a chance to clear the priest with his bishop. This has always been true (that priests need permission from the local bishop before they do ministries within a diocese) but the process was often much more prefunctory in the past than it is now. This a good thing, for the obvious reasons… but if your relative from out of state is coming to do your daughter’s wedding, don’t forget to get that paperwork in early!
Click to expand...
I suspect that this is fall out from the lawsuits. The diocese may now have liability for the actions of a visiting priests, and some dioceses were less than frank in sharing information.
 
one would think a visiting preist would by default have a right to concelebrate ifhe so chose. but i am no canon lawyer so i wont assert it as fact
 
I heard that our priests are being issued picture ID by the diocese to establish their credentials when traveling. I suspect that it must be renewed periodically.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top