Regarding the Public nature of Masses or Services

[Episcopalian]

I’m asking in regards to Church Law, not the laws of the state/province/country. Just how public are Masses and how public are prayer services? Specific question below:

Can a workplace invite a priest to come celebrate, say a morning prayer service, or a Mass, just for it’s employees…or does the Mass/Service need to be advertised to a greater scope of people?

What about a workplace employee who happens to be a deacon. Can he celebrate a Morning Prayer Service for just the employees, or again does this need to be offered for a greater scope of people?

Are the Masses and Prayer services at a convent or monastery considered public events or are they offered JUST for the monastics?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Strictly speaking a “public Mass” is one that has at least one member of the faithful attending it. It doesn’t mean that the doors have to be wide open for the whole general public to enter, although if the Mass is held in a public place like a church, then everybody’s usually allowed in unless there is a crowd control or security issue.

I’ve been to Masses celebrated in all kinds of churches and other places (Hotel rooms, etc.) and the general practice seems to be that if the Mass is held in some place normally open to the public, such as a church, then the public should all be allowed to come in, unless it’s a situation where crowd control or security is needed, such as certain ticketed Masses at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in NYC, or certain ticketed Masses during Papal visits, or the priest holding Mass in a hotel room for his pilgrimage group.

It’s certainly possible for an employer to arrange for a Mass for employees at the workplace, but generally they won’t because of civil law concerns. If, however, they did have a Mass in the workplace, then anybody who was authorized to be on the premises, including visitors to the workplace that day, could come to the Mass, but they would not be required to throw open the doors to anybody on the street who wanted to come to the Mass.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

Can a workplace invite a priest to come celebrate, say a morning prayer service, or a Mass, just for it’s employees…or does the Mass/Service need to be advertised to a greater scope of people?

Yes, a workplace can invite a priest to come celebrate, say a morning prayer service, or a Mass, just for it’s employees. No, there is no need for that to be advertised to a greater scope of people.

What about a workplace employee who happens to be a deacon. Can he celebrate a Morning Prayer Service for just the employees, or again does this need to be offered for a greater scope of people?

Yes he can do it just for employees; no there is no need to offer this to others.

Are the Masses and Prayer services at a convent or monastery considered public events or are they offered JUST for the monastics?

This depends upon the institution. As a general rule, abbeys of monks, for example, welcome visitors. That is prescribed in the Rule of Saint Benedict. The liturgies are publicly announced and guests are welcome and the guestmaster will help them to be able to have full, conscious and active participation…in normal circumstances.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

continued

Benedictines typically follow a schedule that is reasonably friendly to visitors. Trappist monk and nuns typically have one hour of their liturgy which falls around 2 or 3 in the morning, and that particular Office may or may not be as welcoming for persons not in the monastery retreat house. For example, the gate may be locked during the night, cars arriving and departing and the general coming and going could be a disruption for the monastics who interrupt their sleep for this liturgy and then return to sleep.

I remember years ago being at a monastery, on retreat. Someone from the general neighborhood came and they had a car problem, discovered after the Office – it was a dead battery or tire issue – that required a service call and that was an inconvenient disruption as it all unfolded.

In the pandemic, many communities are not welcoming any visitors in order to keep the community quarantined from pandemic. A number of communities have been decimated around the globe because Religious communities, by necessity, have close interaction; they eat in common, pray in common, recreate in common, and many live under one roof, which promotes contagion. The matter is compounded because Religious communities try to keep the elderly at home as long as possible, so there are community members who are at high-risk.

In the case of cloistered communities of Sisters, in non pandemic conditions, they will also typically welcome visitors to come for Mass and some elements of the Liturgy of the Hours, which the visitors would attend in the chapel for externs, a space physically distinct from the cloistered Religious.

These monasteries are typically smaller in size and offer a fuller range of the hours of the Liturgy of the Hours. For this reason, the Sisters often limit visitors to certain hours…not admitting visitors if Matins is said in the middle of the night or not admitting to Lauds if it is at a very early hour before sun rise. Similarly, Compline might happen at an hour after the entrances are locked. The practice varies from monastery to monastery and is affected by their experiences.

For smaller convents, the restrictions can be greater. Over the years, I have said Masses for a community of teaching Sisters and joined them to say the Liturgy of the Hours. It really is all set up for their convenience and their schedule. Their chapel is small and is a room inside their home. That is not to say that they do not ever allow outsiders to come, by a special .arrangement…but the liturgies are not there for the convenience and for attendance by outsiders

 

[Tis_Bearself]

My experience with religious orders is that some of them attend Mass in a church open to the public, although depending on the order they may have a cloister section just for themselves, and in that case the Masses are open to the public who sit in the public section while the members of the order sit in their section. Others of them have a chapel within their own abbey, and often it’s open for certain Masses or certain days of the week but they reserve the right to close it, for example if they are having some special retreat or for COVID precautions.

 

[commenter]

Don Ruggero,

Your special insights on many topics were most beneficial over the years. I hope to find your posts in the future, somewhere.
.

 

[JohnLilburne]

Code of Canon Law has in Canon 837 §2 “Since liturgical actions by their very nature call for a community celebration, they are, as far as possible, to be celebrated in the presence of Christ’s faithful and with their active participation.”

A way of following this would be to have Morning Prayer (for example), every day, at a scheduled time, in the parish church and advertised in the weekly bulletin. In the city where I live, Melbourne, Australia, I would be surprised if more than 1% of the Roman Rite parishes did this.

I have been posting recordings of me singing Morning Prayer at youtube.com/johnlilburne since 13 November 2020. They are about 20 minutes. It is just me doing this, it is not a community celebration. Perhaps this will change in the future. But it would require a lot more resources from me, in time and travel, to do this publicly at a scheduled time.

In the 15 May 1969 Instruction Actio pastoralis, on Masses with special groups it discusses some of the tensions in having a ceremony for a special group. For example “This is not for the sake of creating ecclesiolae or privilege, but to serve the faithful’s particular needs or to deepen the Christian life in accord with the requirements and capacities of the members of these groups.” In discussing a place for a home Mass is has: “Furthermore, care must be taken that the concern for a more spacious and finer place does not lead to deliberate favouritism toward certain families and so to the restoration under another guise of the privileges that the Constitution on the Liturgy repudiates. [footnote 5: See Sacrosanctum concilium, art. 32.].” This 1969 Instruction is in the book “Documents on the Liturgy 1963-1979”, page 672.

For a deacon celebrating Morning Prayer for just employees the argument could be made that this is not ideal, it should be more public. But there are likely to be practical considerations that would make this too difficult.

 

[pnewton]

Consider that priests also offer Mass in prisons and jails. They most certainly not open to the public. In fact, they are not even open to all inmates, at least at the same Mass.