Requiem Mass

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funion987

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How much would it cost to hold a Requiem Mass for someone? (estimate)
 
As Boatbearer said, it can cost from nothing to what you can afford. The Mass itself does not have a monetary “price” attached to it - one cannot pay for the sacraments and it would be an act of simony to require people to do so. However, on the basis that “the labourer is worth his wages”, there would usually be a suggested donation…to be honest, I don’t know what the suggested amount would be - it probably varies from diocese to diocese or parish to parish. It is important to remember that you are giving a donation rather than paying for a Mass to be celebrated, and the amount that you give is ultimately what you yourself can afford.

That said, the cost of a funeral can include a lot more than giving a donation to the church or the priest. You may have to pay for musicians, perhaps an organist and a singer - I don’t know what the general costs would be in the U.S., but in Ireland the fee for the organist would be somewhere around 100 Euro…approximately $120, I imagine. Singers would charge about the same amount as the organist. If there are altar servers, it would be customary to give them a small token… So, all in all, it really depends on what you want apart from the Mass itself.
 
boatbearer said:
From nothing to more than you can afford.
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it never would cost more than you could afford, and the actual cost is nothing because it is forbidden to charge for a Mass. There is in most areas a customary stipend nominal like $5 which is waived in case of need. For a Mass outside regular times like a funeral there may be a charge for use of the church–opening it up a/c etc, which may be waived for parishioners, or again in case of need. If there is expense it is attached to things like paying the musicians and so forth, and of course to expenses paid to the funeral home like brining the body into the church. Since we are in the county seat we frequently do indigent funerals, and although the county and SS pay for the costs, a very small amount, under $500, that is paid to the funeral home, not the church (they sometimes give the celebrant a small stipend, not always).
 
What I mean by a Requiem Mass is the whole orchestration with an orchestra and choir, for example, Mozart’s Requiem Mass in d minor. How much would it cost to hire an orchestra with a choir to do that (plus the normal costs that go with funerals)?
 
funion987 said:
What I mean by a Requiem Mass is the whole orchestration with an orchestra and choir, for example, Mozart’s Requiem Mass in d minor. How much would it cost to hire an orchestra with a choir to do that (plus the normal costs that go with funerals)?
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That would definitely run into the thousands of dollars. I think it would heavily depend on your area, on the size and talent level of the choir and orchestra, on whether you can get any volunteers, on whether you have a director, and on what level of rehearsal you would require. Mozart’s full Requiem is a big undertaking, but it can be done big, or big big. You might consider asking the question on this forum, which is read by plenty of very experienced professional Catholic musicians.

Also be aware that there are liturgical difficulties in using old Requiem settings for the modern form of the Mass. The sequence Dies Irae no longer exists in the Mass, so using it in the “proper place” would actually amount to a liturgical abuse. Likewise, the movements are so long that they require lengthy breaks in the liturgy, which is also technically prohibited, but was not a problem with the older form of the Mass because the priest would just continue with his prayers, which were mostly silent. There are ways to work around it, but they involve either borderline liturgical abuses of the Ordinary Form, or finding a priest and the appropriate additional ministers and servers to celebrate a High Mass in the Extraordinary Form.

Finally, I’ve been to several Mozart requiems, and they have a regrettable tendency to come off more as a concert than an actual funeral or memorial. Large orchestral settings are good in some cases – state funerals, a heavily attended All Souls Day mass – but they are not the best choice for everything.
 
funion987 said:
What I mean by a Requiem Mass is the whole orchestration with an orchestra and choir, for example, Mozart’s Requiem Mass in d minor. How much would it cost to hire an orchestra with a choir to do that (plus the normal costs that go with funerals)?
Click to expand...
I don’t know of any Catholic church outside perhaps a national basilica shrine or a large cathedral parish that has an orchestra, which is probably not liturgically correct in any case. I have attended at least two funerals where members (not the entire group) of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and chorus provided the music, totally awesome, but they did not used unapproved Masses, but appropriate liturgical Mass settings and hymns. I don’t know the cost, the people were public figures so I don’t know how this was arranged and paid for. I also heard them at Mass for Pope John Paul II’s first visit to Chicago. never to be repeated.

You would have to inquire of the music groups you plan to use, then coordinate with the church where the funeral is to be held. I assume you mean this is an actual funeral. My mother wanted a dixieland band, and we actually had one line up, but her pastor just looked at us and laughed. We did have the local classical music radio station, where her grandson worked, play Faure’s requiem afterward, her favorite.
 
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