Sunday Evg Mass-Legal?

[jbuck919]

An aspect of this that has not been considered is the impact of evening Masses on the clergy. In case anyone has not noticed lately, priestst are among the most overworked and underpaid people in the world, and are all too easily taken for granted. A parish of a size that has all these multiple Masses typically has two, maybe even one priest. He/they are supposed to supply us with a Mass on Saturday night, three or four at least on Sunday morning, and then again one on Sunday night? They deserve consideration too.

 

[JW10631]

There are a few parishes near my residence that have a late Sunday afternoon/Sunday evening Mass. It should be pointed out that Pittsburgh/Allegheny County’s population is about 50% Catholic.

Sunday evening Masses are a privilege to have available, and should be available only where and when there are sufficient priests to handle the workload.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Regi:

There is a rule about the time of Mass on Saturday evening, I believe, but not about Sunday. The Saturday rule states that for the Mass to be valid for Sunday, it must be between the hours of 4 PM and 7 PM, or something like that.

Sunday Mass is Sunday Mass, no matter what time it is held.

If it helps - the canonical day no longer lasts from 6 p.m. on day A to 6 p.m. on day B - it was changed in 1983, when the new Code of Canon Law was published, to last from midnight to midnight.​

So Mass on Sunday after 6 p.m. is entirely allowable - unless there is any difference in discipline for the TLM crowd. The old canonical time may or may not be one of the things they keep up, just as they they still have subdeacons. ##

 

[thistle]

Hesychios:

This is very impressive. I would like to know how many priests are currently assigned to a parish with 15,000 average Sunday attendance.

+T+
Michael

We have three permanent priests and we get priests temporarily assigned to the parish as well.

 

[AJV]

jbuck919:

But I must ask you, where are you that you get 1500 people at 6:30 every morning for weekday Mass and a new parish is impossible? My first thought was, the only Catholic church in Shanghai. But I don’t want to be sarcastic. Honestly, if you feel up to letting us know, I would very much like to hear what this miracle place is.

I’m in the Middle East (sorry, can’t be more explicit). As to how many priests a parish like that might have- I dont know- mine doesn’t have many because the government won’t allow more.

 

[chicago]

jbuck919:

An aspect of this that has not been considered is the impact of evening Masses on the clergy. In case anyone has not noticed lately, priestst are among the most overworked and underpaid people in the world, and are all too easily taken for granted. A parish of a size that has all these multiple Masses typically has two, maybe even one priest. He/they are supposed to supply us with a Mass on Saturday night, three or four at least on Sunday morning, and then again one on Sunday night? They deserve consideration too.

If a parish has enough parishioners to justify that many Masses, it likely has more than one priest assigned to it and they can split up the duties effectively.

 

[THutch04]

The churches that I know of that do have a Sunday evening Mass do have at least two priests and split the times up evenly.

 

[jbuck919]

chicago:

If a parish has enough parishioners to justify that many Masses, it likely has more than one priest assigned to it and they can split up the duties effectively.

I don’t know where you are but in many places these days don’t count on it. In the parish where I grew up in back in the 60s and early 70s, we already relied on visiting vacationing priests for supply. In the last (huge) parish where I worked as an organist, there was a nearby Francisacne seminary that provded supply even though there were three assigned priests. Monastic/friary priests do not generally want to be parish priests; if they did, that’s the vocation they would have followed in the first place. They fill in because their superiors tell them to, and in many places they are not available to begin with. As I said before, we take our priests for granted, but they work much harder than most of us do. A vocation is a call to goodness, but it is not a call to heroic self-sacrifice.

 

[chicago]

jbuck919:

I don’t know where you are but in many places these days don’t count on it.

As you might infer by my user name, I’m in Chicago. A place where we have parishes with 6 priests and parishes which share a single pastor with another parish… so both extremes.

A vocation is a call to goodness, but it is not a call to heroic self-sacrifice.

I don’t know that I agree with that statement, particulatly concerning a vocation such as the priesthood, which is itself a laying down of one’s life in association with Christ Himself. Given, priests are human beings and need their rest. They must not be taken for granted. And, yet, I’m guessing that the most likely places where you get a lot of Sunday evening Masses are in the cities where priests are often a plenty. Or at least there are sufficuent enough numbers that they can reasonably work it out. Afterall, some priests may be night owls who would much prefer having the opportunity to rest a bit on Sunday morning and say a later morning Mass and evening Mass rather than having to be up and running by 7.