Whatever happened to Saturday Mass?

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I’ve been going to daily mass more and more often. Only one problem I noticed - there’s an almost complete lack of saturday daily masses in my area, other than ones very early in the morning! I can’t do early mornings, which isn’t a problem monday-friday. Saturday, though, it seems like every parish in the area has cancelled their daily masses in favor of the vigil Mass. How did this happen?
 
DarkLight said:
I’ve been going to daily mass more and more often. Only one problem I noticed - there’s an almost complete lack of saturday daily masses in my area, other than ones very early in the morning! I can’t do early mornings, which isn’t a problem monday-friday. Saturday, though, it seems like every parish in the area has cancelled their daily masses in favor of the vigil Mass. How did this happen?
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Probably not about fewer priests; more likely an issue since we started having the Vigil Mass on Saturday evening, attendance at Saturday morning Mass dropped off to the point where it was no longer scheduled.
 
DarkLight said:
I’ve been going to daily mass more and more often. Only one problem I noticed - there’s an almost complete lack of saturday daily masses in my area, other than ones very early in the morning! I can’t do early mornings, which isn’t a problem monday-friday. Saturday, though, it seems like every parish in the area has cancelled their daily masses in favor of the vigil Mass. How did this happen?
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Some still try to have a first Saturday of the month morning Mass, but as others pointed out, fewer priests and lack of attendance as lead to this.
 
robwar said:
Some still try to have a first Saturday of the month morning Mass, but as others pointed out, fewer priests and lack of attendance as lead to this.
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Right! It would be sad if you couldn’t make the first Saturdays. The only change from weekdays in my parish is that we have only one Mass (other than the vigil Mass) on Saturday. On weekdays we have 6:30 am (for those on the way to work) and 9 am (mainly for those who stay at home). On Saturday we only have the 9 am Mass, which makes sense.
 
Simple scheduling.

We have a 7:30 a.m. Mass every Saturday. It’s nearly impossible to have it later, due to other liturgies. We usually have baptisms in the morning, often at 9:00, 10:00 and 11:00. We will often have one or two weddings in the early afternoon. If there is not a wedding, there is probably a quincinera Mass.

At 3:00, we have confessions for an hour and 45 minutes. Then the 5:00 vigil Mass.

So, when would you schedule the Saturday daily Mass, if not at 7:30? And if people don’t come to it, why would the priests (who are also going to celebrate those wedding, quincinera, and Vigil Masses) keep a minimally-attended Mass on the schedule?

We are the only Saturday daily Mass liturgy in the entire region (OK, it’s a fairly rural region), and we get people from many miles for this Mass.
 
robwar said:
Some still try to have a first Saturday of the month morning Mass, but as others pointed out, fewer priests and lack of attendance as lead to this.
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We actually still have a two early morning Masses in the area. Unfortunately they’re both around the same time, and it’s a time I just can’t make. Normally there are about 4 or 5 different times available to make daily mass between the parishes I can get to.
 
DarkLight said:
We actually still have a two early morning Masses in the area. Unfortunately they’re both around the same time, and it’s a time I just can’t make. Normally there are about 4 or 5 different times available to make daily mass between the parishes I can get to.
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We get about 100 people at our 9 am Saturday Mass. All the other parishes in the area also have Saturday morning Mass so far as I know.
 
I am seeing another phenomenon lately in my area. On father’s day off, he does not celebrate mass. That was never the case in previous years, but is becoming more and more the norm, since people are expected to find a mass nearby instead. Wasn’t it required of a priest to celebrate mass daily, even if in private?
 
GwenL said:
Simple scheduling.

We have a 7:30 a.m. Mass every Saturday. It’s nearly impossible to have it later, due to other liturgies. We usually have baptisms in the morning, often at 9:00, 10:00 and 11:00. We will often have one or two weddings in the early afternoon. If there is not a wedding, there is probably a quincinera Mass.

At 3:00, we have confessions for an hour and 45 minutes. Then the 5:00 vigil Mass.

So, when would you schedule the Saturday daily Mass, if not at 7:30? And if people don’t come to it, why would the priests (who are also going to celebrate those wedding, quincinera, and Vigil Masses) keep a minimally-attended Mass on the schedule?

We are the only Saturday daily Mass liturgy in the entire region (OK, it’s a fairly rural region), and we get people from many miles for this Mass.
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I do understand. It’s just incredibly frustrating to want to go to daily mass and just not have the option. I’m forced by my school schedule to be out late fairly regularly and my body just does not tolerate suddenly shifting my sleep schedule (I mean that quite literally - I have been known to throw up from sheer lack of sleep). I can’t afford a car, so traveling a ways away isn’t an option. That means as far as I’m concerned, Saturday Mass just doesn’t exist.

It’s incredibly jarring. I described this week to my roommate as though you were reading a book and suddenly you found that a chapter had just been torn out entirely. I really do want to make it and it looks like it’s just not there.
 
We are spoiled rotten with a 9am Mass every day of the week!
We get about 80-100 people at daily Mass.
 
I think it’s because Saturdays tend to be busier days in the Church. There are typically a lot more funerals, weddings, etc., and usually Saturday morning Mass attendance is low. A lot of people, if they attend the vigil Mass, will not attend Saturday morning Mass as well. My parish only has daily Mass Monday-Friday.
 
Wow, I went to my first Saturday morning Mass at my parish and it seemed to have more people than any other day this week, expect the Friday Mass when all the kids from the parish school came.

I noticed that the Saturday Mass isn’t printed in our parish bulletin, but it is printed on our website.
 
We have two Saturday daily masses, at the same times that Mon-Fri daily masses are (5:30 and 7:15).
I think many parishes have Saturday mass at the normal daily mass times, and they’re just more inconvenient because we tend to want to sleep in more on Saturdays.
 
waanju said:
We have two Saturday daily masses, at the same times that Mon-Fri daily masses are (5:30 and 7:15).
I think many parishes have Saturday mass at the normal daily mass times, and they’re just more inconvenient because we tend to want to sleep in more on Saturdays.
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Ours definitely disappear. Of the three parishes I can get to, one doesn’t even hold Saturday Mass, and the other two go from having three and two services a day, respectively, to having one each. This unfortunately has the result that there is no daily mass after 8:30AM, whereas in a normal weekday you would have a 9:30, a 12:10. and a 5:30 option.
 
DarkLight said:
I’ve been going to daily mass more and more often. Only one problem I noticed - there’s an almost complete lack of saturday daily masses in my area, other than ones very early in the morning! I can’t do early mornings, which isn’t a problem monday-friday. Saturday, though, it seems like every parish in the area has cancelled their daily masses in favor of the vigil Mass. How did this happen?
Click to expand...
Heh, just be happy they exist at all on Saturday morning! 😃

Someone else already beat me too fewer priests.

But the attendance at these masses isn’t the greatest, either, and you can bet real money that parishes duly factor that into their schedule.

People not only need to demand it (in the free market sense), but actually show up and show interest in it as a product.
 
Sirach2 said:
I am seeing another phenomenon lately in my area. On father’s day off, he does not celebrate mass. That was never the case in previous years, but is becoming more and more the norm, since people are expected to find a mass nearby instead. Wasn’t it required of a priest to celebrate mass daily, even if in private?
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How do you know that the priest is not celebrating mass privately on his day off?
 
SuperLuigi said:
Heh, just be happy they exist at all on Saturday morning! 😃

Someone else already beat me too fewer priests.

But the attendance at these masses isn’t the greatest, either, and you can bet real money that parishes duly factor that into their schedule.

People not only need to demand it (in the free market sense), but actually show up and show interest in it as a product.
Click to expand...
I’m a little surprised, honestly. M-F has pretty much the same group every day. And they hold Mass regularly for only about a dozen people typically. I’d be surprised if they could get people enough for 6 weekday masses at varied times but only 2 saturday ones at the same time.
 
Since the morning mass isn’t counted as fulfilling the obligation people don’t want to go twice on a Saturday. So naturally the pick the one that “counts”
 
Sirach2 said:
I am seeing another phenomenon lately in my area. On father’s day off, he does not celebrate mass. That was never the case in previous years, but is becoming more and more the norm, since people are expected to find a mass nearby instead. ** Wasn’t it required of a priest to celebrate mass daily, even if in private?**
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I believe it was required under the 1917 Code of Canon Law but it is not required under the 1983 Code. They are encouraged to celebrate Mass daily but not required to do so.

I saw the same thing happen in my parish 12 years ago. The priests who were there when I first came used to concelebrate every day. On their day off, they celebrated early in the morning then went off, using beepers to stay in contact. Their successor stopped celebrating Mass on his day off. Now we have only two ‘daily’ Masses, Tuesday and Thursday, except during Lent and Advent. At most you might have 10 people at Mass, more often than not you have the same 6 in the pews.
 
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