Why fewer Masses on Christmas Day?

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Tepeyac

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I’ve noticed a trend in my area over the past several years. A church will offer only a couple of Masses on Christmas Day. Years ago the Christmas schedule would match the regular Sunday schedule and have Midnight Mass too but now I sometimes see fewer Masses offered than on Sunday.

Why is that? I don’t mean to put down priests. I sure know they’re overworked and overstretched and the holidays are exausting for them. But if it’s rest they need (or the parish staff needs) couldn’t it be the next day? It seems to me that on one of the holiest days of the year, on that most people get off from work, when people who normally don’t come to Mass show up and you would expect larger crowds, you would offer as many Masses as on a typical Sunday, if possible. Wouldn’t this be a good evagelization opportunity?

Is this just a local situation or has anyone else seen this trend elsewhere?
 
Tepeyac said:
I’ve noticed a trend in my area over the past several years. A church will offer only a couple of Masses on Christmas Day. Years ago the Christmas schedule would match the regular Sunday schedule and have Midnight Mass too but now I sometimes see fewer Masses offered than on Sunday.

Why is that? I don’t mean to put down priests. I sure know they’re overworked and overstretched and the holidays are exausting for them. But if it’s rest they need (or the parish staff needs) couldn’t it be the next day? It seems to me that on one of the holiest days of the year, on that most people get off from work, when people who normally don’t come to Mass show up and you would expect larger crowds, you would offer as many Masses as on a typical Sunday, if possible. Wouldn’t this be a good evagelization opportunity?

Is this just a local situation or has anyone else seen this trend elsewhere?
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Sadly, this trend has hit our Cathedral. When my friend served as its first rector, we had several Masses on Christmas, the Vigil, Midnight and two during the morning. Now, it’s been whittled down to two. Here is what is alarming and I don’t quite know how to approach the subject with the new administrator.

The Cathedral is forgoing the Christmas Eve Vigil Mass; instead, they are having a posada. They will only have two Masses: Midnight (with the bishop) and one Mass on Christmas morning. They will not be having Mass for the Feast of St. Stephen (Dec. 26). That is a bummer.

I realize that the new administrator is by himself, but, if the bishop is already celebrating one Mass, why not have a couple more? Furthermore, why have a Posada take precedence over the Christmas Eve Vigil Mass?

Now, in my parish, we are going to have two Vigil Masses 🤷 , no Midnight Mass :eek: and two morning Masses. I don’t understand the omission of the Midnight Mass, but, oh well.
 
Tepeyac said:
I’ve noticed a trend in my area over the past several years. A church will offer only a couple of Masses on Christmas Day. Years ago the Christmas schedule would match the regular Sunday schedule and have Midnight Mass too but now I sometimes see fewer Masses offered than on Sunday.

Why is that? I don’t mean to put down priests. I sure know they’re overworked and overstretched and the holidays are exausting for them. But if it’s rest they need (or the parish staff needs) couldn’t it be the next day? It seems to me that on one of the holiest days of the year, on that most people get off from work, when people who normally don’t come to Mass show up and you would expect larger crowds, you would offer as many Masses as on a typical Sunday, if possible. Wouldn’t this be a good evagelization opportunity?

Is this just a local situation or has anyone else seen this trend elsewhere?
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I’ve noticed that there are not so many Masses on Christmas Day but at least here there are usually many Masses on Christmas Eve. We have one at 4:00pm, one at 6:00pm, one at 8:00pm and then Midnight Mass. The 4:00 and 6:00 pm are the most heavily attended and sometimes require overflow seating in the classrooms across the courtyard. The two Masses on Christmas Day are fairly lightly attended.
 
We omit the English masses in the evening Christmas day. Attendance is poor at the morning masses. Almost everyone goes on Christmas Eve. There is no reason to burden the priests with masses no one is going to attend.
 
My pastor does an early Vigil at our church, a mid-evening Vigil at his other church, a 9:00 pm (or thereabouts) Midnight Mass at our church, an early morning Mass at his other church, and finally a late morning Mass at our Church. That’s actually two more Masses than the normal weekend schedule. He has no vicar, senior priest, deacon, nor seminarian to assist.
 
Canon law, CIC Can 905:
Can. 905 §1. A priest is not permitted to celebrate the Eucharist more than once a day except in cases where the law permits him to celebrate or concelebrate more than once on the same day.

§2. If there is a shortage of priests, the local ordinary can allow priests to celebrate twice a day for a just cause, or if pastoral necessity requires it, even three times on Sundays and holy days of obligation.

So, without a second priest, that’s daily on Christmas Eve’s day, and a vigil and midnight mass, and 3 on the day, if the bishop approves. If not, daily, then vigil, count midnight for the Christmas Day, and a morning, or skip either vigil or midnight, and have 2 on Christmas day.
 
The Masses that are offered have much larger numbers attending…but mayn’t priest’s enjoy a Christmas celebrations also. Mayn’t they have a little time to themselves with their families if possible or with a kind family, as they, also, are human?
 
Our pastor will be celebrating an anticipated Midnight Mass at 5:30 p.m. in our parish, 8 p.m. at the parish 45 minutes down the road & 11 p.m. in our parish. On Christmas Day he will celebrate a sparsely attended Mass at 10 a.m. in our parish and at 12 p.m. in the parish down the road. That is more Masses than we normally have on Sunday: 1 anticipated at 4:30 p.m. Saturday in our parish and 1 in each of the two parishes on Sunday morning.

The anticipated Sunday Mass is rarely attended by more than 50 people (more often ~30) and the Sunday morning Mass is far from full but the 5:30 Mass on Christmas Eve will be SRO and, in fact, people will most likely be turned away because of fire regulations.
 
Tepeyac said:
I’ve noticed a trend in my area over the past several years. A church will offer only a couple of Masses on Christmas Day. Years ago the Christmas schedule would match the regular Sunday schedule and have Midnight Mass too but now I sometimes see fewer Masses offered than on Sunday.

Why is that? I don’t mean to put down priests. I sure know they’re overworked and overstretched and the holidays are exausting for them. But if it’s rest they need (or the parish staff needs) couldn’t it be the next day? It seems to me that on one of the holiest days of the year, on that most people get off from work, when people who normally don’t come to Mass show up and you would expect larger crowds, you would offer as many Masses as on a typical Sunday, if possible. Wouldn’t this be a good evagelization opportunity?

Is this just a local situation or has anyone else seen this trend elsewhere?
Click to expand...
Most likely because many parishes now only have one priest or sometimes only share a priest with another parish.
 
there actually is supposed to be one celebration Sunday or Feast Day for the entire parish. Additional Masses are offered so that, if the church is not large enough to accommodate all at one Mass, all have the chance to attend another Mass, or to offer it in another language if it meets the needs of the congregation. the parish is offering the number of Masses needed for the size of their congregation. When they need more, they will add more.

years ago, priests were allowed to say only one Mass a day, except on Christmas, when they could say 3, so parishes often had Masses around the clock, or priests saying Mass on side altars privately while Mass was celebrated at the main altar. This of course offered more chance for the faithful to request a Mass offered for their intentions. this of course is back when it was common to have 4-5 priests in a parish, ah the good old days

In most dioceses now a priest is limited to 1 Mass on a weekday, 3 on Sunday or Holy Day, so that if he has a wedding or funeral Mass scheduled the regular daily Mass is likely to be dropped for a communion service led by a deacon or even lay person. Here the bishop has been forced to grant some latitude so that Spanish or English Mass can be added in parishes that need both, or so that priest can also serve their missions (some have as many as 4 missions to take care of).

Since the Mexican custom is to celebrate Nocha Buena, Christmas Eve as the principal celebration their are actually 3 (in some parishes 4) anticipate Masses, and in some cases the Mass for the Vigil of Christmas is also offered earlier in the day, then Midnight Mass, and only one or two celebrations on Christmas day. the 9 am (Winter Texan Mass) is only half full on Christmas day, Christmas eve Masses are packed.

my personal guess, not backed by any authority, is that the reason observance some holy days has been moved to the nearest Sunday, or obligation removed when it falls on Saturday or Monday, is that priests are already tapped out by their weekend shedules.

by the way, if you are disgruntled because your parish only has daily Mass a few days a week, it is very likely NOT that the priest is taking a well-earned rest, but that he tries to schedule his funeral and wedding Masses on those days, so in the morning is only a communion service.
 
Our parish found that all three Christmas Eve Masses were well-attended, as were the 8:30 am and 12:30 pm Christmas Day Masses, but that the 10:30 am Christmas Day Mass was not. So to give the priests and music ministers a break, as well as save on some energy costs, they cut out that middle Mass on Christmas morning. Personally, if I wasn’t scheduled to sing with the chamber choir on Christmas morning, I’d prefer to attend one of the Christsmas Eve Masses.
 
We are having fewer Masses on Christmas day than we do on a normal Sunday.

Then again, our regular Sunday schedule is

Sat 4:30pm, 6:00pm (Tridentine)

Sunday, 7:00am, 9:30am, 11:30am, 1:00pm, 6:00pm and 8:00pm

Our Christmas schedule will not have have the Saturday 6:00pm Tridentine in lieu of the Midnite Mass.

The 7:00am an the two ‘pm’ Masses will not be offered on Christmas day.
 
Hmmm…my parish actually has one more Mass than normal for Christmas – we have TWO Vigil Masses, the Midnight Mass, and then three Masses Christmas morning in English and another one in Spanish. We do drop the Spanish Mass at the mission church because the supply priest we use for that is not available.

Deacon Ed
 
Br.Rich_SFO said:
Most likely because many parishes now only have one priest or sometimes only share a priest with another parish.
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That doesn’t really explain why he is able to schedule more masses on Sunday than Christmas.
 
Digitonomy said:
That doesn’t really explain why he is able to schedule more masses on Sunday than Christmas.
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the schedule is probably set by past experience as to when most people will attend (or not) on Christmas eve and day. do you know for a fact the priest does not have responsibilities at other parishes or missions for Christmas?
 
puzzleannie said:
the schedule is probably set by past experience as to when most people will attend (or not) on Christmas eve and day.
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However, in the case of our Cathedral, I still do not understand why the administrator would use a Posada as a substitute for having a Christmas vigil Mass? This does not make any sense at all. I think that the more appropriate thing would be to have the Posada lead up to the Vigil Mass and then delay the food and festivities until after the Holy Sacrifice.
 
I know that in my parish we once scheduled the same number of Masses on Christmas morning that we we did on Sunday (3) but we eventually dropped the early Mass because almost no one came. The two later Masses are at the same time as on Sunday, 9:00am and 11:00am. The 9:00am is very lightly attended.

I imagine it partly depends on what part of the world one lives in, but at least here where extreme weather is not a big problem, far more families want to attend Mass on Christmas Eve than on Christmas morning. Those that miss a Christmas Vigil mass or Midnight Mass prefer to attend AFTER having breakfast and opening gifts on Christmas morning.
 
Overall our church has more masses. We have 3 on Christmas Eve and 2 (maybe 3) on Christmas Day. So that’s 5 or 6. Usually there’s 5 total.
 
We have 7 Masses during a normal “Sunday” (including the vigil Mass on Saturday) and will be cutting down on these next year exactly because our priests are celebrating 2-3 a day.

That being said, this year, our 3 priests (2 assigned and 1 in residence) are going to do 8 total for Christmas (4 on Christmas Eve including Midnight Mass and 4 on Christmas Day).
 
puzzleannie said:
the schedule is probably set by past experience as to when most people will attend (or not) on Christmas eve and day. Do you know for a fact the priest does not have responsibilities at other parishes or missions for Christmas?
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No, which is why I made no such claim. My point was merely that saying a parish nowadays only has one priest, or a shared priest, doesn’t by itself explain why he is able to celebrate more masses on Sunday than Christmas. In most cases, other parishes or facilities that a priest has responsibilities for on Christmas will have similar needs on Sundays.
 
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