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Back to Top Share this page on. Are You Still Working? Your session will expire in 60 seconds. Continue Working. The faster Masses were said, the more Masses could be said. Priests didn't even waste time reading the eucharistic formularies; many simply memorized one formula and kept repeating it over and over again.
On some level, that was still the situation centuries later. During my eight years of grade school, almost every morning Eucharist was a "Requiem Mass" celebrated for a deceased person.
To this day, many of us old-timers can still sing the first lines of the "Dies Irae" by heart. We heard it five days a week. Thankfully, the Council of Trent got rid of the worst stipend abuses — for instance, they limited priests to just one stipended Eucharist a day, except on special occasions — but not even those 16th-century reforming bishops had the courage to completely abolish the practice.
By then, it was too deeply ingrained into Catholic people's approach to their faith. I certainly don't think it's accidental that the church's theology about purgatory developed parallel to its practice of Mass stipends, especially when at least part of a priest's salary came from that source.
Starting after the priests of our diocese agreed not to personally take stipends — but to put them in the parish account — I noticed fewer and fewer sermons and homilies preached on the "poor souls. I don't think anyone consciously decided to put the topic on the back burner, it's just that there didn't seem to be the same urgency to get those souls out of purgatory as there was when one could have a Mass said to help him or her along on their journey to heaven.
I also noticed in some parish bulletins that many priests, after renouncing stipends, didn't hesitate to cancel one or two eucharistic celebrations during the week. It didn't take long to figure out that no matter how many Masses they said, they still got the same salary. Through the years, we've been embarrassed at how some individuals have turned stipends into a farce.
A couple, for instance, in one of our parishes beat the "system," making certain they'd included more than enough money in their will to guarantee every future celebration of the Eucharist in their parish could only be said for the repose of their souls. No other parishioner could ever schedule a Mass for a loved one if the stipulations of the will were actually carried out. People were constantly crossing diocesan boundaries to get two for their buck, until our bishop eventually caved in under the pressure and doubled the price per unit.
I believe one reason we're so enamored of stipends is that we simply don't want our loved ones to be forgotten. Seeing their names in the Mass Intentions section of our parish bulletin gives them some sort of ongoing presence in our lives even after they've died. One way our parish took care of this desire was by faithfully including their death anniversaries in our bulletin.
They weren't forgotten. Mass stipends are a constant reminder that somewhere along our church's history, we've really corrupted the celebration of the Lord's Supper. As I mentioned above, quoting Luther, within a couple centuries of Jesus' death and resurrection, we turned an action into a thing. Back 50 years ago, Fr. Frank Murphy taught us North American College students that our main task in presiding at the Eucharist wasn't to say the right words or employ the proper ritualistic gestures, but to help form the participants into the body of Christ.
The late auxiliary bishop of Baltimore couldn't have taught us better. Once we priest presiders make that the center of our eucharistic ministry, we'll never again even think about receiving a stipend for what we've done.
Yet even if the official church never steps up and bans Mass stipends, we have a way to get rid of them. Simply stop giving them! No one points a gun at our head and forces us to pay to have a Mass said. That's our personal decision. One part of Catholic culture that is sometimes hard to understand and very often misunderstood is the custom of offering Mass intentions. When a priest celebrates Mass each day, he offers each celebration of the Eucharist for a particular person, or intention.
By doing so he applies special graces from God upon that person or intention. Similar to how we are able to intercede for others by our personal prayers, the Church is able to intercede for us through the celebration of the Mass. The practice of offering Mass for particular intentions is an ancient one, dating back to the early Church. Tertullian c. This tradition is also seen in St.
What this refers to is a longstanding practice in the Church of offering a specified amount of money to the Church for a particular intention offered by the priest. While it is true that this custom has been abused in the past, the Church lays out specific rules regarding the money paid for Mass intentions. The important part is to remember that you are not paying for the graces from God which are of infinite value and can not be paid for , but for the material things that are involved with celebrating that particular Mass.
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