Explanation of Mass Stipends

People who offer stipends for Mass intentions shouldn't assume that they're buying a Mass or that only one intention can be prayed for at any given Mass.

We highlight here the communal nature of Mass and address the mistaken notion that only one intention is remembered during Mass.

Many intentions

All participants, including the priest celebrant, may, and hopefully will, not only pray for their own intentions at Mass, but also for the intentions of all present, as well as for the needs of our world, Church, and local community. Each of the Eucharistic prayers have within them prayer for many intentions....The Prayer of the Faithful does likewise. Therefore, the Mass is never offered for a single intention.

Theologically, there is no limit to the number of intentions a priest may bring to a liturgy, and each person who asked the priest celebrant to pray for their intention at Mass could offer a stipend.

To avoid the appearance of trafficking in Mass stipends, the Church has placed a limit of one stipend intention for Mass; the priest celebrant may bring many intentions to a Mass, but he is permitted by Canon Law to accept only one stipend intention per Mass.

Stipend

Here at St. Anne's the mass stipend is $10.00.

When a priest accepts a Mass stipend, he sets up a contract with that person to pray for their intention at a specific Mass. The priest contracts to pray for that intention specifically, but that does not nor can it preclude him from also praying for other intentions as well.

Such phrases as "today's Mass is for..." "or the intention for today's Mass is..." should be avoided, but a priest celebrant instead could say "at today's Mass I ask you to join me in praying for..." to acknowledge the intention.

Taking care

Rev. John Huels, in his book Disputed Questions in the Liturgy Today, mentioned other practices that priest celebrants should abandon, including:

• Announcing the offering intention before or at some point during the Eucharist, which creates the impression that the intentions of the worshiping community actually present are somehow less significant than the intention of a donor who may or may not be present;
• Isolating the offering intention during the Prayers of the Faithful, because the liturgy itself indicates that the Eucharist is offered for many intentions, not just the intention of the priest;
• Naming the offering intention in the Eucharistic prayer because although this is not illicit, it disproportionately emphasizes the priest's intention; and
• Reserving special roles for the Mass-offering donor, which fosters the impression that the Mass-offering donors have special prerogatives that other worshipers do not enjoy and that the donors have a right to these prerogatives because they paid for them.

Father Huels suggested maintaining the practices of publishing the offering intentions in the parish bulletin, and praying for the offering intention along with other intentions of the same category in the Prayers of the Faithful.