Since the early years of the Church, the faithful have given offerings to priests for their intentions to be prayed at Masses. Priests depended on these offerings for their livelihood until recently, and in many places in the world, they still do. Unfortunately, at different times and places in the Church’s history, abuse of these offerings by priests crept in and needed correction, such as offering Masses only for those who would pay or praying many Masses throughout the day to gain more offerings.
The Church wants to avoid even the appearance of priests profiting from the “sale” of Masses, and so there are several laws that govern our accepting Mass offerings. For example, a priest cannot accept more Mass offerings than he can complete in one year (canon 953). Any additional offerings should be transferred to other priests (can. 955).
Normally, separate Masses are prayed for each intention accepted (can. 948), whether it’s for one or several persons, or even multiple prayer requests for an intention. Usually, a priest is prohibited from accepting multiple offerings for multiple intentions for one Mass. However, an exception to this rule permits collective intentions under certain circumstances (following the decree on Collective Mass Intentions, Congregation for the Clergy, Mos Iugiter, 1991). The most relevant points for collective intentions are:
The people making the offerings must be made aware at the time they make the offering that their Mass intentions will be remembered collectively at one Mass.
They must be informed of the time and place of the Mass.
Collective intentions are not permitted more frequently than twice a week per parish.
The priest may retain only the amount of one usual offering ($10) and the remaining offerings may be allocated to charitable works (which we do to help local people with emergency financial needs).
Finally, the pastor is required to celebrate a Mass for the people (i.e. his entire parish) every Sunday and holy day of obligation with no monetary offering accepted for that Mass (can. 534).
As a parish, we will do our best to accommodate requests for specific dates and locations for intentions. At times, it may be necessary to choose a “collective” Mass that is near a date. Any unexpected changes to our Mass schedule (like cancellation due to the weather) that affects your intention will be communicated to you. Please contact me if you have further questions, and I appreciate your understanding and trust you place in your parish priests.