As a follow up from our post on the PRAYER LIFE OF OUR PRIESTS, I have been asked to settle a holy quarrel between two friends over whether priests are obliged to celebrate Mass daily since they are obliged to pray the Office daily and the Mass being the highest form of prayer on earth.
So let us reason together.
The answer to this question may surprise some of us. On the face of it, it would certainly seem logical that priests are obliged to celebrate Mass daily but let us look at the canon law pertaining to this issue.
Canon 904 states that since, in the mystery of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, the work of redemption is continually being carried out, priests are to celebrate it frequently. In fact, the canon adds that daily celebration of the Mass is earnestly recommended—but it specifically avoids requiring priests to say Mass every day. In other words, the code obliges priests to pray their Breviary every day, but does not oblige them to say daily Mass. What is going on here?
The primary reason for this is not legal, but theological. A priest should, if he can, avoid celebrating Mass if he is in a state of grave sin. Until he has the opportunity to make a sacramental confession, such a priest may very well wish not to celebrate Mass, if possible. This avoidance would thus stem not from a lack of devotion, but on the contrary, from a consciousness of personal guilt and a respect for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass! While he might wish to go to confession immediately, a missionary priest, or one who is assigned to a very rural area, may find it difficult to find another priest to hear his confession right away. If the code required every priest to say Mass daily, a priest in such a situation would find himself in a moral dilemma: he could either obey the law and offer Mass in a state of grave sin; or he could violate the law out of deference to the Eucharist. In such a situation, canon law would then be in direct conflict with sound sacramental theology! Obviously this is untenable—which is why the code refrains from imposing the absolute obligation of celebrating daily Mass on every priest across the board.
This is not to suggest, of course, that our priests who we do not see celebrating Mass daily must be in a state of grave sin on the days when they do not celebrate Mass! But without knowing the specific facts of their individual situations, it is at least safe to say that they are not violating the law. In fact, if there are frequent funerals and/or weddings at the parish, the priests who do not celebrate the scheduled daily parish Mass are probably celebrating a funeral or wedding Mass on at least some days of the week. Perhaps they also celebrate Mass sometimes at the local Catholic elementary school, the hospital, or even at another parish that is short-staffed. Or it’s possible that they may be celebrating Mass privately, without any of us even being aware of it.
Canon 906 notes that a priest should not celebrate Mass without the participation of at least one other person; but it also makes an exception if the priest has a good and reasonable cause for offering the Mass alone. If a parish priest is not scheduled to celebrate a particular Mass at his parish at a publicized time, he may very well end up celebrating his Mass with no one else present, if it occurs at an hour when nobody else happens to be in the church. The mere fact that no one else is present does not prevent a priest from offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
As we have seen on so many occasions in this space before, canon law is in complete synch with Catholic theology. Everyone, including somebody in a state of grave sin, is welcome to pray, and in fact should do so. This is why the Church has no qualms about requiring all her clergy to pray the Liturgy of the Hours every single day. But unless it is absolutely necessary for the good of the souls entrusted to his care, a priest offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass daily without previously confessing all serious sins is quite another matter. What may at first appear to be a laxity in the law is actually in complete accord with our Catholic faith.
Pray for priests. Pray for holy priests.
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