All Souls and November Mass Intentions

What November Holds §

This year All Saints falls on a Sunday, 1 November, and All Souls Day, the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, on Monday, 2 November (USCCB, Liturgical Calendar 2026). A parishioner calls to ask for a Mass for her parents in November, and the office sets out the envelopes and the book where people write the names of their dead.

Both are good, but they aren’t the same: one is a Mass applied for someone (the Church’s word for offering it for them), the other a name remembered in prayer.

Three Masses on 2 November §

On All Souls Day every priest may say three Masses. Pope Benedict XV extended the custom to the whole Church in August 1915, with so many young men dying in the First World War, on one condition: priests “may apply one of the three Masses for whomever they wish and receive an offering for it, but are bound, receiving no offering, to apply the second Mass in suffrage for all the faithful departed, and the third for the intention of the Supreme Pontiff, which We have made abundantly plain” (Incruentum Altaris, I, our translation).

The Missal’s General Instruction keeps his rule: every priest may celebrate or concelebrate three Masses that day, at different times, keeping the rule for applying the second and third (GIRM 204 and note 103). A priest may also say just one (AAS 7 (1915) 404).

So each priest can offer at most one Mass that day for a parishioner’s intention with an offering. A parish with two priests has at most two such Masses on 2 November, not six. If that day matters to you, ask now. In the office, when a priest says all three, write his other two in the book as applied for all the faithful departed and for the Pope’s intention, with no offering (which offerings a priest keeps).

A Name Remembered and a Mass Applied §

Some parishes keep a book near the altar through November for the names of the dead. At one parish in McCook, Nebraska, the priests recall those names within the Eucharistic Prayer at every November Mass.¹ That is real prayer.

It isn’t a Mass applied for each of them, though. In 2025 the Holy See told bishops and pastors to make plain to everyone “the distinction between the application of the Mass for a particular intention (even a “collective” one) and the simple remembrance in the course of a celebration of the Word or at certain moments of the Eucharistic celebration,” and that “asking for, or even merely accepting, offerings in connection with the last two cases is gravely illicit” (decree, Art. 4 §§2 to 3, our translation).

So an envelope that only adds a name to the book may not ask for an offering, and the office may not keep one. If money comes in with a name, ask the parishioner whether she meant a Mass. A priest may offer Mass “for anyone, living or dead” (canon 901), so whether a Mass is also said for the names in the book is a question for your pastor.

When the Envelopes Carry Offerings §

If the envelopes are for Masses, each offering given and accepted is owed a Mass of its own, however small (canon 948). The Holy See named All Souls itself in 1991: priests who receive many offerings, “for example on the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed”, and can’t satisfy them within a year, are not to refuse them but to pass them to other priests or to their Ordinary (Mos iugiter, Art. 5 §1, our translation; canons 953 to 956). Every one goes in the book (canon 958).

One Mass for several people’s offerings, a “collective” intention, is the exception. The 2025 decree allows it only where the bishops of the province have provided for it by decree, and only if every giver was told and freely agreed: “this wish of the offerers can never be presumed; on the contrary, in the absence of explicit consent, it is always presumed not to have been given” (Art. 1 §§1 to 2). The celebrant keeps the offering of one intention only, and the rest go where canon 951 sends them (Art. 1 §3; Art. 3 §2).

Where the province has decreed nothing, Mos iugiter still governs (Art. 6): the givers told beforehand and explicitly, and freely agreeing; the Mass announced publicly with its place and time, at most twice a week; and the priest keeping only the diocesan offering and sending the rest to the Ordinary (Art. 2 to 3). Neither decree says whether a printed notice on an envelope is enough; if yours rely on one, ask the diocese (the decree, article by article).

The Indulgences of the First Week §

For a visit to a cemetery in the first week of November, and to a church on All Souls Day, the Church grants an indulgence:

Plenaria indulgentia, animabus in Purgatorio detentis tantummodo applicabilis, conceditur christifideli qui 1° singulis diebus, a primo usque ad octavum novembris, coemeterium devote visitaverit et, vel mente tantum, pro defunctis exoraverit; 2° die Commemorationis omnium fidelium defunctorum (vel, de consensu Ordinarii, die Dominico antecedenti aut subsequenti aut die sollemnitatis Omnium Sanctorum) ecclesiam aut oratorium pie visitaverit ibique recitaverit Pater et Credo.

A plenary indulgence, applicable only to the souls held in Purgatory, is granted to any of the faithful who 1° on each day from the first to the eighth of November devoutly visits a cemetery and prays for the dead, even if only mentally; 2° on the day of the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (or, with the consent of the Ordinary, on the Sunday before or after, or on the solemnity of All Saints) piously visits a church or oratory and there recites the Our Father and the Creed.

Enchiridion Indulgentiarum (1999), concession 29 §1. Latin · Our translation.

This year the Sunday after All Souls is 8 November. A plenary indulgence also asks freedom from all attachment to sin, even venial sin, and the three usual conditions: confession, Holy Communion, and prayer for the Pope’s intention, for which an Our Father and a Hail Mary are enough. They may be kept several days before or after, and one plenary indulgence can be gained a day (Norms 18 and 20). For the dead it is offered by way of suffrage, a prayer on their behalf (Norm 3), which the Church commends (Catechism, 1032); what it does for them, she leaves to God.

Asking for a Mass This November §

Ask early, and name each Mass. “For the repose of the souls of John and Mary” is one Mass for both parents; if you’d like one for each, ask for two (more wording). If an envelope doesn’t say whether it’s for a Mass or a name in the book, ask.

It’s customary to give an offering, and it’s a gift to the Church, not a payment (canon 946). If you can’t, ask anyway: “Priests are earnestly urged to celebrate Mass for the intention of the faithful, especially those in need, even when no offering has been received” (canon 945 §2; what to say, step by step).