Gregorian Masses

What Are Gregorian Masses? §

A woman’s father died in February. A week after the funeral she asks a priest she knows about Gregorian Masses for him: thirty Masses, one each day for thirty days running, every one of them offered for her father.

Each is an ordinary Mass, with no special rite or prayer.¹ What makes the series is the priest’s intention: he applies each Mass for her father, which is the Church’s word for offering it for someone (canon 901). In 1884 the Holy See described the custom as Masses said “per triginta continentes dies”, on thirty continuous days, for freeing a soul from Purgatory (ASS 16, 508 to 509, our translation). It’s usual to ask soon after a death.²

Where Does the Custom Come From? §

Gregory tells the story himself in the fourth book of his Dialogues, written in 593.³ About three years earlier, in his monastery of St. Andrew on the Caelian Hill in Rome, a monk named Justus lay dying, a physician who had often nursed Gregory through illness. The brothers found three gold coins hidden among his medicines, though the monks owned nothing of their own. Gregory forbade anyone to comfort him, so that sorrow might bring him to repent, and Justus died grieving for his sin.⁴

Thirty days later Gregory took pity on him and told the prior, Pretiosus, to see “that for thirty days following sacrifice be offered for him, so that no one day pass” without it, in the 1608 English. One night Justus appeared to his brother Copiosus and said, “Hitherto have I been in bad case, but now I am well.” The monks counted the days. It was the day the thirtieth Mass had been offered for him.⁴

Gregory opens the chapter with a condition: the sacrifice helps souls “if the sins after death be pardonable”.⁴ The Church speaks with the same care. Asked in 1884 whether the faithful’s confidence that thirty Masses are specially effective for freeing a soul from Purgatory, “ex beneplacito et acceptatione divinae Misericordiae”, by the good pleasure and acceptance of God’s mercy, was “pia ... et rationabilis”, pious and reasonable, the Holy See answered yes, and Pope Leo XIII approved the answer (ASS 16, 509, our translation).

So the confidence rests on God’s mercy, not on a guarantee. Justus’s appearance to his brother is, as we read it, what the Catechism calls a private revelation, and even those the Church recognizes don’t belong to the deposit of faith (Catechism, 67). What the Church teaches is that from the beginning she has offered prayers in suffrage for the dead, “above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God” (Catechism, 1032).

What If the Thirty Days Are Interrupted? §

A priest saying thirty Masses in a row can fall ill, or be asked to bury a parishioner on the twelfth day. On 24 February 1967, by mandate of Pope Paul VI, the Sacred Congregation of the Council said what happens then, in its declaration De continuitate celebrationis Missarum Tricenarii Gregoriani, on the continuity of the celebration of the Gregorian thirty Masses:

Tricenario Gregoriano, quod ex improviso impedimento, (e. g. superveniente morbo), aut ex alia rationabili causa, (e. g. celebratione Missae funeris vel sponsalium), interrumpitur, ex dispositione Ecclesiae, fructus suffragii servantur, quos eidem Tricenario praxis Ecclesiae et pietas fidelium hucusque agnoverunt, firma obligatione Sacerdotis celebrantis quamprimum complendi celebrationem triginta Missarum.

When a Gregorian series is interrupted by an unforeseen impediment (for example, an illness that comes on) or for another reasonable cause (for example, the celebration of a funeral Mass or a wedding Mass), the fruits of suffrage that the practice of the Church and the devotion of the faithful have until now recognized in the series are kept, by disposition of the Church; the celebrating priest remains firmly bound to complete the celebration of the thirty Masses as soon as possible.

Sacred Congregation of the Council, 24 February 1967, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 59 (1967) 229 to 230. Latin · Our translation.

The series isn’t begun again. It’s completed as soon as possible, and it keeps its fruits of suffrage. Later that year Paul VI renamed the congregation that issued it the Congregation for the Clergy (Regimini Ecclesiae Universae, 65), and we have found nothing from the Holy See since that changes the declaration.

The declaration speaks only of a break with a cause. Whether a series broken through carelessness must begin again, it doesn’t say, and we have found no answer elsewhere. Either way the Masses are owed: a priest who accepts an offering is bound in justice, either to say the Mass himself or to entrust it to another priest on the conditions the law sets (Mos iugiter, Art. 1 §1, AAS 83, 444, our translation).

You may still read that a series broken for a single day must start over. That was the older rule, which the declaration eased, as Fr. Edward McNamara explained in a 2009 column.¹ Those who repeat it are keeping faith with the custom as they learned it.

Can Gregorian Masses Be Offered for Someone Living? §

People ask this for a husband in hospice, or for themselves. In 1888 a vicar general wrote to Rome that in his city some people still living were asking for the thirty Masses for themselves, “ad suffragiorum veluti anticipationem”, as if to have the suffrages in advance. Asked whether Gregorian Masses, “pro defunctis ... celebrandae”, to be celebrated for the dead, could be said for the living too, the Congregation of Indulgences answered “Negative” (ASS 21 (1888) 254 to 256, our translation). As the 1884 decree describes them, they are a suffrage for a soul being purified after death (Catechism, 1030 to 1032).

Both answers, of 1884 and of 1888, were given long before the present Code of Canon Law, which doesn’t mention Gregorian Masses. We have found nothing from the Holy See that withdraws either, and the custom is still understood the same way: its special fruits are for the dead alone.⁵

A priest may apply a Mass for anyone at all, the living as well as the dead (canon 901), so thirty Masses may be offered for someone who is ill; they just aren’t Gregorian Masses. The same rescript said that a priest who had said the thirty for a living person, as that person intended, “ad nihil tenetur”, is bound to nothing. And a religious community may let you arrange a series now, to be said after your death.⁶

How to Arrange Gregorian Masses §

Few parishes can give one person thirty Masses in a row while many parishioners are asking for Masses of their own,¹ and on every Sunday and holy day of obligation the pastor owes one Mass for all his people (canon 534). So the series is more often said in monasteries, seminaries and mission lands, and many religious communities, shrines and missionary societies arrange it.⁷ The Holy See encourages the custom of sending Masses that can’t be said at home, with their offerings, to mission countries (2025 decree, Art. 5). A community that sends the series to its missionaries may promise a time within which it will be said, not the dates.⁸

Ask the priest or the community what offering is usual for the series (what people usually give). It’s fair to ask, too, who will say the Masses, when the thirty days begin, whether you’ll be told when they’re finished, and what happens if the series is interrupted. Every priest must note the Masses he has accepted and those he has said (canon 955).

If you keep a parish’s Mass book and a priest of the parish takes the series, write it as thirty Masses for one intention, with the offering, and mark each as it’s said (canon 958). A Mass already announced for someone else’s intention can’t carry it,⁹ and if the series is interrupted, note the day and the reason, and tell the parishioner.