Holy Week, Christmas and the Mass Book

Which Mass, and Whom It’s Offered For §

In February a parishioner calls the office. Her father died on 25 March, and she’d like a Mass for him on the anniversary. In 2027, 25 March is Holy Thursday. Two different rules meet in her request, and parish lists of the days without intentions tend to blur them.

The first is about which Mass the priest celebrates. The Roman Missal’s instructions limit the Masses for the Dead, the ones with their own prayers for someone who has died. A funeral Mass may be celebrated on any day except solemnities that are holy days of obligation, Holy Thursday, the Easter Triduum, and the Sundays of Advent, Lent and the Easter season (GIRM 380). For the news of a death, the burial and the first anniversary, the Missal allows the Mass for the Dead, with its own prayers, on more days than other Masses for the dead: within the octave of Christmas, on obligatory memorials, and on weekdays other than Ash Wednesday and those of Holy Week (GIRM 381).

The second is about whom the Mass is offered for, and there the law is wide: “It is open to a priest to apply the Mass for anyone at all, the living as well as the dead” (canon 901, our translation). On a day when the Mass for the Dead can’t be used, the priest says the Mass of the day and offers it for her father just the same. Fr. Edward McNamara, a professor of liturgy, draws the same line for Masses asked for vocations: as to the intention, “there is no limitation whatsoever,” while the Missal’s own Mass texts for vocations “fall under the same restrictions as all Masses for various needs and votive Masses.”¹

So for each day of the season the office has two plain questions: is there a Mass that day, and does the parish offer it for people’s intentions? For the anniversary on Holy Thursday, the first question decides it.

Can a Mass Be Offered on Good Friday? §

No, because there is no Mass to offer. “On this day, in accordance with ancient tradition, the Church does not celebrate the Eucharist” (Paschalis Sollemnitatis, 59). The Celebration of the Lord’s Passion, usually at about three in the afternoon, is the Liturgy of the Word, the adoration of the Cross and Holy Communion, and only the sacraments of Penance and the Anointing of the Sick may be celebrated that day (the same letter, 61, 63 and 64).

Holy Saturday is the same until night: “the Church abstains strictly from celebration of the sacrifice of the Mass” (75). The Easter Vigil begins after nightfall and ends before dawn on Sunday (Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year, 21), and the 1988 letter calls it an abuse to hold it at the hour of the usual Saturday evening Mass (78). So the parish’s regular 4:00 or 5:00 PM Saturday Mass doesn’t happen on Holy Saturday, and an intention already in the book for it needs a new date.

A name can’t go into the Good Friday intercessions instead. They keep their traditional wording, and only the local Ordinary may add an intention, in grave public need (67). Nor would it be the same thing: a name remembered in prayer is not a Mass applied, and in 2025 the Holy See called asking for, or even accepting, an offering for a remembrance of that kind gravely illicit (decree, Art. 4 §§2 to 3).

A funeral on Good Friday is held without Mass, and without singing, music or the tolling of bells (61). Chicago’s policy reads: “On days when a funeral Mass may not be celebrated, the funeral liturgy outside Mass is celebrated. A memorial Mass may be offered on another day.”² (funeral Masses and memorial Masses)

Holy Thursday §

On the morning of Holy Thursday the bishop concelebrates the Chrism Mass with the priests of his diocese, consecrating the chrism and blessing the oils (Universal Norms, 31). Where it’s hard for the clergy and people to gather that day, it may move to another day close to Easter (Paschalis Sollemnitatis, 35), and the USCCB’s calendar notes that, if necessary, it may be celebrated on a suitable day before Holy Thursday (Liturgical Calendar 2027, note 8). Ask the chancery for the day and the hour, since your priests will be at the cathedral for it.

The parish’s own Mass that day is the evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper, which begins the Easter Triduum (Universal Norms, 19). Ordinarily no other Mass is celebrated on Holy Thursday, as the USCCB’s answers on the Triduum put it.³ No priest may celebrate individually that day (GIRM 199), and “all Masses without the participation of the people are forbidden” (Paschalis Sollemnitatis, 47). The local Ordinary may allow a second Mass of the Lord’s Supper in the evening, or in real necessity in the morning, but only for people who can’t take part in the evening Mass (the same paragraph). Great Falls-Billings gives its priests that faculty “if there is an urgent pastoral need.”⁴

For the book, that means neither the weekday morning Mass nor a priest’s private Mass is there on Holy Thursday. The anniversary on 25 March 2027 has no morning Mass to go to. Offer the nearest open day before it, or the evening Mass if your parish takes intentions there.

A priest who has said or concelebrated the Chrism Mass may also say or concelebrate the evening Mass (GIRM 204). If the evening Mass is a second Mass he concelebrates, he may receive no offering for it on any title (canon 951 §2; concelebration and offerings).

Are Intentions Taken at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper? §

This is the question parishes answer most differently. Canon 901 lets a priest apply any Mass for anyone. We found no canon, rubric or Holy See document that forbids applying the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the Easter Vigil, or the Masses of Easter and Christmas for an intention. Nor did we find one that gives those Masses an intention of their own, as Benedict XV did for two of the three Masses of All Souls Day (Incruentum Altaris, I). We found no diocese’s published guidance that answers it directly either. Until yours does, follow your pastor’s practice.

What you’ll meet is parish practice, and many of the parish pages we read keep these Masses for the whole parish. One parish in Pennsylvania schedules no intentions on Ash Wednesday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday or Christmas, among other days: “These Masses will be celebrated for the general intentions of our parish.”⁵ The parishes of Mitchell, South Dakota, say these days “are reserved for all parishioners of the parish and may not be assigned an individual intention,” and their list includes Christmas Eve, Christmas, Holy Thursday, the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday.⁶

Some parish pages give a reason: that Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil “have specific intentions set by the Church.”⁷ A cathedral parish’s policy says the same of those days and All Souls.⁸ The Church does set the Good Friday intercessions, but they are prayers, not a Mass applied. For a Mass, outside All Souls Day we found no law that sets one. If that’s the reason your office has been given, ask the pastor or the chancery where it comes from, and write the parish’s answer into its policy so the office can tell parishioners before a date is promised.

The Easter Vigil and Easter Day §

The Vigil is the first Mass of Easter, not the last of Holy Saturday. The liturgical day runs from midnight to midnight, but Sundays and solemnities begin on the evening before (Universal Norms, 3), and the 1988 letter asks that parish announcements not present the Vigil “as the concluding period of Holy Saturday” (Paschalis Sollemnitatis, 95). Chicago’s policy puts both sides of it: “While it fulfills the Sunday obligation, the Easter Vigil is not to be considered a Mass of anticipation for Easter, but a unique liturgical experience in its own right.”² No priest may celebrate it individually (GIRM 199), and one who has said or concelebrated it may say or concelebrate a Mass on Easter Day as well (GIRM 204).

For the priest’s offerings, the clock still counts. In law a day runs from midnight to midnight (canon 202 §1), and Rockford’s guide counts the vigil Masses of Christmas and Easter “for the day in which they begin.”⁹ Holy Saturday has no other Mass, so in Rockford’s reading a priest who says the Vigil and a Mass on Easter morning may keep an offering for each. Dioceses read the vigils differently, so ask how yours counts (the Saturday vigil and the day’s one offering).

Easter Sunday is a Sunday, so the pastor owes the Mass for the people at one of its Masses (canon 534), and each priest’s Sunday limit applies to the rest (how many Masses a priest may say). No funeral Mass is celebrated on Easter Sunday or anywhere in the Triduum (GIRM 380).

Palm Sunday, Ash Wednesday and the First Days of Holy Week §

Palm Sunday is a Sunday of Lent, so its Masses go in the book like any Sunday’s, with one of them the Mass for the people (canon 534) and no funeral Mass that day (GIRM 380).

Ash Wednesday isn’t a holy day of obligation (canon 1246), so it has no Mass for the people. Its Masses are the day’s ordinary Masses, at which ashes are given (Universal Norms, 29), and they can carry intentions like any weekday Mass, unless your parish keeps them for the parish, as Kennett Square does.⁵ Ash Wednesday and the weekdays of Holy Week through Thursday take precedence over every other celebration (Universal Norms, 16), so the priest says the Mass of the day, and the Missal’s allowances for the Mass for the Dead stop short of them (GIRM 381). A Mass on those days can still be offered for someone who has died; only its prayers are the day’s. GIRM 380 doesn’t list Ash Wednesday or the first three days of Holy Week among the days without a funeral Mass.

Christmas §

The Christmas schedule begins on the afternoon of 24 December. The Missal provides four Masses: the Vigil Mass, used on the evening of 24 December, before or after Evening Prayer I, and on the day itself three, at night, at dawn and during the day (Universal Norms, 34). Every priest may say or concelebrate those three, each at its own time of day (GIRM 204), and Christmas Day is the one day canon law lets him keep the offering of each:

§1. Sacerdos plures eadem die Missas celebrans, singulas applicare potest ad intentionem pro qua stips oblata est, ea tamen lege ut, praeterquam in die Nativitatis Domini, stipem pro una tantum Missa faciat suam, ceteras vero in fines ab Ordinario praescriptos concredat, admissa quidem aliqua retributione ex titulo extrinseco.

§1. A priest celebrating several Masses on the same day may apply each to the intention for which an offering was given, on the condition that, except on Christmas Day, he keeps the offering for one Mass only and hands the rest over to the purposes laid down by the Ordinary, though some recompense on an outside title is allowed.

Canon 951 §1. Latin · The Holy See’s English · Our translation.

Christmas Day is 25 December, counted from midnight. Rockford counts a Mass that actually starts at midnight for the feast, and an earlier “Midnight Mass” as a vigil Mass on the day it begins.⁹ So, in Rockford’s reading, a priest who says the 4:00 PM Vigil and a 10:00 PM Mass on 24 December keeps one offering for that day, and the offering of each Mass he says on the 25th. The exception is in the canon’s first paragraph only: as we read it, a second Mass he concelebrates on Christmas Day still carries no offering (canon 951 §2).

Two more things for the book. Christmas is a holy day of obligation, so one of the pastor’s Masses on the 25th itself is the Mass for the people and carries no offering (canon 534; the Mass pro populo). And the 24th fills up. In 2026 Christmas Eve is a Thursday, a weekday, when canon 905 lets the bishop allow a priest two Masses, not three. If he has the morning Mass and then two Christmas Masses that begin before midnight, he has said three that day, by our reading of canon 202 §1. Owensboro’s faculties let the bishop permit three “on the day preceding a day of precept, provided the third Mass that day is for the day of precept.”¹⁰ Ask what yours allow, or give the morning Mass to another priest.

Within the octave, GIRM 381 allows the Mass for the Dead for a death, a burial or a first anniversary. GIRM 380 allows no funeral Mass on Christmas Day or on 1 January, both holy days of obligation.

Planning the Season’s Book §

The dates below are from the USCCB’s Liturgical Calendar for 2027, whose year runs from the First Sunday of Advent, 29 November 2026.

Then, before the book opens for these dates:

• Mark the days with no Mass, and any Masses your parish keeps for the whole parish, so no one promises them.
• Ask the chancery for the date and time of the Chrism Mass, and whether your diocese allows a second Mass of the Lord’s Supper.
• Look for anything already written for 25 to 27 March 2027 (anniversaries fall where they fall, and 25 March is also the usual date of the Annunciation) and call those parishioners early with another date.
• Count each priest’s Masses on 24 and 25 December, Holy Thursday, the Vigil and Easter Day by the calendar day, every one he says or concelebrates (the count, day by day).
• Mark the Mass for the people on Christmas, 1 January, Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday.
• Look a year ahead: Christmas 2027 falls on a Saturday, so the parish’s usual Saturday evening Mass, for Sunday the 26th, falls on Christmas Day. As we read canon 202 §1, it counts on the 25th, so a priest who has said three Masses that day can’t also take it.

How Memento Keeps This §

Memento’s ledger of offerings counts each priest’s Masses by the parish’s calendar day. It lets him keep up to three offerings on 25 December and one on every other day, so a Christmas Mass on the evening of the 24th counts with the 24th (canon 951, and what we do about it).