How a Parish Office Keeps Mass Intentions

Before the First Request §

Before anyone calls, know which Masses can take an intention. On every Sunday and holy day of obligation the pastor must apply one Mass for the people of his parish. If he is lawfully prevented, another priest applies it for him that day, or he applies it himself on another day, and a pastor of several parishes applies one Mass for them all (canon 534). That Mass is owed to the people, so it isn’t open to a request.

Write those Masses in first. Buffalo’s audit office says to do it before the new calendar book opens to other requests, and Oakland’s workshop shows a week’s page filled in that order.^{1 2}

Then know who says each Mass, because the rule of one offering a day (below) turns on it. Rockford’s and Cincinnati’s guides describe two records kept side by side: the Mass book, numbered in the order requests arrive, and a desk calendar kept by date. Rockford asks the office to write each intention’s number from the book in the calendar “to assist in cross-referencing.”^{3 4}

Taking a Request §

Requests come in person, by phone, by mail, through the parish website, and now and then in an envelope handed to the priest in the sacristy. However one comes, write it down when you take it, in the one place it belongs. Buffalo and Rockford both ask that intentions be “promptly and accurately recorded.”^{1 3}

A widow calls to ask for a Mass for her husband on the first anniversary of his death. Our suggestion for the phone, in this order:

1. The name, as it should be written: “How do you spell that?”
2. Whether they’re living or have died, if the caller hasn’t said.
3. The occasion, if they’d like it known (wording for each occasion).
4. The date, or the next open Mass. If a day matters, would a nearby day do, and must it be this church? If it must, note that in the book.
5. A Mass card: for whom, and mailed or collected.
6. The offering, once and plainly: “The customary offering is $10, if you’re able,” or your diocese’s figure. Never press it.
7. Her name, and a phone number or email.
8. Read it back: the name, the Mass, the date and the time.
9. How she’ll hear: the card, a letter or a call.

A mailed or online request needs the same things.

When someone hands the priest an envelope just before a Mass that already has an intention, Oakland’s workshop lists his options and adds that “accepting the offering and applying it to that Mass is not one of them.” He brings it to the office to be scheduled, or sends the person there.²

Choosing the Date and Saying Yes §

St. Petersburg’s handbook for office staff gives the order: “first check to see if they prefer a specific date. Then, check to verify whether the date is available.”⁵ If the date is taken, offer the nearest open Mass, and never move a Mass already promised to someone else.

Each offering accepted is owed a Mass of its own, however small (canon 948), so never add a second name to a Mass already promised. A “collective” Mass for several givers is a narrow exception, and never without each one’s explicit consent (2025 decree, Art. 1).

Then tell the parishioner the date, the time and the church, in writing if you can. From that yes, the parish is held to its word: the 2025 decree puts first among the reasons for these rules “la giustizia verso gli offerenti, e cioè il mantenimento della parola data agli offerenti”, justice toward the offerers, that is, keeping the word given to them (decree of 13 April 2025, preamble, our translation).

If she asked for a Mass card, fill it in once the Mass has a date, as St. Petersburg’s handbook says: “Fill in Mass date information and intention on Mass card and give to donor.”⁵ Each parish card stands for one Mass in the book (what the card should say).

The Offering and the Receipt §

No offering is required. Priests are earnestly urged to celebrate for people’s intentions even when nothing has been given (canon 945 §2), and in the words of Rockford’s guide, “No one asking for a Mass should be denied due to an inability to make an offering.”³ Write “None” where the amount goes, and let the priest know, as Buffalo asks.¹

The bishops of the province fix the customary amount (where they haven’t, the diocese’s custom stands), and no priest may ask for more, though he may accept more if it’s freely given, or less (canon 952; how much people give). If someone gives more, Rockford suggests asking whether they’d like more than one Mass, a gift to the parish, or all of it for this Mass;³ if you can’t tell, count the Masses at the customary offering where the giver lives (canon 950).

Give a receipt for cash: Buffalo requires a pre-numbered, three-part one for every offering given in cash (receipts and taxes).¹ Deposit the offerings as your diocese directs: Rockford and Buffalo want a checking account kept for Mass offerings alone.^{3 1} Both pay the priest after he has said the Mass, never in advance, and suggest doing it “around the beginning of the month for the previous month’s Masses.”^{3 1}

Writing It in the Book §

The book records what canon law asks for: the number of Masses, the intention, the offering given, and the Mass once it has been said (canon 958). Give each request the next number and the date you received it, since the year for saying the Mass runs from that day (canon 955 §2). Write “None” where nothing was given, never erase, and if several people take requests, agree on who writes in the book (each column, and how to correct a line).

The Week of the Mass §

A few days ahead, give each priest his Masses with their intentions: he applies the Mass, so the office makes sure he knows the intention before he begins. A sacristy sheet helps, with the day, the time, the intention and who asked; our suggestion is to leave the amounts off it. If names are read aloud, St. Petersburg’s handbook asks for hard ones to be spelled “phonetically, if needed, so that they can be more easily pronounced by the deacon or reader.”⁵

After the Mass, write it in the book as said, with the date and the priest, and never while it is only scheduled.

One Offering a Day for Each Priest §

When the parochial vicar says the 7:00 AM and the 5:00 PM Mass on the same Tuesday, each may be applied for its own intention, but he keeps one offering:

§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.

In law a day runs from midnight to midnight (canon 202 §1), so Rockford counts a Saturday evening vigil Mass as Saturday’s: a priest who says it and a Sunday Mass may keep an offering for each, if he has taken no other for that Saturday.³

Canon 951 doesn’t say which offering he keeps, and dioceses answer differently: Rockford tells the office to pay the largest of the day’s offerings, and Alexandria gives a priest supplying several Masses the first.^{3 6} The others go to the purposes the Ordinary lays down: the bishop’s charities in Buffalo, the seminary and general operations in Cincinnati, the priests’ retirement fund in Alexandria.^{1 4 6} Oakland’s weekly worksheet has a column for each priest and one headed “To Diocese”.²

The Mass for the people carries no offering. Rockford reads that to mean the pastor may keep the offering of another Mass that Sunday, but may not add a second intention to the Mass for the people; Cincinnati’s manual says the same in one place and, in another, that on those days “the pastor may not receive a stipend for another Mass.”^{3 4} When another priest says it in his place, Alexandria and Buffalo have the pastor give him the usual offering.^{6 1} In an emergency, Rockford instead has the parish give the visiting priest a choice: say it without an offering, or ask the pastor to move it to a later Mass that week and take that Mass’s intention instead (the Mass for the people; the cases, one by one).³

When the Dates Fill Up §

A funeral or All Souls can bring in dozens of requests in a week, and no one may accept more offerings for Masses he is to say himself than he can satisfy within a year (canon 953). Rockford asks that every request be recorded, and that “an earnest effort should be made to celebrate as many as practical without displacing Mass dates for other parishioners.”³ Keep requests with no date on a list of their own, in the order they came, and give each the next open Mass.

When the date someone wants is gone, you can offer:

• another Mass that day, or the nearest open day;
• a Mass a priest says privately, which Rockford allows on his day off or on vacation;³
• another parish, a religious community or the missions, with the parishioner’s agreement if they asked for this church.

What you can’t offer is a second name on a Mass already promised (canon 948), or a name simply remembered in the Prayer of the Faithful in return for an offering. A name remembered there is real prayer but 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).

Sending Masses Elsewhere §

When more Masses are asked for than a church can say, they may be said elsewhere, unless the people who asked expressly said otherwise (canon 954). Send them as soon as you can, to priests you know to be beyond question, with the whole offering as a rule, and stay responsible until word comes back that the Masses were accepted and the offering received (canon 955 §1). Write both sides in the book, with the offerings (the same canon, §3), and later the date word came. Whatever is still unsaid after a year goes to the Ordinary, as he directs (canon 956).

Your diocese will usually say where they go. Cincinnati encourages priests to ask the giver’s permission first, and warns that Masses “should not be sent directly to individual priests, particularly if they are unknown to the sender.”⁴ Alexandria’s parishes send them to the chancery with “a letter listing each intention and the stipend associated with it,” and the chancery passes them to smaller parishes or retired priests.⁶

The Holy See encourages the custom of sending surplus intentions, with their offerings, to mission countries (2025 decree, Art. 5), but a mission office rarely promises a date. Cleveland’s says “specific dates for Masses cannot be given,”⁷ so tell the parishioner before you send it (sending Masses to the missions).

Changes and Cancellations §

When the parish cancels a Mass, for a funeral, a storm or a priest who is ill, the intention is still owed: move it to the nearest open Mass and tell the parishioner, as one South Carolina parish’s policy promises.⁸ A Communion service held in its place doesn’t satisfy it: the 2025 decree counts it no less illicit to replace the application promised in the Mass with a mere prayer intention at a celebration of the Word (preamble).

When another priest says the Mass instead, the intention and its offering go with it: in Alexandria a priest who supplies at a Mass “for which a stipend has been provided” is “entitled to that stipend.”⁶

When the parishioner asks to move it, change the calendar and the book, leaving the old date legible (how to correct a line). When they ask for the offering back, have your answer ready: the canons on Mass offerings don’t speak to a request withdrawn, and parishes differ. The same South Carolina parish doesn’t return offerings but will move the Mass.⁸ Ask your pastor, and put his answer in the parish’s policy.

What Not to Publish §

A parishioner asks for a Mass “for my sister, who has cancer.” The priest needs those words; the bulletin, which may be online for anyone who searches her name, doesn’t. Canon law protects both a person’s good name and their right to protect their own privacy (canon 220).

The Diocese of Lansing’s 2015 rules for parish prayer lists fit the names of living people on the Mass list too: ask before a name is published, “Keep the prayer request general, especially regarding personal health,” and never post the list on a website open to everyone.⁹ So print “For [Name], special intention,” and keep her illness out of print. Some parishes leave out who asked, as one cathedral in Louisiana does in its bulletin and at Mass.¹⁰ An intention kept out of the bulletin still goes on the sacristy sheet, because the priest must know what he is offering the Mass for.

In 2025 the Holy See told bishops and pastors to make the difference between a Mass applied and a name simply remembered plain to everyone (2025 decree, Art. 4 §2), so list names remembered in prayer apart from the Masses. Print the Mass for the people as such, too: Buffalo says the pro populo Masses “must be announced” (names in the bulletin).¹

The Yearly Review §

Each year the Ordinary examines the book, himself or through others (canon 958 §2). Kept this way, the review asks only for what you already have: the book, the Masses sent elsewhere with the word that came back, and the latest balance of the Mass account against the book, which Rockford asks for “2 to 4 times per year” (what the review looks for; closing the year).³

Is a Paper Book Enough? §

We make Mass intention software, so weigh what follows accordingly. Often, yes. A numbered book and a desk calendar, kept by one person, serve a parish with one or two priests and a steady week, and canon law names no material (paper or software).

Paper strains when two people take requests at once and promise the same Mass; when one office serves several parishes, each of which Rockford wants in a book of its own;³ at the month’s count of one offering a day per priest; and when Masses sent away wait for word back with nothing to remind you. If those are your weeks, look at a spreadsheet or software. If not, a good book, kept the same way every day, is enough.

How Memento Keeps This §

In Memento, requests from the desk, the phone and the parish website go into one register, and none needs an offering. The sacristy sheet gives the priest each intention and who asked, without the money, and an intention the parishioner asked to keep private prints in the bulletin under the parish’s own anonymous wording. The ledger keeps each priest to one offering a day, Christmas Day excepted, and lists the rest to forward (canon 945, and what we do about it).