How to Request a Mass Intention

How to Ask, Step by Step §

When a man wanted a Mass offered for his wife on the first anniversary of her death, he called the parish office in January, gave her name and the date, and asked for a Mass card to send her sister. The 8 AM Mass on the day was still open.

1. Choose where to ask. Your own parish is the usual place, since its office keeps the Mass book and knows which Masses are open. But any priest may accept a request (canon 945), so you can also ask the parish where the funeral was, a priest you know, or a shrine.

2. Get in touch the way that parish takes requests. Many offices take them in person or by mail,¹ and some by phone or email.² Some leave envelopes at the back of the church,³ some want you to call first to check the date,⁴ and some have a form on their website.⁵ If you mail it, put in the intention, the date you’d like, your name and phone number, the offering, and the address for a Mass card if you want one.¹

3. Say who the Mass is for. Give the name as it should be written, say whether the person is living or has died, and add the occasion if you’d like it known: “For the repose of the soul of [Name], on the first anniversary of her death.” If you’d rather not say, “For a special intention” is a complete request (wording for every occasion).

4. Name a date, or ask for the next open Mass. If a day matters, ask early, and say whether a nearby day would do. If you’d like more than one Mass, say how many.

5. Ask for a Mass card at the same time, if you’d like one, and give the office the address if it’s to mail the card for you (what to write inside).

6. Give the offering with your request, if you can. Ask the office what’s customary there, and if you can’t give anything, ask for the Mass anyway.

7. Wait to hear back. Many offices call or write to confirm the date,¹ and one shrine asks you not to assume a Mass is scheduled until it has told you so.⁴ Note the date, the time and the church, so you can go if you’d like to.

Do I Have to Give an Offering? §

No, though it’s customary. The Church has approved the custom for centuries, and canon law still names it (canon 945). The offering is a gift to the Church, a share in supporting her ministers and works (canon 946). It isn’t the price of a Mass, and the law keeps even the appearance of trade away from it (canon 947).

The amount isn’t the parish’s to set: the bishops of the province fix it (where they haven’t, the diocese’s custom stands), and a priest may not ask for more, though he may accept more if it’s freely given, or less (canon 952). In 2026, most U.S. dioceses that publish a figure say $10 (the published figures, diocese by diocese).

If you can’t give anything, 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, our translation), and the Holy See repeated that recommendation in 2025 (decree, Art. 3 §1). A quiet word to the office is enough (how much to give, and why).

Asking a Shrine or a Religious Community §

Many people ask a shrine, a monastery or a missionary community instead, often for a series such as thirty Gregorian Masses, which few parishes can give one person on thirty days running (how Gregorian Masses are arranged).

Expect a different promise about the date. One Wisconsin shrine says a request will be offered within twelve months, but that it is “not in a position to guarantee any specific dates, times, and locations.”⁶ The Pontifical Mission Societies USA send Mass offerings to priests in mission countries and “cannot arrange for Mass on a specific date or time.”⁷ The Holy See encourages the custom of sending surplus intentions, with their offerings, to the missions (2025 decree, Art. 5). Canon law allows it at a parish too, and leaves the last word with you:

Si certis in ecclesiis aut oratoriis Missae petuntur celebrandae numero plures quam ut ibidem celebrari possint, earundem celebratio alibi fieri licet, nisi contrariam voluntatem oblatores expresse manifestaverint.

If more Masses are asked to be celebrated in particular churches or oratories than can be celebrated there, they may be celebrated elsewhere, unless the donors have expressly made a contrary wish known.

Canon 954. Latin · The Holy See’s English · Our translation.

So if the place matters, say so plainly when you ask, and if the day matters, ask whether they can promise it. And if you’re offered an enrollment, ask what it promises: it shares in the Masses and prayers a community offers for everyone on its list, which is a different gift from one Mass for one person (what each kind of card promises).

If the Date You Want Is Taken §

Some dates are spoken for months ahead. Each offering accepted is owed a Mass of its own (canon 948), so a parish’s calendar holds only as many requests as it has Masses. On Sundays and holy days of obligation the pastor must also offer one Mass for all his people (canon 534), and since that Mass is owed to them, it isn’t open to a request. Many parishes open their book only so far ahead and limit requests. One Virginia basilica says its first open Mass is usually about six months out,¹ a Philadelphia shrine opens its Mass book for the next liturgical year at the end of October,⁴ and a Washington parish takes three requests per household a month.³

If it’s gone, you can still:

• ask for another Mass that day, or the nearest day that’s open
• ask whether a priest could offer it at a Mass that isn’t on the public schedule: at one parish, for example, Masses “are said both privately and publicly”³
• ask another parish, a shrine or a religious community
• go to Mass on the day itself and pray for the person there, wherever the Mass for your intention falls

A name can’t simply be added to a Mass someone else has asked for, because that Mass is already promised to them (canon 948). A name simply remembered in the Prayer of the Faithful is real prayer, but it isn’t a Mass offered for that person, and in 2025 the Holy See told bishops and pastors to make that difference plain (decree, Art. 4 §2). If a parish offers a “collective” Mass, which gathers several people’s offerings into one, you join it only if you’re told and freely agree; your agreement is never presumed (decree, Art. 1 §§1 to 2 and Art. 6).

What Happens After You Ask §

Once the office says yes, the Church’s law holds the parish to it. The Holy See 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 (2025 decree, preamble, our translation).

The office writes your request in a book kept for the purpose: how many Masses, the intention, the offering given, and the Mass once it has been said (canon 958). Each year the bishop examines that book, himself or through others (the same canon). Even if the offering is lost, through no fault of the priest’s, the Mass is still owed (canon 949).

No priest may accept more Masses to say himself than he can say within a year (canon 953), and the time runs from the day the priest who will say them receives them (canon 955 §2).