Tolle, lege
Library
New in the LibraryEngraving and BlackletterThe History of the Mass CardThe Sacristan’s Week
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Mass Intentions
What a Mass intention is, who a Mass can be offered for, how to ask for one, what the offering is for, and what your parish does next. - For Parishioners
How to Request a Mass Intention
How to ask for a Mass for someone: where to ask, what to say, choosing a date, the offering, a Mass card, and what to do if the date you want is taken. - For Parishioners
Mass Intention Examples
Mass intention examples to copy: for someone who has died, an anniversary, the sick, a birthday, a marriage, thanksgiving, and special or private intentions. - For Parishioners
How Much to Give for a Mass
The customary offering for a Mass in the U.S., where to find your own diocese’s figure, how to give it, and what to say if you can give little or nothing. - For Parishioners
Who a Mass Can Be Offered For
A Mass can be offered for anyone, living or dead: someone who wasn’t Catholic or baptized, someone who took their own life, yourself. What the Church says. - For Parishioners
What to Write in a Mass Card
What to write inside a Mass card and on its envelope, with short examples for a parent, a spouse, a child or a friend, and how to thank someone for one. - For Parishioners
Spiritual Bouquets
A spiritual bouquet is a gift of prayers you promise for someone. How it differs from a Mass card, and how to make one, with wording you can copy. - For Parishioners
Buying a Mass Card Online
What an online Mass card promises, how to tell one from a sympathy card, five questions to ask before you give, and why your own parish is the surest place. - For Parishioners
Masses for Those Who Have Died
Which Masses to ask for after someone dies, and when: the funeral, the month’s mind, each anniversary, All Souls Day in November, and Gregorian Masses. - For Parishioners
Funeral Masses and Memorial Masses
A funeral Mass is said with the body or ashes present; a memorial Mass, without them. Cremation, who may have a Catholic funeral, the days, the offering. - For Parishioners
Gregorian Masses
Thirty Masses on thirty days in a row for one person who has died: where the custom comes from, and what the Church said in 1967 about a broken series. - For Parishioners
One Mass, One Intention
Why each offering for a Mass is owed a Mass of its own, how a Mass applied differs from a name remembered, and when one Mass may carry several names. - Old and New
Names in the Bulletin
Printing Mass intentions in the parish bulletin: what canon law requires, how to word each line, privacy for the living, and a policy you can adapt. - For Parishioners
Are Mass Offerings Tax Deductible?
What the IRS says about gifts to churches, what it doesn’t say about Mass offerings, the records to keep, and what a parish receipt must say. - For Parish Staff
The Mass Intentions Book
What canon law asks a parish to record in its Mass intentions book, and how to keep each line, correct a mistake, close the year and pass the yearly review. - For Parish Staff
How a Parish Office Keeps Mass Intentions
How a parish office keeps Mass intentions, step by step: taking a request, the date, the offering and receipt, the book, each priest’s day, and privacy. - For Parish Staff
Mass Stipend Amounts in the United States
The customary Mass offering in 48 U.S. dioceses, each from a diocesan or provincial document with its date, and who sets the figure under canon law. - For Parish Staff
Which Offerings a Priest Keeps
When a priest says two or three Masses in a day, which offering he keeps and where the rest go, with Christmas, All Souls Day and concelebration. - For Parish Staff
The 2025 Decree on Mass Intentions
The 2025 decree on Mass intentions, article by article: the Italian text, our English, what changed from the 1991 rules, and what a parish office should ask. - For Parish Staff
The Mass Pro Populo
The Mass pro populo in canon law: the days a pastor owes it in the United States, who says it when he can’t, why it takes no offering, and how to schedule it. - For Parish Staff
How Many Masses a Priest May Say in a Day
How many Masses a priest may say in a day: once, by canon law; three on Christmas and All Souls; two or three with his bishop’s leave; and how the vigil counts. - For Parish Staff
Concelebration and Mass Offerings
When a concelebrating priest may accept a Mass offering, why a second concelebrated Mass carries none, and what that means for a funeral with several priests. - For Parish Staff
Closing the Mass Year
At the Mass year’s end: count every Mass still owed, send on what a year can’t hold, balance the account against the book, and be ready for the review. - For Parish Staff
Holy Week, Christmas and the Mass Book
Planning the Mass book for Holy Week and Christmas: the days with no Mass, which Masses can carry an intention, and the day a priest keeps three offerings. - For Parish Staff
Sending Mass Intentions to the Missions
How a parish sends Masses it can’t say within a year to priests in the missions, what canons 953 to 956 ask of it, and how to ask a missionary for a Mass. - For Parish Staff
Should Your Parish Take Mass Intentions Online?
What canon law asks of a parish that takes Mass intentions online, what a request form must never do, and what to ask any provider before you start. - For Parish Staff
The Parish Administrator in Canon Law
What canon law asks of a parish administrator and of any priest in charge: the Mass for the people, the Mass book, and Masses owed when the priest changes. - For Parish Staff
Mass Stipends in the Philippines
What the Philippine bishops and dioceses have published on Mass offerings, the arancel and its gradual abolition, with the canon law behind it. - Old and New
Memento, Domine
The Memento of the living and of the dead in the Roman Canon: the Latin, what the Missal says about the names, who may be named, and where the custom came from. - Old and New
Nothing Resembling Trade
What canon law asks of any record of Mass intentions, paper or software: what the book must show, how it is kept, and why an offering is never a price. - Old and New
The Parish Secretary
What a parish secretary does with Mass intentions, from diocesan job descriptions and office handbooks: the request, the book, the grieving and the law. - Old and New
The Sacristan’s Week
What the Missal and the Ceremonial of Bishops ask of a sacristan, and how Mass intentions, the Sunday Mass, funerals and anniversaries reach the sacristy. - Old and New
The History of the Mass Card
Where the Mass card came from, as far as archives, old newspapers and scholars can show: the card in Ireland and America, and what no source settles. - Old and New
Engraving and Blackletter
Blackletter grew from the hand of the Church’s books, and engraving, it seems, from the goldsmith’s craft. What the record shows of both on devotional cards.