Can There Be Mass for the Dead on a Sunday?

by Admin · January 19, 2023

Question: Our parish priest occasionally offers the Sunday Mass for the repose of someone’s soul. When this happens, he replaces the Collect, the Prayer Over the Gifts, the Prayer after Communion and, occasionally, even the Preface, of the Sunday with those from a Mass for the Dead. He has done this in Ordinary Time and a few times during Lent. When he does this, is he celebrating the Sunday Mass or a Mass for the Dead, and if he has effectively turned the Sunday Mass into a Mass for the Dead, is my Sunday obligation fulfilled?

Answer: As you surmise, your parish priest has confused two things: [i] saying a Mass for the Dead, and [ii] offering a Mass for the repose of a soul. Let’s unravel the two.

At the front of the Roman Missal, we have all the liturgies for the Cycle of Seasons and the Cycle of Saints. These are the regular Masses that take precedence, and you would expect every Sunday celebration to come from here.

At the back of the Missal, we have Votive Masses and the Masses for the Dead. None of these may displace the proper liturgy on Sundays and holy days. When we celebrate a Mass for the Dead, we change the colour of the vestments and have special prayers, including the Preface. If your priest paid attention to the ordo — a list of offices and feasts for each day of the year — he would see on which days Masses for the Dead are not permitted.

It is permitted, however, to celebrate a Sunday Mass for the intention of a departed loved one. The Mass intention may be announced before Mass, and the name of the deceased may be included in the Prayers of the Faithful. The prayers of the Mass, however, remain those of the Sunday or feast day and, if using Eucharistic Prayers II or III, we do not add in the extra paragraph for the deceased as we would at a funeral.

Should a priest open the Missal on the wrong page, or put on the wrong vestments, we call his actions “illicit”, but such matters do not prevent the faithful from fulfilling their Sunday obligation or from receiving God’s grace.

Nevertheless, we should insist that the clergy understand what they are supposed to do so as to preside more effectively over our common prayer.

(Fr Thomas Plastow SJ)

Asked and answered in the November 2022 issue of The Southern Cross magazine