by Thomas P. Rausch
In March of 1989 the Association of Jesuit Liturgists issued a document entitled “Liturgy and Jesuit Life: Issues for Discussion.” [1] Framed in terms of a number of theses or propositions, each with brief commentary, the document was intended to stimulate conversation about the place of liturgy in Jesuit life. And it did; indeed, it provoked a firestorm.
The document could have been much more carefully formulated. Its rhetoric, as a number of respondents noted, was overstated, even apodictic. For example, it proclaimed: “All regulations and customs regarding the frequency of Eucharistic celebration are totally secondary to the need for quality preparation,” and went on to question the value of daily celebration. Certainly the document could have been more nuanced.
But what touched a nerve was Thesis 1 of Part 3, entitled “Eucharist”: “Eucharist is the expression of our communion with one another in Christ. Private Mass should be celebrated only in an emergency. Solitary confinement in a concentration camp is an emergency. Finding oneself at home alone on Sunday morning is not.” Here the document had challenged the practice which has become and remains the rule for many religious priests, that of celebrating Mass alone, without the presence of even a server. Despite various indications in recent liturgical texts and the new Code of Canon Law (1983) that the celebration of the eucharist without others present is at least contrary to the spirit of the liturgy, many religious priests continue to insist that saying Mass privately is firmly rooted in the tradition and is still a legitimate option, a matter of choice, as long as it is done with devotion.
One respondent to the controversy in the National Jesuit News stated that he was “writing for centuries of productive and exemplary Jesuits who cherished their daily Mass, even though they celebrated alone.”[2] He could have spoken for many contemporary religious priests as well.
PRIVATE MASS
Is it true that the private Mass is firmly rooted in tradition, and that for centuries priests have celebrated alone, without even a server? First, though the distinction was not always a clear one, it is important to distinguish the “private Mass” from Mass with no one else present, the Missa solitaria. In his history of the Mass in the Roman Rite, Joseph Jungmann argues that what the medieval documents referred to as “private masses” (missae privatae or speciales or peculiares) were not services for small groups, whether in a home or at a graveside, but rather a Mass celebrated for its own sake, with only a server in attendance, or sometimes with no one else present. [3]
Jungmann emphasizes both the personal devotion of priests and the desire of the faithful for votive Masses and Masses for the dead as factors which contributed to more frequent private celebrations. Private Masses celebrated for both reasons can be traced at least from the sixth century. [4] Others see the private Mass as originating in the monasteries, where the growing number of priest-monks from the eighth century on led to the practice of daily private Masses. [5]
MISSA SOLITARIA
Celebrating without any one present may have been more common as the practice of the private Mass was developing. According to Jungmann the eucharist was sometimes celebrated without the presence of even a server in the eighth and ninth centuries. He uses the exclusive singular in the prayers of several Mass formulas from this period to illustrate this. [6]
But Jungmann points out that from the ninth century on new legislation appears which is aimed at preventing this “Missa solitaria” or Mass alone. He cites a number of texts and canons which require the presence of others, ministri or cooperatores, not so much for the sake of assisting “but rather that someone is present as a co-celebrant, so that the social, plural character which is so distinctly revealed in the liturgy we actually have . . . might be safeguarded.” [7]
In the twelfth century Alexander III made the prohibition of celebrating Mass without the presence of some member of the faithful a matter of church law. [8] Some statutes from the thirteenth century required the presence of one cleric for private Mass. Jungmann considers this insistence on a clerical server an ideal, noting that some missals refer to an assisting puer (boy). [9]
Reinold Theisen points out that the first draft of Trent’s decree on the Mass urged that private Masses not be celebrated without at least two persons present, and that the commission cited the abuse of celebrating without a minister. The final decree of the Council did not address these issues. [10] But the Missal of Pius V repeats the requirement that a cleric or someone else be present to serve. [11]
The 1918 Code of Canon Law specifically prohibited celebrating without a (male) server: “Sacerdos Missam ne celebret sine ministro qui eidem inserviat et respondeat.” [12] According to a number of commentaries, celebrating without a server was a mortal sin. [13] Pre-Vatican II Roman directives repeat the requirement of a server. [14]
In 1949, the Sacred Congregation for the Discipline of the Sacraments responded to requests for the faculty to celebrate Mass without a server in its instruction Quam plurimum. According to the Congregation, authoritative authors recognized only the following exceptions: when necessary to give Viaticum to a sick person; to satisfy the precept of hearing Mass for the people; in time of pestilence, when a priest would otherwise have to abstain from celebrating for a considerable time; and when the server leaves the altar during the Mass.
The congregation pointed out that outside these cases, permission for Mass without a server was given only by apostolic indult, especially in mission lands. [15] And it noted that Pius XII had ordered the addition to the indults of the phrase “provided that some member of the faithful assist at the Sacrifice.” [16] Thus Pius XII wanted it made clear that even if there was no server, some member of the faithful had to be present.
It was only in 1966, after the Second Vatican Council, that exceptions to the rule against solitary celebrations began to appear. Following the 31st General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, Jesuit priests outside mission regions received permission to celebrate Mass in casu necessitatis without the presence of a server. [17] The faculty was given primarily for private chapels in Jesuit houses to which the faithful were not ordinarily admitted. It thus allowed solitary celebrations of the eucharist.
Similarly, the General Instruction of the 1969 Roman Missal and the 1983 Code of Canon Law mitigated somewhat the prohibition against the solitary Mass. No. 211 of the instructions says, “Mass should not be celebrated without a minister except in case of serious necessity.” Canon 906 states: “A priest may not celebrate without the participation of at least some member of the faithful, except for a just and reasonable cause.” But the qualifying phrases cannot be interpreted as meaning simply the preference or convenience of the priest.
Canon 906 should be interpreted against the background of Vatican II and the teaching of Paul VI. [18] The Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium on the Sacred Liturgy states that rites which are to be celebrated in common, especially the Mass, should be preferred to “a celebration which is individual and quasi-private.” [19] Paul VI taught that private celebrations are permissible “for a just cause . . . even if only a server assists and makes the responses.” [20] The implication is that the presence of at least a server is required.
CONCLUSION
The “private Mass” has a history in the church that reaches back to at last the sixth century. Whatever might be said about the theological appropriateness of private celebrations, the practice was received by the Western church as a legitimate expression of eucharistic piety. In this sense the practice could be considered traditional.
But the sacral or cultic concept of the priesthood to which the practice contributed is not without its own problems. On the one hand, it has provided a strong sense of identity for priests over the centuries. Even today, many religious priests find their own priesthood most clearly expressed in those quiet moments, early in the morning, when they celebrate their own private Masses. On the other hand, the sacral concept of the priesthood is problematic because it focuses on the relationship between the priest and the eucharist rather than on the relationship between the priest and the community. [21]
But if the private Mass is a practice of long standing, solitary celebrations of the eucharist, without the presence of at least a server or some other member of the faithful, have been almost universally prohibited by church law. Indults have sometimes been given for Mass without a server in mission territories, but Pius XII required at least some member of the faithful to be present.
The prohibition of the solitary Mass was mitigated somewhat after the Second Vatican Council, but interpreting canon 906 of the 1983 Code in the light of the Council and other liturgical documents suggests that the mere preference of the priest is not a sufficient reason for a solitary celebration. Thus the ancient recognition that the eucharist is the church’s prayer and not a private priestly ritual still finds expression in church law.
The solitary Mass which for many religious priests is the most frequent experience of eucharist may be for them meaningful and nourishing. This is a personal matter and should be respected. But it represents a eucharistic practice which has almost no justification in the church’s tradition. The solitary Mass is not traditional.
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Thomas P. Rausch, ” Is the Private Mass Traditional?” Worship, Vol. 64, (1990) 237-242. Used by permission of Liturgical Press.
[1] National Jesuit News 18 (April 1989) 4; the document was prepared by Robert Daly, Peter Fink, John Baldovin, John Gallen, James Empereur and Jerome Hall.
[2] National Jesuit News 18 (June 1989) 4.
[3] Joseph A. Jungmann S.J., The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development tr. Francis A. Brunner (New York: Benziger Brothers 1950) 1:215.
[4] Ibid., 216-18.
[5] Theodor Klauser, A Short History of the Western Liturgy, tr. John Halliburton (London: Oxford University Press 1969) 102-03.
[6] Ibid., 225.
[7] Ibid., 226.
[8] Corpus Juris Canonici, c. 6, X, I, 17.
[9] Ibid., 227.
[10] Reinold Theisen O.S.B., “The Reform of Mass Liturgy and the Council of Trent,” Worship 40 (1966) 576-77.
[11] Missale Romanum, De defectibus in celebratione Missarum occurentibus, X., no. 1.
[12] Codex Juris Canonici, can. 813.
[13] Joanne B. Ferreres, Compendium Theologiae Moralis (Barcelona: EugeniusSubirana 1919) 2:296; Antonio M. Arregui, Summarium Theologiae Moralis (Westminster, Md: Newman 1944) 385.
[14] See, for example. Mediator Dei, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 39 (1947) 557.
[15] The Jesuit Elenchus Praecipuarum Facultatum (Rome: Curia Generalis 1930) 65, no. 110 recognizes the faculty to celebrate without a server in case of necessity in regions under the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith or the Congregation for the Eastern Church.
[16] Quam Plurimum, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 41 (1949) 507-08.
[17] Acta Romana 14 (1966) 753.
[18] Cf. The Code of Canon Law: A Text and Commentary, ed. James A. Coriden, Thomas J. Green, Donald E. Heintschel (New York: Paulist 1985) 647-48.
[19] No. 27, Walter Abbott, The Documents of Vatican II (New York: America Press 1966) 148.
[20] Mysterium fidei, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 57 (1965) 761-62.
[21] Cf. Edward Schillebeeckx, Ministry: Leadership in the Community of Jesus Christ (New York: Crossroad 1981) 48-58; also The Church with a Human Face (New York: Crossroad 1985) 141-53·
Fr. Thomas P. Rausch SJ is professor of Catholic theology and theological studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
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