By: Msgr. Alberto José González Chaves
Our dead have passed beyond our bodily reach, yet they remain within the communion of the Church. We can still assist them with the greatest help: the Holy Sacrifice of the altar. On November 2, the Church grants every priest the faculty to celebrate three Holy Masses, a spiritual treasure that may go unused simply because it is unknown.
Prayer for the deceased predates the institution of their annual commemoration. The second book of Maccabees recounts the offering of an expiatory sacrifice for the fallen and links it to the hope of resurrection (2 Mac 12, 43-46). The Church received and developed this practice in the light of Christ’s redemptive sacrifice. From the earliest centuries, the dead were remembered in the eucharistic celebration; later, the monastic tradition associated with St. Odilo of Cluny helped establish a common day of suffrage after All Saints. The foundation of all this is a truth of faith: those who die in God’s grace but still require purification can receive the help of our suffrages, especially the eucharistic sacrifice. Purgatory belongs to the mystery of salvation: its souls are saved, though they have not yet attained the fullness of the vision of God. Their purification is painful; their hope, certain. This is set forth in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1030-1032).
The faculty to celebrate three Masses has Hispanic roots. Recalling its antecedents, Benedict XV notes that for centuries the custom had taken root in the kingdom of Aragon whereby secular priests celebrated two Masses on All Souls’ Day and religious three. Benedict XIV confirmed and extended that practice through the apostolic letters of 26 August 1748, at the request of Ferdinand VI of Spain and John V of Portugal, extending it to the priests of the territories subject to both monarchs. Universal extension came with Benedict XV through the apostolic constitution Incruentum altaris of 10 August 1915 (Acta Apostolicae Sedis, VII, 401-404). Europe was engulfed in the First World War, and the Pope, beholding with sorrow the multitude of men dying on the front in the prime of youth, wished to open for those sons the treasury of the Church’s suffrages.
Yet the war was not the sole motive. The document also mentions vanished pious foundations, unfulfilled Mass obligations, and the reduction of revenues that had forced the curtailment of previously established celebrations. There were deceased for whom Masses had been arranged and who, for various reasons, were being deprived of those suffrages. The concession therefore carried a paternal intention of supplementation, in addition to responding to the immense mortality of the war.
The applications were expressly determined: one Mass at the priest’s free disposal, for which a stipend could be received; another for all the faithful departed, without stipend; and the third for the intention of the Supreme Pontiff, also without stipend and, according to the 1915 document, linked to the purpose of aiding the deceased set forth in its preamble. Consequently, these are not three Masses available for accepting three particular stipends. The concession broadens the charity of the altar: one free application, one universal, and one entrusted to the solicitude of the common Father. This is recorded in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, number 204 d. It is a faculty, not an obligation to celebrate three times, yet such a concession deserves to be known and generously utilized by priests and faithful alike.
The three Masses may be celebrated consecutively, the priest remaining at the altar; whoever assists at all three remains in prolonged intercession before the sacrifice of Christ. Each Mass naturally retains its integrity: the three celebrations are not fused into one, nor are parts omitted because they have already been prayed.
For the faithful, family responsibilities, health, or work may prevent attendance at the three Holy Masses. Yet if possible, it constitutes an excellent work of mercy. If we find time for so many secondary commitments, we can reserve it for those who await our charity, for they can no longer merit.
Why offer several Masses if one alone possesses infinite value? Because that value proceeds from Christ, whereas the application of its fruits to particular persons belongs to the order of His providence and the intercession of the Church. No one can measure suffrage as one calculates a commercial debt. Nor can we deduce from the infinite value of the sacrifice that every new celebration is unnecessary: the Church has always persevered in offering it for the living and the dead. Repetition expresses confidence and constancy in supplication.
What does it mean to “apply” a Mass? Every Holy Mass is the action of Christ and the Church and possesses a universal dimension. Within it, the priest may specially direct its fruit of suffrage to a determined intention. Such application does not turn the sacrifice into private property nor exclude others from its benefits. Entrusting a deceased mother does not impoverish the communion of saints; it concretizes charity within it.
Nor does the offering purchase the Mass, for the sacrifice of Christ has no price. The stipend is an offering by which the faithful participate in the support of the ministers and the works of the Church. Canon law (945-947) exhorts priests to celebrate also for the intentions of needy faithful, even without receiving any offering, excluding every appearance of commerce. The poor have full access to the charity of the altar. A larger offering does not obtain a Mass of greater value. Moreover, once the offering is accepted, the obligation to apply the Mass is a duty of justice that must be fulfilled scrupulously. The gratuity of grace does not authorize treating the trust of the faithful lightly.
In the perseverance of suffrage are situated the Gregorian Masses: thirty celebrated over as many consecutive days for the same deceased. In Book IV of his Dialogues, chapter 55, St. Gregory the Great relates that he ordered the Holy Sacrifice to be offered for the monk Justus during thirty days and that, at the end of that period, he received news of his liberation. The spiritual fruitfulness of the Gregorian Masses also benefits the family that accompanies them with prayer, penance, and charity.
How can one live spiritually the three Masses of November 2? Above all, by bringing names: our parents, relatives, friends, and benefactors; the priests who administered the sacraments to us; those to whom we owe gratitude; those who died without our being able to bid them farewell; also those whom we caused to suffer. When a request for pardon can no longer be uttered before a visible presence, it can still become prayer and reparation.
Then, by broadening the supplication: the dead of our family do not exhaust the family of God. There are deceased without descendants, without believing friends, without a visited grave. The application for all the faithful departed opens the heart to a charity that does not inquire about kinship.
And, during each Mass, uniting ourselves interiorly to the offering of Christ, adoring at the consecration, supplicating in the remembrance of the dead, and offering our own sufferings. Attentive silence can be filled with intensely spiritual activity.
Assisting at three Masses does not mean receiving Holy Communion three times. According to canon 917, one who has already communicated may do so a second time on the same day by hearing another entire Mass. Yet attending a third expresses insistence in suffrage.
This year we can have especially present those who died in the railway accidents of Adamuz and Urda. Sudden death obliges us to pause before the fragility of our life. For them let us ask mercy; for their families, consolation and strength.
Alongside this intercession for the dead, urgent is prayer for so many children and young people exposed to the trivialization of evil. The spread of the stupid, absurd, and sinister Halloween is a kind of cult of the demonic, the macabre, the deformation of the person; it presents Satanism as amusing, fosters occultism, and accustoms the childish imagination to delight in evil, manufacturing premature spiritual deaths, victims of the current lack of Christian formation. Because we love them, we ask that they know Christ, recover grace if they have lost it, and find adults capable of showing them the beauty of holiness.
This supplication for the living and this reparation can accompany our participation in the Holy Masses, asking rest for those who have died and conversion for those who still walk with us.
Benedict XVI explained in Spe salvi, 48, that our existences are linked and that love can reach those who have passed through death. The doctrine of suffrage contains that consolation: we can still do them good.
We should not waste November 2. Flowers honor the graves; tears manifest affection; memories preserve a cherished presence; but at the altar we can offer for our dead something we could never give them: the redemptive sacrifice of the Son of God. One day we will need others to offer it for us. Meanwhile, we pray for the deceased:
Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis!