Article I: On the Valid and Licit Application of Mass

— I. The Author of the Application. Only the priest offering the Mass validly applies it through his intention, nor is it in the power of any Superior efficaciously to change or impede that application: for it is an act of priestly power, whose value depends on the character.

— II. The Subject to Whom, Capable. The damned are entirely incapable. For the blessed, external worship and honors can be impetrated; and it already redounds to their honor that, on account of the gifts which God has lavished upon them, we give thanks to God.

Are all the rest capable? Before the Code this was not outside controversy. Several, for example Cardinal Billot, De Euch., thesis LV, denied that direct application of the Mass as a work worked could licitly or validly be made to those living who are outside the Church, whose proper good the sacrifice of the New Law is.⁽¹⁾ The same, however, conceded that sacrifice for the prosperity and peace of the Church indirectly redounds to the conversion of infidels and heretics, to whom, moreover, the Church can apply her impetration. Yet most admitted that the fruit of impetration could be shared by all wayfarers and by the souls of purgatory, and they doubted only concerning the fruit of satisfaction, whether or not the non-baptized were capable of it (cf. Lehmkuhl, II, 212). Yet the sacrifice of the cross was offered for all, and the Mass is nothing but that sacrifice continued or renewed. Wherefore c. 809 has followed the more benign opinion, and tacitly admits that the Mass profits all wayfarers and souls of purgatory, since it permits that it be offered for all.

⁽¹⁾ Yet the same Cardinal Billot, l. c., thought that Mass could profit all, even non-baptized persons, who are in purgatory, since there, the distinction between the soul and the visible body of the Church being suppressed, all are simply of the mystical body of Christ.

— III. The Subject to Whom, Licit. The principle is: for every capable subject whom the Church does not exclude, it is lawful to offer the sacrifice. Now, in her new law, the Church in c. 809 excludes neither infidels nor non-Catholics. Yet from public application she excludes the excommunicated person: for him, therefore, it is lawful to apply Mass only privately and with scandal removed; but she simply excludes the vitandus, so that she permits Mass to be offered only for his conversion (c. 2262, §2). Wherefore even after death he is deprived of suffrages. But nothing stands in the way that solemn funeral rites be done for a catechumen.

Application is made privately when public pronouncement is omitted and the name of him for whom celebration is made is not expressed in the Mass (cf. Cappello, op. c., I, n. 620, 2).

The scandal to be removed here is especially the offense of the faithful who, in certain circumstances, conscious of the celebration having been made, would ascribe it to greed for profit or to a certain "indifferentism."

After c. 809, the various distinctions between heretics and infidels can now be passed over, distinctions which writers, relying on some particular responses of the Sacred Congregations, were accustomed to use, so that they spoke more severely about heretics and schismatics than about infidels (cf. Cappello, op. c., I, nn. 618, 619). But public celebration even for a ruler who has died in heresy is altogether prohibited (cf. briefs of Gregory XVI, February 16 and July 9, 1842, to the bishop of Augsburg and the abbot of the monastery of Scheyern, O.S.B.). But when he begins to reign, a solemn function for the prosperity of the kingdom can be arranged.

The things said thus far hold concerning the fruit of Mass from the work worked. But nothing prevents the priest and faithful from offering their celebration or participation in Mass as a good work for any living or deceased person who is not excluded by the nature of the thing.

A distinct question is raised, whether or not a stipend can be received from all (concerning which matter cf. de la Taille, Mysterium Fidei, p. 365 ff.). The solution depends on the very manner of understanding the stipend, concerning which there is treatment in t. II. Practically today the responses of the Holy See permit that, with scandal and all superstition set aside, a stipend be admitted from all for whom Mass can be offered (cf. also Nouvelle Revue Theologique, Hocedez, "Les fruits du sacrifice et le stipendium d'apres un livre recent," 1922, p. 522, etc.).

— IV. Conditions of the Application Itself. It is necessary that the application be objectively determined and made in due time.

1. For a confused application, for example, for someone out of ten, would be invalid. But determination can be made explicitly or implicitly, for example, as the Superior or sacristan has already established, as I noted in the little book. A disjunctive determination is admitted: according to the determination of the sacristan, if he shall have made any; but if not, in this way. It is validly made under a condition already fulfilled, but not under a future contingent condition: for him whom Titius, when asked, shall have wished; for him who first offers a stipend. Nor can it even be offered, as for a deceased person, for him who will die first. For God is judged to have adapted the efficacy of application to our human ways. Does the intention hold: according as God wills? Some deny it, because the celebrant seems to leave the determination to God; but others reply that the Mass is then applied by the celebrant to him to whom it is more pleasing to God that it be applied; and this will is certainly defined in God (cf. Noldin, III, 177, 3). By a like reason a Mass offered according to the mind of Christ or of the Blessed Virgin Mary is judged offered according to the intention more acceptable to Christ or to the Blessed Virgin Mary. But no doubt can be raised about the value of an application made for the soul more pleasing to God.

He who must satisfy several intentions can celebrate:

a) according to the order of priority of right: then in itself he first celebrates for him who first paid the stipend. Yet if there is a just cause for preferring some intention which is later in time, account is taken of this cause; and if several were equal in time and right, then several Masses seem to be offered for these together. Indeed they judge this to be the implicit intention of him who discharges several stipends; and an implicit intention suffices;

b) according to the order defined by the Superior or by the distributor. This also seems to be the implicit intention of the celebrant. Indeed if there is some contrariety or diversity between the direct intention of the celebrant and that of the Superior or distributor, the celebrant is to be thought rather to have accommodated himself to the order of the Superior or distributor. But lest disagreements of this kind arise, it will be better above all to will to celebrate according to the mind of the Superior or distributor, and, if these have established no order, according to the order of priority;

c) for all intentions at once. This certainly can be done for a definite and not excessive number of Masses which equally urge. And then that collective mode is best, since there are those who hold that the fruit of the Mass is not diminished for individuals because the Mass is offered collectively for several. But if the intentions urge unequally, care must be taken against the danger lest the more urgent be deprived of the full usefulness of the Masses. If too many intentions are joined in this way, satisfaction will not be made for several except too late. And if the number has not been defined, but always new intentions are added, some one intention will never obtain an entire Mass.

Wherefore the Sacred Penitentiary, December 7, 1892, while it declared that collective application is lawful, prudently added: "provided that satisfaction be made integrally for the Masses within the time prefixed by ecclesiastical practice, and that Masses which are offered for a certain day or for an urgent cause are not delayed."

And so by these reasons applications can be defined when stipends are given by many unknown persons, for example, are found placed in a common box. Nor does it matter if these intentions are divided among several priests. And approved authors, indeed the Sacred Penitentiary itself, in its response of December 7, 1892 (Analecta ecclesiastica, II, 33), interpret very benignly that obligation of defining the application, so that they judge that he satisfies who, thinking explicitly of no order, says individual Masses out of several accepted "according to the intention of the giver." Yet a tolerated use is one thing, a recommended use another. And certainly it cannot be denied that he will act more piously, more reverently toward the sacrifice of the Mass, more suitably to the mind of the offerers, who, according as there is supply, accepts or distributes Masses in such a way that the celebrants know what kind of application has been requested: for the sick, for the dead, in thanksgiving. Nor will it be useless for the same to be made conscious of a more liberal alms, so that they may respond to the munificence of the benefactor with greater attention and fervor.

Concerning this order of intentions, cf. Lehmkuhl, Theol., II, 157, and Casus, II, 207, 206; Ferreres, II, 459-461; Noldin, III, 177, 179.

— 2. Besides, application must be made in due time, that is, a) either before the sacrifice; and, because it has the character of donation, an application once made remains unless it is revoked, so that generally habitual application from an intention which, for example, was conceived at the beginning of the month suffices; b) or during the sacrifice. And because the sacrifice is not yet complete, an application which has been made between the first and the other consecration probably suffices.

Palmieri, Op. th., IV, 1040, indeed objects that this intention does not influence the whole sacrifice, since it arrives after part of its essence has passed. But the sacrifice is not composed of two successive essential parts; rather it is one action which is begun by the first consecration and perfected by the other. After the first consecration, the sacrifice does not yet exist, and therefore is not applied; simultaneously with the other consecration it exists and is applied. Made after the sacrifice, or after both consecrations, it does not hold, because the priest cannot suspend an effect which, when the sacrifice exists, is immediately produced.

— Corollaries or Scholia. 1. An application made to a living person whom you thought dead, of a Mass commanded for a deceased person, strictly speaking does not hold. For the end of destroying punishments which remain to be paid after death cannot be obtained by the Mass. Nevertheless, if the person is pious, whose faults before death can be judged to have been destroyed, the application of satisfactory fruit is more abundant and more certain if it is made to the living person than to the deceased. Therefore if you wished, which can easily be presumed, to attribute absolutely the satisfactory fruit to him whom you thought dead, you benefit him more than if you had awaited death. Wherefore then it can probably be supposed that the celebration is ratified by the offerer (cf. Noldin, III, 179, 3, and Cappello, I, 607, who seems to concede this more generally).

That opinion can be confirmed by this reason, that in a celebrant for a stipend the prevailing intention is deservedly supposed to be that of celebrating according to the mind of the offerer; but he who freely celebrates for obtaining some definite grace for someone will generally have the principal intention of celebrating for his good.

2. He who has conceived several intentions opposed to one another is judged to have applied the Mass to the prevailing one. But in itself the later intention prevails, even if the priest had been disposed in such a way that, if he had thought of the former, he would not have conceived another. In order that the later not prevail, it is necessary that the former will have been so absolute that it virtually invalidated the other in advance. But if this is not clear, nothing remains except that on the following day the priest celebrate for whichever of the two intentions has in reality remained inefficacious (cf. Lehmkuhl, II, 356, 3).

And you should note well that one intention cannot prevail over another unless both concurred, or existed at the same time; therefore not if one, even through error, either did not yet exist or had been revoked or dismissed.

Examples. The prior intention is judged to prevail if it was owed on that day, while the other was free; if it was of continuing a Gregorian series, while the other intention, even for a stipend, could be deferred; if the celebrant applies a Mass accepted for a deceased person to a deceased woman through error; in this case the predominating intention is that of celebrating according to the intention of the petitioner (cf. Noldin, III, 179, 3, and Berardi, Praxis Confessarii, n. 3515).

3. If application has been omitted or made invalidly, the fruit from the work of the worker will profit the celebrating priest; from the work worked it will remain in the infinite treasury of the Church, unless you think that then, by the implicit intention of the celebrant, the Mass is applied to himself.

But the intention of the one giving or offering the stipend is judged to be this: that a Mass useless to him to whom it is applied should yield to his own good or that of his own, or of those to whom he is most obliged (cf. Lugo, d. 19, n. 225 ff.; Lehmkuhl, II, 255).

— Division of the Application among Several. 1. The Eucharistic, impetratory, propitiatory, and satisfactory fruit of the Mass can in itself be divided and applied, some to some persons and others to others.

2. Yet he who must sacrifice from justice for some intention is permitted to subtract nothing from the solid fruit, and only, with the integrity of application to this intention preserved, can he conceive another.

3. He who must apply Mass only from obedience, or by statute of an institute, seems to several, for example Bucceroni, III, 621, and Gury after Gobat, able to divide the fruits, because this is done with the end of the law intact, and the obligation is not to be extended beyond the end of the law. Therefore a Mass prescribed for someone other than a deceased person could besides be applied for liberating a soul; one prescribed in thanksgiving will have left free the disposition concerning the impetratory, propitiatory, and satisfactory fruit.

Yet the souls of the dead are aided more if, together with the satisfactory fruit, you apply also the impetratory fruit to them, especially since some think that the application of the satisfactions of Christ is made through impetration. And so there will almost always be reason for acting otherwise, so that the author of the benign opinion, Gobat, confesses that he never used the same.

4. He who is held only by a liberal promise is hindered by no obstacle from division of the fruits among intentions which have been freely undertaken at the same time and are of diverse character, such as of thanksgiving and of satisfaction for the deceased. For the priest is judged to have promised what is the minimum. Indeed some permit that he who has promised the sacred rite to ten persons fulfill those promises by one sacred rite. But since today the opinion concerning the extensive infinity of application is much less received in the schools, and he who promised the sacred rite to one person is not understood merely to give a part of a sacred rite already promised or to be promised to others, he must be said to deceive the promisees who does not simply open his mind, by which he thinks of offering one sacred rite for several together.

5. But he who has vowed the sacred rite is held according to his own intention.

— What it is to sacrifice in a second or third intention is shown by the things just said. It tends to this, that, with the integrity of the first application preserved under every respect, you apply the special fruit by a subsidiary intention, insofar as you subtract nothing from the first, or if the first has been frustrated; or even that you ask God that, notwithstanding the usefulness of it for him for whom the sacred rite is primarily offered, he nevertheless, in consideration of the sacrifice, will to bestow also this grace on another. By this latter reason, a second intention scarcely differs from a special commemoration made in the Memento, except that application must precede consecration.

— V. Efficacy of the Application. 1. The Mass is propitiatory and satisfactory insofar as it effects or impetrates the application of the satisfactions and merits of the cross (cf. Billot, Euch., thesis 55). If the principal impetrating cause, or Christ, is considered, the effect of the Mass is absolutely infallible. If the object which is requested is considered, because from its institution it is directed definitely to the remission of sins, it infallibly, as regards the destruction of faults, confers actual helps by which man disposes himself either to expiate venial faults, or to obtain justifying and sanctifying grace through the use of the sacrament of penance, whether in reality or in desire; and it infallibly remits several punishments owed for pardoned faults. Other things requested are not obtained infallibly, unless they are expedient for salvation and are according to the ordinary laws of Providence. With attention to the subject, punishments are not remitted except those which, because of faults dismissed, are owed by him who is in the state of grace. The other effects also demand disposition; but what sort it must be is less clear. As we said in Quaestiones De religione, chapter De oratione, n. 24, begun penance, or conversion to God, seems required.

2. Defect of disposition also diminishes the force of application. Indeed in the deceased of purgatory the present dispositions are excellent. But their capacity can vary according to the degree of their charity or the devotion and faith which they had on earth.

3. Finally, the application of Mass is made infallibly to that living disposed person for whom it is offered. But is it made infallibly to that soul of purgatory for whom Mass is said? Some affirm this, for example C. Billot, l. c.; Bucceroni, III, 613 bis. Others, however, whom Genicot follows, II, 222, deny the same: for there can be just causes in the past life because of which God does not will the satisfactions of the cross to profit them here and now, unless perhaps he is appeased by several sacred rites offered and satisfactory works of the living. This opinion more easily explains the use of very frequently offering the sacred rite for the same soul.

— Suffrages before Death. Those are in no way to be disapproved, indeed they are to be praised, who, while they live, anticipate suffrages for themselves by sacred rites already celebrated. For a living man certainly shares all the fruits, while concerning the deceased it is less clear whether or not any fruit besides the satisfactory profits them. A living man can also assist at Mass and even by this reason be an offerer. He also in itself merits more, while he himself deprives himself of stipends, rather than merely burdening his inheritance with that burden. Add the greater security about faithful fulfillment of the burdens (cf. Ballerini-Palmieri, IV, 1044, and Cappello, I, 607). Benedict XV himself embraced these reasons in a letter which, on May 31, 1921, he wrote in the form of a Brief concerning the sodality of the Good Death (Tinchebray): "It is especially to be considered that the fruits which are received from the sacred rite profit men far more abundantly while living than after death, since they are applied to the former, if well disposed and arranged, more directly, more certainly, and more abundantly than to the latter. Hence it comes about that, with the gift of perseverance, we should seek for ourselves the faculty of obtaining, while still living, both the appeasing of God's justice and the punishment which would remain for us in the fire of purgatory either wholly removed or at least greatly diminished. But if sufficiently many forgetful and ungrateful men have been accustomed to commit this, that they neglect to have the august Sacrifice offered for the expiation of the souls of those whom they seemed to hold most dear, there are in greater number those who, with grave loss of spiritual utilities, are ignorant of this: that the sacrifice of Mass which they themselves, while living, shall have had offered, will profit them much more than that which their heirs, relatives, or friends shall have commanded to be offered for their relief after death" (A. A. S., 13, 344).

Yet it is clear that those suffrages avail for punishments owed at the time when they are offered, but not for extinguishing future debts.