Memorial Mass?
  • G
    Posts: 1,397
    Are the propers, collects and lectionary suggestions the same for a memorial Mass as for a funeral Mass?

    (Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
  • ContraBombarde
    Posts: 471
    I remember an older priest once telling me that, we in the Catholic church, don't have "memorial" masses, as if the deceased is only just a memory.

    The question your asking really entails more details. Do you have a body present or ashes? Or is it just a Mass in remembrance of the deceased?

    If it is a Mass in remembrance, with no body present or ashes, it is usually the readings, propers and collects of the day. Though I have seen situations where they used the readings, propers and prayers for the rite of Christian Burial. Perhaps one of the liturgy savvy could chime in on this one??
  • Protasius
    Posts: 468
    In the EF there is the missa quotidiana for a Mass for the Dead, that is neither a Funeral Mass nor a Mass on the Day of Burial/Death/Notification of Death/Mass on the 3rd, 6th or 30th day after Death; this Mass has the proper chants of the Requiem (including the sequence, unless it is a private Mass), the collects and lessons are special to this Mass for the Dead. It is celebrated in black as a Votive Mass.

    I suppose there is something similar in the OF.
    Thanked by 1Gavin
  • G
    Posts: 1,397
    This is for a Mass before interment, ashes present, after a funeral Mass with the body present, in a distant location.
    Ordinary form.

    (Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
  • Chris HebardChris Hebard
    Posts: 124

    You could use the rite of committal, instead of Mass. See the Order of Christian Funerals (USA 1989), # 212, which covers this situation. "The rite of committal may be celebrated in circumstances in which the final disposition of the body will not take place for some time, for example, . . . when ashes are to be interred at some time after cremation. The rite of committal may then be repeated on the later occasion when the actual burial or interment takes place. On the second occasion the rite may include a longer Scripture reading as well as a homily." These rubrics presume that there was a funeral mass already, with a first rite of committal observed after mass, when the body was conveyed to a cemetary chapel or funeral home.

    If Mass for the Dead is to be celebrated instead, then it can be taken from the Lectionary, and from the Roman Missal (USA 2011), page 1386+: "This Mass may be celebrated . . . on the day of final burial" on most weekdays, even during Lent.
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