I am getting ready to say my three Masses today. A note from a priest reader prompts to post.
On two days of the year, from the calendar and law itself a priest has the privilege of saying three Masses: Christmas and All Souls. On Christmas, he can keep three stipends for the Masses. That’s the only day of the year when he can do that. On All Souls he can keep one stipend and if he celebrates the other Masses they must be for the Poor Souls in Purgatory and, traditionally, for the Intentions designated by the Roman Pontiff. More on that Intentions thing, which also impacts on the gaining of indulgences, such as those for the dead this November HERE.
When the priest says his Masses back to back, the rubrics change a little in the Traditional Mass – which every priest really ought to know.
Pace Francis and the anti-Tradition machine, if a doesn’t know how to say the Traditional Latin Mass, then, if he is a Latin Rite priest, he doesn’t know his own rite. He is incomplete and ignorant in a culpable way.
Here are some rubrical changes for saying three Requiem Masses back to back. Click for larger.
After Communion of the 1st and 2nd Masses, the priest does NOT purify the chalice as usual, but rather places it on the corporal and covers it with the pall. He says the Quod ore sumpsimus and then purifies his fingers, saying the Corpus tuum while drying them. He removes the pall from the chalice, replaces the purificator and paten with a new host to be consecrated, covers with the pall and veil and places as for Mass. He must not remove the chalice from the corporal.
If he slips and purifies the chalice as habitual, he can still celebrate the other Masses.
At the second and third Masses, if celebrated right away, after removing the veil he sets the chalice still on the corporal toward the Epistle side. It helps to have a larger corporal today (as I do). He does not wipe the inside of the chalice with the purificator before putting in wine and water and he does not use the purificator on the inside of the cup.
If his Masses are not in a row, he purifies as usual, but should use only water in purifying the chalice (so he doesn’t break his Eucharistic fast). But if he slips and uses both wine and water, he can still celebrate Mass even within the three hours (that was prescribed at the time of the 1962 Missal).
