Candlelight Mass bringing in Youth in France

[Stella]

"Every Tuesday evening at 10 p.m., between 800 and 900 students converge on the historic St. Joseph’s Chapel at Lille Catholic University for a candlelight Mass. This number has been growing month after month since the initiative was launched in 2016 and has significantly increased the number of new catechumens there journeying towards baptism.

For its initiators, this unexpectedly successful formula is a universal model to be exported to touch the souls of the vast number of young people who thirst for interiority in a world profoundly atomized by the expansion of the virtual world into all spheres of daily life."

https://www.ncregister.com/features/lit ... e-of-lille

Lilli Mass1.png

I completely understand the drawing of the Spirit at eventide Mass. My uncle would celebrate evening home Mass in candlelight before major family birthday/anniversary events and it was so soul uplifting.

[Kage_ar]

We used to have a Sunday evening mass, it was well attended by young people (and by us older folks). Even a 7 PM Mass on Sunday would be so welcome. Sadly, we do not have enough priests, Bishop only wants each priest to say 3 masses per day.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Can. 905 §1 Apart from those cases in which the law allows him to celebrate or concelebrate the Eucharist a number of times on the same day, a priest may not celebrate more than once a day.

§2 If there is a scarcity of priests, the local Ordinary may for a good reason allow priests to celebrate twice in one day or even, if pastoral need requires it, three times on Sundays or holydays of obligation.





Celebrating multiple Masses is not good for the spiritual health of a priest. I think it's a major contributor to priest burnout.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Several campus ministries have a 9 or 10 p.m. Mass on Sunday, with candles. It is often well-attended.

[peregrinator]

Bishop only wants each priest to say 3 masses per day.

Only? Trination (3 Masses per day) should ideally be rare - Christmas and All Souls

[Kage_ar]

Bishop only wants each priest to say 3 masses per day.

Only? Trination (3 Masses per day) should ideally be rare - Christmas and All Souls

When you have only one priest, no associate, and 3 masses which are full on Sunday (and we NEED a second Spanish Mass because people are hanging off the choir loft and packed like sardines at the one), that is what the Bishop allows. The only Mass with breathing room is the 8 AM and for some reason one cannot talk people into shifting to early morning, that one is almost exclusively older folks.

[peregrinator]

Yes, I understand that the bishop can allow a priest to celebrate as often as 3 times per day. But it is definitely not the ideal.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Most priests in the US have the requisite permissions on a permanent basis.

One of the goals of our diocesan parish reorganization is that no priest should have to celebrate more than three on a weekend (including the Saturday anticipated Mass).

[Doom]

The priest shortage is serious, according to a story in my diocesean newspaper, in 1988 there were 150 priests in the diocese, today there are 36, with 12 seminarians, not all of whom will be ordained.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

We're doing better than that here: 216 in 2000, 174 now. But we're going to keep dropping because priests are retiring faster than we're ordaining new ones.

[anawim]

Spread over 284 parishes, we have 665 diocesan priests (with an additional 559 religious that sometimes help out). That's up from 654 a couple of years before that. The trend had been a steady decline. We have a total of 4 Sunday Masses (1 on Sat., and 3 on Sun.). Other nearby parishes have 4 on Sun. We happen to have eliminated the 5:00 on Sun. afternoon/eve.

[Kage_ar]

Most priests in the US have the requisite permissions on a permanent basis.

One of the goals of our diocesan parish reorganization is that no priest should have to celebrate more than three on a weekend (including the Saturday anticipated Mass).

Bp Taylor does not count Saturday anticipated in the allowed 3. We have the regular 8 AM Mass on Saturday morning, then sometimes a Quincinera or Wedding Mass on Saturday afternoon then the anticipated at 5. My boss is looking at adding a second Saturday anticipated in Spanish, however, the community by and large works in the service industry and Sat evening is work time.

We are just too large of a parish not to have an associate, but, here we are.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

The anticipated Mass does not count against the three. It's three in a midnight-to-midnight period. There are people who hold that Saturday evening is its own quasi-day and doesn't count against either Saturday or Sunday, but there is no canonical/rubrical support that I'm aware of.

The attendance at the Masses is also a factor. If it's three Masses for a 1/4 full church, that's a lot harder to swallow than three for a 3/4 (or more) full church.

I realize that it's hard for people when "their" Mass goes away. It's harder when their priest goes away or stops caring.

[peregrinator]

We have the regular 8 AM Mass on Saturday morning, then sometimes a Quincinera or Wedding Mass on Saturday afternoon then the anticipated at 5. My boss is looking at adding a second Saturday anticipated in Spanish, however, the community by and large works in the service industry and Sat evening is work time.

Four Masses on Saturday would be more than what is allowed.

[Doom]

We are just too large of a parish not to have an associate, but, here we are.

Yeah, it would be nice if there were enough priests to do that, but when the number of priests declines by 76% in the space of 30 years, the result is that "associate priests" no longer exist, regardless of the size of the parish

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Assistants have to exist because a priest needs some on-the-job training before he can do well as pastor of a parish. That internship used to be 10 years or so, and still is in a few places. But very often, a priest is sent out on his own after just a few years, which can be too soon.

[Kage_ar]

We are just too large of a parish not to have an associate, but, here we are.

Yeah, it would be nice if there were enough priests to do that, but when the number of priests declines by 76% in the space of 30 years, the result is that "associate priests" no longer exist, regardless of the size of the parish

We have a Diocese with more Seminarians per capita than many of the US Dioceses. Thing is, our Catholic population is also growing and we still can't keep up.

[Doom]

We are just too large of a parish not to have an associate, but, here we are.

Yeah, it would be nice if there were enough priests to do that, but when the number of priests declines by 76% in the space of 30 years, the result is that "associate priests" no longer exist, regardless of the size of the parish

We have a Diocese with more Seminarians per capita than many of the US Dioceses. Thing is, our Catholic population is also growing and we still can't keep up.

Now, how many priests and seminarians did you have 35 years ago? If you're like every other diocese in the west, and I bet you are, there was an entire order of magnitude more priests than there are today. My diocese is often ranked in the top 10 for vocations, and we have gone from 150 priests in 1988 to 36 today, and the number of parishes has been cut in half as a result, and this is supposedly a HEALTHY diocese.

[aussie_aussie_oi_oi]

In our diocese we had 1 ordination in the 1990s.
Since 2000 we have had 5 but have also had 10 Indian priests join us.
The number of regular Mass goers is about 10% of the nominal Catholics so there have not been many parish/mass closures.
The number of Australian born regular Mass goers is about 5%. In our area we have a large group of Indian, Sri Lankan, Vietnamese etc. and they have a much higher level of participation.

[Kage_ar]

Yeah, it would be nice if there were enough priests to do that, but when the number of priests declines by 76% in the space of 30 years, the result is that "associate priests" no longer exist, regardless of the size of the parish

We have a Diocese with more Seminarians per capita than many of the US Dioceses. Thing is, our Catholic population is also growing and we still can't keep up.

Now, how many priests and seminarians did you have 35 years ago? If you're like every other diocese in the west, and I bet you are, there was an entire order of magnitude more priests than there are today. My diocese is often ranked in the top 10 for vocations, and we have gone from 150 priests in 1988 to 36 today, and the number of parishes has been cut in half as a result, and this is supposedly a HEALTHY diocese.

https://www.catholicextension.org/stori ... 20parishes