Masses for Your Intentions
“It would be easier for the world to survive without the sun than to do without Holy Mass.” -St. Padre Pio
Offering a Mass for an Intention
The Dominican Friars are most happy to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for your intention upon receipt of your request. The amount of the offering for any Mass is left to your generosity. Because of the volume of Mass requests we receive, the Shrine cannot give a specific date when the Mass will be offered. However, be assured that it will be offered as promptly as possible, as we have many friars attending to our Mass requests.
Theology of Mass Stipend Offerings
“It is by faith in the power of our Lord’s passion, death, and resurrection, then, that we
request that Mass be said for some particular intention or person, living or deceased. And we
make an offering when we make that request, thereby joining ourselves with that particular
sacrifice of the Mass when it is offered. Is it necessary to make such an offering? No, it is not.
Our intention of having the Mass offered would be sufficient. But it is good to make an offering
ourselves, either the amount indicated by the bishops as appropriate or some amount more
or less, depending on our resources. We may ask that one or several Masses be said. It is up to
the priest whether or not to accept the offering, whether or not to offer the Mass we have
requested. But once he agrees to offer the Mass, he is bound to do so.
The issue of making offerings for Masses is therefore an issue of active participation in
the liturgy. We make offerings for Masses because of our ardent faith in the Mass as the sacrifice
of our Lord in which we have been invited to share, both for ourselves and for those for whom
we pray. We make offerings for Mass because we believe that Jesus indeed ‘lives ever to make
intercession for us,’ and that the Eucharist is the focal point of that intercession, the place where
it is made most available to us, according to our Lord’s will. May we always persevere in that
faith.” -Statement taken from Dodge City Diocesan Document on Mass Stipends [emphases ours]
