Benefits of Mass without a congregation

Upvote:2

What benefits for the Church or the faithful arise from the celebration of mass without congregation? What other reason compels priests to say mass without congregation?

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is of infinite value before God, whether celebrated with a congregation or without a congregation.

The Infinite Value of the Holy Mass

The Holy Mass is the highest form of worship. It is the sacrifice of Calvary renewed. One Mass gives God more praise and thanksgiving and makes more atonement for sin and pleads more eloquently than does the combined eternal worship of all the souls in heaven, on earth and in purgatory. In the Holy Mass, it is Jesus Christ, God, as well as Man, who is our Intercessor, our Priest and our Victim. Being God – as well as Man – His prayers, merits and His offerings are infinite in value.

The Mass is the best means we have:

To render God the highest form of worship.

To thank Him for all His blessings.

To obtain reparation for all our sins.

To obtain all the blessings we desire.

To release souls from purgatory and shorten our own time there.

To preserve us from all dangers to soul and body.

To be consoled at the hour of death, for at that moment their memory will be our greatest consolation.

To intercede for us at the Judgment Seat of God.

To bring down God's blessings; therefore try to assist at Mass every day, or as often as possible

To better understand the sublimity of the Passion of Christ, and therefore, to increase our love for Him.

Other situations that historically have lead to priests or bishops saying Mass without any congregation or server at all, would be to isolation in prison (solitary imprisonment) because of their faith and being a missionary in lands where no faithful live.

Blessed Charles de Foucauld said Mass alone while in Algeria because of a lack of Catholic faithful in that country.

Charles received special Vatican permission to say Mass alone and to reserve the Eucharist in a tabernacle in his small hut. He worked on various projects with the twenty families who inhabited the nearby village, especially children, the aged, and the sick. The locals called him Marabout, or, "the holy one." - Charles de Foucauld: A life hidden with Christ

Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan is an example of on saying Mass in private and alone in prison while being persecuted by communists.

Ken Graham 65224

Upvote:4

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has intrinsic value, apart from the congregation.

A Mass without a congregation is called a private Mass (Missa privata), and it has just as much intrinsic value (valor intrinsecus) as a Mass with a congregation.

[I]n view of the infinite worth of Christ as the Victim and High Priest in one Person, the [Holy] sacrifice [of the Mass] must be regarded as of infinite value, just as the sacrifice of the Last Supper and that of the Cross.

^{—J. Pohle, Catholic Encyclopedia, "Sacrifice of the Mass" §"The Causality of the Mass", §§"The Effects of the Sacrifice of the Mass"; cited in: Fr. Chad Ripperger, "The Merit of a Mass", p. 21}

The priest alone causes transubstantiation.

Pius XII's 1947 encyclical on the liturgy, Mediator Dei, condemns the error that a congregation is necessary for a Mass:

Some in fact disapprove altogether of those Masses which are offered privately and without any congregation, on the ground that they are a departure from the ancient way of offering the sacrifice; moreover, there are some who assert that [multiple] priests cannot offer Mass at different altars at the same time, because, by doing so, they separate the community of the faithful and imperil its unity; while some go so far as to hold that the people must confirm and ratify the sacrifice if it is to have its proper force and value.

They are mistaken in appealing in this matter to the social character of the eucharistic sacrifice, for as often as a priest repeats what the divine Redeemer did at the Last Supper, the sacrifice is really completed. Moreover, this sacrifice, necessarily and of its very nature, has always and everywhere the character of a public and social act, inasmuch as he who offers it acts in the name of Christ and of the faithful, whose Head is the divine Redeemer, and he offers it to God for the holy Catholic Church, and for the living and the dead.⁸⁸ This is undoubtedly so, whether the faithful are present—as we desire and commend them to be in great numbers and with devotion—or are not present, since it is in no wise required that the people ratify what the sacred minister has done.

^{88. Roman Missal, Canon of the Mass.}

^{This error that Pope Pius XII condemned found its way into the 1969 Institutio Generalis's Protestant-friendly definition of the Mass, which was subsequently corrected.}

Private Masses valid.

Council of Trent sess. 22 can. 8:

If any one saith, that masses, wherein the priest alone communicates sacramentally, are unlawful, and are, therefore, to be abrogated: let him be anathema.
_{Si quis dixerit, missas, in quibus solus sacerdos sacramentaliter communicat, illicitas esse ideoque abrogandas: anathema sit.}