In response to a query which has been raised on the list:
Canon 905 § 1 reads: "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."
The two exceptions which the canon has in mind are Christmas Day and
All Souls' Day, when a priest may offer three masses.
Canon 905 § 2 makes a further exception: "If there is a scarcity of
priests, the local Oridinary [i.e., for most purposes, the Bishop] may
allow priests, for good reason, to celebrate twice on one day or even,
if pastoral need requires it, three times on Sundays or holydays of
obligation."
What a priest may not do, except on Christmas Day and All Souls' Day,
is to accept more than one stipend for saying mass. In the Middle Ages
one does find instances of priests saying two masses a day in order to
pocket two stipends. This was known as "Bination" and was regarded as
a grave abuse. The norm was always one priest, one mass, as is
witnessed to by Chaucer's "Summoner's Tale":
"Trentals," seyde he [the friar] "deliveren fro penaunce
Hir freendes soules, as wel olde as yonge, -
Ye, what that they been hastily ysonge,
Nat for to holde a preest joly and gay -
He syngeth nat but o masse in a day."
Trentals were packages of thirty masses said, usually for the soul of a
deceased person, and paid for either out of the person's will or from
the charity of his or her family. The friar advises that these are
very efficacious for getting your friend's soul out of purgatory,
provided that they are said quickly. The priest says only one mass in
a day, and so he will take a month to say the thirty masses. The
friar's convent, having a number of priests, will of course be able to
say the masses much more quickly.
Thus, I am often called upon to say more than one mass a day - almost
always, on Sundays and holy days of obligation - but I can accept a
stipend for only one of them. I say the others free of charge.
Oriens.
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