Mass with Only One Minister Participating

The General Instruction provides an order for Mass with only one minister participating. The priest follows the general shape of Mass while the minister supplies the assembly's responses, serves at the altar, reads where appropriate, and receives Communion. The small number does not turn the Eucharist into a private devotion or eliminate its public ecclesial character.

This form is not simply the ordinary congregational rite performed into an empty nave. The Missal specifies adaptations for the entrance, greetings, readings, preparation of the gifts, Communion, and conclusion. The altar is prepared before Mass or at the appropriate time, and gestures and spoken parts are observed according to the rubrics rather than multiplied for an audience that is not present.^[1]

Ordinarily the assisting minister answers the priest and performs the functions assigned in the rite. If the minister is not an instituted lector or acolyte, the person may carry out permitted functions under the general norms. One participant does not become a concelebrant, ordained deacon, or extraordinary minister merely because no one else is present.

The priest does not omit dialogical formulas on the assumption that they require a large congregation. He addresses the greeting and invitation to the participating minister, who responds. The homily can be given when appropriate, and the Prayer of the Faithful may be used; the Missal indicates which elements may be omitted rather than leaving every choice to convenience.

Canon 906 says that a priest is not to celebrate the Eucharistic sacrifice without the participation of at least some member of the faithful except for a just and reasonable cause. The exceptional case in which no minister responds is therefore not the form described by the heading Mass with Only One Minister Participating. Where it lawfully occurs, the priest adapts greetings, instructions, and the conclusion as the Missal directs.^[2]

The phrase private Mass has historically been used in several senses and can obscure these distinctions. The Church teaches that every valid Mass is an action of Christ and the Church, even when attendance is minimal, while also preferring actual participation and forbidding unnecessary isolation. Accurate scheduling and description identify who participates without suggesting that the Eucharist is the priest's private possession.