A: The original Eucharistic Prayer for Masses for Various Needs and Occasions is a Eucharistic prayer that was first composed for a Swiss Synod in the 1970s. It was admitted into the Mass by Pope Paul VI and subsequently approved for use in various national bishop’s conferences. It is a single prayer with four thematically arranged prefaces, each of which is integrally connected with variations in the intercessions of the Eucharistic prayer. In each of the four variations of this single prayer these special intercessions are related to a specific need being lifted up in prayer, which are variously apropos for the numerous Mass formularies given in the section of the Roman Missal, Masses for Various Needs and Occasions. It is for these Masses for Various Needs and Occasions that this Eucharistic Prayer for Masses for Various Needs and Occasions is intended. Therefore, it may be used when the Masses for Various Needs and Occasions may be used.

Since the Church celebrates the Liturgical Year in order to unfold the “whole mystery of Christ” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 102), the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) prescribes that the Masses for Various Needs and Occasions should “be used in moderation, that is, when truly required” (GIRM, 369). This limitation is prescribed in order not to obscure the Temporal Cycle of the liturgical year wherein the mystery of Christ permeates the days, weeks, and months of Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and Ordinary Time, in order to show forth the multifaceted marvels of the Mysteries of Salvation. Among the Masses outside the well-worn pages of the Temporal and Sanctoral cycles are the Masses for Various Needs and Occasions—as distinct from “Ritual Masses…and Votive Masses” (GIRM, 371). Through these numerous “formularies and orations…the various occasions of Christian life” are brought to the Father so that “every event in life [may be] sanctified by the divine grace that flows from the Paschal Mystery” (GIRM, 368).

The GIRM lays out the norms governing the offering of these Masses in numbers 368–378. While they should be used in moderation, they can be used on any weekday in Ordinary Time, even when an Optional Memorial occurs (see GIRM, 377). On “days when there occurs an Obligatory Memorial or on a weekday of Advent up to and including December 16, of Christmas Time from January 2, and of Easter Time after the Octave of Easter,” such Masses are “in principle forbidden” (GIRM, 376). However, if “some real necessity or pastoral advantage calls for it” the pastor or priest celebrant can offer such a Mass with the people. And, in “any case of a graver need or of pastoral advantage,” it is possible to celebrate one of the Masses for Various Needs and Occasions “at the direction of the Diocesan Bishop or with his permission…on any day except Solemnities, the Sundays of Advent, Lent, and Easter, days within the Octave of Easter, the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day), Ash Wednesday, and the days of Holy Week” (GIRM, 374).

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