IT IS clear from the reports which have reached us that the custom of the midnight Mass of Christmas is spreading rapidly, so rapidly that it may be doubted whether the tradition itself and the safeguards which experience has shown to be necessary are at all generally observed, and whether this midnight Mass is not in some cases a transfer to Christmas of the New Year’s Eve Mass formerly celebrated by some sentimental Evangelicals. There seems often to be less thought of the old tradition than of the convenience of those whom Christmas work and festivity hinder from attendance at an early Mass. In other cases there is a disposition to regard a Mass beginning so early as eleven o’clock as a midnight Mass, which, of course, it is not. In others, again, little care seems to be taken to avoid the risk of casual and impulsive Communions on the part of those who drift into a church lighted and thronged at an unwonted hour. Roman Catholics in England found it necessary for many years to enforce strict regulations for the midnight Mass; nor even to-day, we believe, is it permitted in all places. In some of our own churches the custom of requiring communicants at the midnight Mass to notify their intention beforehand is still maintained. It will be well if next year a greater respect for tradition, and a greater vigilance in admitting to Communion, and even to the church itself, be observed.
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