Mass Intentions for Life and Family 2025-2027

Because a solid society is built upon strong, healthy families, one parish per month in the Diocese of Rockford will pray a Mass intention that all families flourish in our universal call to holiness!

PRLCs, please sign up your parish for a Mass intention!

Beginning October 2025, one Mass per month at a parish in the Diocese will be celebrated for the intention of the “Sanctity and Protection of Human Life and Families in the Diocese of Rockford.” The LiFE Office will coordinate these intentions through you, our Parish Respect Life Coordinators. These Masses will cover the families of the Diocese with prayers for their holiness, asking God that we all respect the sanctity of human life and the teachings of the Church regarding marriage and family, and that we all flourish in our universal call to holiness! The list of churches and dates for already shceduled Masses with this special intention can be found below. We will continue these monthly intentions at least through 2027.

Steps to sign your parish up: As a PRLC, you are an important part of making sure these Mass intentions happen!

• Check with your pastor. Is he OK with the intention for life and family in the diocese at one of your parish’s weekend Masses in 2026 or 2027? This would be at any of the Saturday Vigil or Sunday Masses. Download a sample email here to use as a template to reach out to your pastor.
• If your pastor says “yes,” please contact the LiFE Office next to see which months during 2026 and 2027 are open for Masses. We will give you two to three months that are available and will hold these for you until you can contact the person in your parish who sets Mass intentions. Please try to do this as soon as possible after talking with our office.
• After getting two to three open months from the LiFE Office, contact the person who coordinates Mass intentions at your parish. Ask: Does your parish have any weekend Masses available for intentions during those open months? If yes, reserve one weekend Mass and give the coordinator at the parish this intention: “For the Sanctity and Protection of Human Life and Families in the Diocese of Rockford.” If your parish requires immediate payment for the intention, please pay for the intention. We will reimburse you via the LiFE Office Mass Intentions Form here. Alternatively, complete the same form telling us to send payment directly to the parish. Either way, we need this form completed to record your parish as praying and as a check request in writing for accounting purposes.
• About two months before the Mass, the LiFE Office will send the parish graphics to help promote this Mass and a suggested intention for the Prayers of the Faithful for Masses during that weekend. These will be emailed to the pastor, the bulletin editor that we have on file, and the PRLC. The LiFE Office will also send to the PRLC or pastor a set of prayer cards for life and family. The parish can distribute these to parishioners in whatever way it wishes; one idea is to hand the cards out after the Mass with the life and family intention. As a PRLC, please ask your pastor how he wants the distribute the prayer cards. At least one month before the Mass, encourage your respect life and family ministries teams to attend the Mass. Send a special invite to families through your school or Religious Education programs. (You can use the graphics provided by the LiFE Office as a basis for this invite.)
• We invite you to consider: Would your committee want to host refreshments or family activities after Mass as a way of drawing families to the parish? These added events would be an opportunity for your committee to bring the teachings of the Church to your families. See this web page for more ideas, but please be sure to get the OK from your pastor, and please be sure to get your parish’s approval for any activities, crafts, formation content, etc.

Please let us know if you have any questions, concerns, or ideas.

Thank you so much for helping to facilitate prayers for life and family in the Diocese of Rockford!