Roman Missal

2002 edition of the Missale Romanum

The Roman Missal (Latin: Missale Romanum) is the liturgical book that contains the texts and rubrics for the celebration of the Mass in the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.

History

Situation before the Council of Trent

Before the high Middle Ages, several books were used at Mass: a Sacramentary with the prayers, one or more books for the Scriptural readings, and one or more books for the antiphons and other chants. Gradually, manuscripts came into being that incorporated parts of more than one of these books, leading finally to versions that were complete in themselves. Such a book was referred to as a Missale Plenum (English: "Full Missal"). In 1223 Saint Francis of Assisi instructed his friars to adopt the form that was in use at the Papal Court (Rule, chapter 3). They adapted this missal further to the needs of their largely itinerant apostolate. Pope Gregory IX considered, but did not put into effect, the idea of extending this missal, as revised by the Franciscans, to the whole Western Church; and in 1277 Pope Nicholas III ordered it to be accepted in all churches in the city of Rome. Its use spread throughout Europe, especially after the invention of the printing press; but the editors introduced variations of their own choosing, some of them substantial. Printing also favoured the spread of other liturgical texts of less certain orthodoxy. The Council of Trent recognized that an end must be put to the resulting confusion.

From the Council of Trent to the Second Vatican Council

"Missale Romanum": a 1915 printing of the 1884 typical edition

Implementing the Council's decision, Pope Pius V promulgated, in the Apostolic Constitution Quo Primum on 14 July 1570, an edition of the Roman Missal that was to be in obligatory use throughout the Latin Church except where there was a traditional liturgical rite that could be proved to be of at least two centuries’ antiquity.

Some corrections to Pope Pius V's text proved necessary, and Pope Clement VIII replaced it with a new typical edition of the Roman Missal on 7 July 1604. (In this context, the word "typical" means that the text is the one to which all other printings must conform.). A further revised typical edition was promulgated by Pope Urban VIII on 2 September 1634.

Beginning in the late seventeenth century, France and neighbouring areas saw a flurry of independent missals published by bishops influenced by Jansenism and Gallicanism. This ended when Bishop Pierre-Louis Parisis of Langres and Abbot Guéranger initiated in the nineteenth century a campaign to return to the Roman Missal. Pope Leo XIII then took the opportunity to issue in 1884 a new typical edition that took account of all the changes introduced since the time of Pope Urban VIII. Pope Pius X also undertook a revision of the Roman Missal, which was published and declared typical by his successor Pope Benedict XV on 25 July 1920.

A French prayerbook of 1905 containing extracts from the Roman Missal and the Roman Breviary of the time with French translations

Though Pope Pius X's revision made few corrections, omissions and additions to the text of the prayers in the Roman Missal, there were major changes in the rubrics, changes which were not incorporated in the section entitled "Rubricae generales", but were instead printed as an additional section under the heading "Additiones et variationes in rubricis Missalis".

In contrast, the revision by Pope Pius XII, though limited to the liturgy of only five days of the Church's year, was much bolder, requiring changes even to canon law, which until then had prescribed that, with the exception of Midnight Mass for Christmas, Mass should not begin more than one hour before dawn or later than one hour after midday. In the part of the Missal thus thoroughly revised, he anticipated some of the changes affecting all days of the year after the Second Vatican Council. These novelties included the first official introduction of the vernacular language into the liturgy for renewal of baptismal promises within the Easter Vigil celebration.^[1][2][3]

Pope Pius XII issued no new typical edition of the Roman Missal, but authorized printers to replace the earlier texts for Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil with those that he began to introduce in 1951 and that he made universally obligatory in 1955.^[4] The Pope also removed from the Vigil of Pentecost the series of six Old Testament readings, with their accompanying Tracts and Collects, but these continued to be printed.

Acceding to the wishes of many of the bishops, Pope Pius XII judged it expedient also to reduce the rubrics of the missal to a simpler form, a simplification enacted by a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites of 23 March 1955.^[5] The changes this made in the General Roman Calendar are indicated in General Roman Calendar of Pope Pius XII.

In the following year, 1956, while preparatory studies were being conducted for a general liturgical reform, Pope Pius XII surveyed the opinions of the bishops on the liturgical improvement of the Roman breviary. After duly weighing the answers of the bishops, he judged that it was time to attack the problem of a general and systematic revision of the rubrics of the breviary and missal. This question he referred to the special committee of experts appointed to study the general liturgical reform.^[6]

His successor, Pope John XXIII, issued a new typical edition of the Roman Missal in 1962. This incorporated the revised Code of Rubrics which Pope Pius XII's commission had prepared, and which Pope John XXIIII had made obligatory with effect from 1 January 1961. In the Missal this Code of Rubrics replaced two of the documents in the 1920 edition; and the Pope's motu proprio Rubricarum instructum took the place of the superseded the Apostolic constitution Divino afflatu of Pope Pius X.

Other notable innovations were the omission of the adjective "perfidis" in the Good Friday Prayer for the Jews and the insertion of the name of Saint Joseph into the Canon (or Eucharistic Prayer) of the Mass.

Revision of the Missal following the Second Vatican Council

Roman Missal in Esperanto (1995)

In 1965 and 1967 some changes were officially introduced into the Roman-Rite liturgy of the Mass in the wake of decisions of the Second Vatican Council, but no new edition of the Roman Missal was produced to incorporate them. They were reflected in the provisional vernacular translations produced in various countries when the language of the people began to be used in addition to Latin. References sometimes met in an English-language context to "the 1965 Missal" concern these temporary vernacular productions, not the Roman Missal itself. Even countries that had the same language used different translations and varied in the amount of vernacular admitted.

A new edition of the Roman Missal implementing the Council's decisions was promulgated by Pope Paul VI with the apostolic constitution Missale Romanum of 3 April 1969. The full text of the revised Missal was not published until the following year, and full vernacular translations appeared much later, but parts of the Missal in Latin were already available since 1964 in non definitive form and provisional translations appeared without delay.

In his apostolic constitution, Pope Paul made particular mention of the following significant changes that he had made in the Roman Missal:

• To the single Canon of the previous edition (which, with minor alterations, was preserved as the "First Eucharistic Prayer or Roman Canon") he added three alternative Eucharistic Prayers, increasing also the number of prefaces.
• The rites of the Order of Mass (in Latin, Ordo Missae) - that is, the largely unvarying part of the liturgy - were "simplified, while due care is taken to preserve their substance". "Elements which, with the passage of time, came to be duplicated, or were added with but little advantage" were eliminated, especially in the rites for the presentation of the bread and wine, the breaking of the bread, and communion.
• "'Other elements which have suffered injury through accidents of history are now to be restored to the earlier norm of the Holy Fathers' (Sacrosanctum Concilium, art. 50), for example, the homily (see Sacrosanctum Concilium, art. 52), the 'common prayer' or 'prayer of the faithful' (see Sacrosanctum Concilium, art. 53), the penitential rite or act of reconciliation with God and the brothers, at the beginning of the Mass".^[7]
• He greatly increased the proportion of the Bible read at Mass. Even before Pius XII reduced the proportion further, only 1% of the Old Testament and 16.5% of the New Testament was read at Mass. In Pope Paul's revision, 13.5% of the Old Testament and 71.5% of the New Testament are read.^[8] He was able to do this by having more readings at Mass and introducing a three-year cycle of readings on Sundays and a two-year cycle on weekdays.

In addition to these changes, the Pope noted that his revision considerably modified other sections of the Missal, such as the Proper of Seasons, the Proper of Saints, the Common of Saints, the Ritual Masses and the Votive Masses, adding: "In all of these changes, particular care has been taken with the prayers: not only has their number been increased, so that the new texts might better correspond to new needs, but also their text has been restored on the testimony of the most ancient evidences."

More recent changes

A new typical edition, the second with minor changes followed in 1975. In 2000, Pope John Paul II approved yet another typical edition, which appeared in 2002, with the indication "Editio Typica Tertia" (Third Typical Edition).

The corrected 2008 reprint of that edition ("Editio Typica Tertia Emendata"), issued under Pope Benedict XVI, corrected misprints and some other mistakes (such as the insertion at the beginning of the Apostles' Creed of "unum", as in the Nicene Creed). A supplement gives celebrations, such as that of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, added to the Roman Catholic calendar of saints after the initial printing of the 2002 typical edition.

Three alterations required personal approval by Pope Benedict XVI:

• A change in the order in which a bishop celebrating Mass outside his own diocese mentions the local bishop and himself
• Omission from the Latin Missal of the Eucharistic Prayers for Masses with Children (which, for now, may continue to be included in vernacular Missals)
• The addition of three alternatives to the standard dismissal at the end of Mass, Ite, missa est (Go forth, the Mass is ended):
  • Ite ad Evangelium Domini annuntiandum (Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord)
  • Ite in pace, glorificando vita vestra Dominum (Go in peace, glorifying the Lord with your life)
  • Ite in pace (Go in peace)^[9]

Continued use of earlier editions

As was stated authoritatively by Pope Benedict XVI in his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal was never juridically abrogated and may be freely used by any priest of the Latin Rite when celebrating Mass without the people. The priest in charge of a church may grant permission for its use in parishes for stable groups attached to this earlier form of the Roman Rite, provided that the priest using it is "qualified to do so and not juridically impeded" (as for instance by suspension). The 1962 edition is that used habitually by priests of traditionalist fraternities such as the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter and the Personal Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney.

In addition, some priests in what has been called "a situation of separation"^[10] also celebrate Mass publicly using editions of the Missale Romanum other than the latest. They include members of the Society of St. Pius X, who use the 1962 typical edition, and of the Society of St. Pius V, who use an earlier edition. For information on the calendars included in earlier editions (a very small part of the full texts), see General Roman Calendar of 1962, General Roman Calendar of Pope Pius XII, General Roman Calendar as in 1954 and Tridentine Calendar.

Official English translations

The International Commission on English in the Liturgy quickly prepared an English translation of the 1970 Roman Missal, which was approved by the individual English-speaking episcopal conferences and, after being reviewed by the Holy See, was put into effect in each of their countries, beginning with the United States in 1973.

The authority for the episcopal conferences, with the consent of the Holy See, to decide on such translations was granted by the Second Vatican Council.^[11][12]

On 28 March 2001, the Holy See issued the Instruction Liturgiam authenticam, which included the requirement that, in translations of the liturgical texts from the official Latin originals, "the original text, insofar as possible, must be translated integrally and in the most exact manner, without omissions or additions in terms of their content, and without paraphrases or glosses. Any adaptation to the characteristics or the nature of the various vernacular languages is to be sober and discreet." In the following year, the third typical edition of the revised Roman Missal in Latin was released. These two texts made clear the need for a new official English translation of the Roman Missal, particularly because the previous one was at some points an adaptation rather than strictly a translation. An example is the rendering of the response "Et cum spiritu tuo" (literally, "And with your spirit") as "And also with you". Accordingly, the International Commission for English in the Liturgy prepared, less hurriedly than the first time, a new English translation of the Roman Missal, the completed form of which received the approval of the Holy See in April 2010.^[13] In most English-speaking countries, the national episcopal conference decided to put the new translation into use from the first Sunday of Advent (27 November) 2011.

The Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference (Botswana, South Africa, Swaziland) put into effect the changes in the people's parts of the revised English translation of the Order of Mass^[14] from 28 November 2008, when the Missal as a whole was not yet available. Protests were voiced on grounds of content^[15][16][17] and because it meant that Southern Africa was thus out of line with other English-speaking countries.^[18] One bishop claimed that the English-speaking conferences should have withstood the Holy See's insistence on a more literal translation.^[19] However, when in February 2009 the Holy See declared that the change should have awaited completion of work on the Missal, the bishops conference appealed, with the result that those parishes that had adopted the new translation were directed to continue using it, while those that had not were told to await further instructions before doing so.^[20]

The new official translation of the entire Order of Mass is available on the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops,^[21] which also provides a comparison between the new text of the people's parts and that hitherto in use in the United States (where the version of the Nicene Creed is slightly different from that in other English-speaking countries).^[22]

Pope Benedict XVI remarked: "Many will find it hard to adjust to unfamiliar texts after nearly forty years of continuous use of the previous translation. The change will need to be introduced with due sensitivity, and the opportunity for catechesis that it presents will need to be firmly grasped. I pray that in this way any risk of confusion or bewilderment will be averted, and the change will serve instead as a springboard for a renewal and a deepening of Eucharistic devotion all over the English-speaking world."^[23]

The plan to introduce the new English translation of the missal has not been without critics. Over 22,000 electronic signatures, some of them anonymous, were collected on a web petition to ask the Bishops, Cardinals and the Pope to reconsider the new translation.^[24] There has been much debate, for and against, on the subject,^[25] and even open dissent from some laity.^[26]

With this purpose in view, the various English-speaking episcopal conferences arranged catechesis on the Mass and the Missal. Information is available on the Internet about the plans of the conferences of England and Wales, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.

Other initiatives include the publication by the United States-based Catholic News Agency of a series of ten articles on the revised translation.^[27]

See also

• Sacramentary
• The Mass
• Pre-Tridentine Mass
• Tridentine Mass
• Mass of Paul VI
• Liturgical books of the Roman Rite

References

1. ^ Presaging a Revolution, by Thomas A. Droleskey
2. ^ Liturgical Revolution, by Rev. Francesco Ricossa
3. ^ Traditio, April 2007
4. ^ Decree Maxima redemptionis nostrae mysteria (Acta Apostolicae Sedis 47 (1955) 838-847
5. ^ Motu proprio Rubricarum instructum, second paragraph
6. ^ Motu proprio Rubricarum instructum, third paragraph
7. ^ Missale Romanum. The internal references to Sacrosanctum Concilium are to the Constitution of the Second Vatican Council on the Sacred Liturgy.
8. ^ Lectionary Statistics
9. ^ A full account of the corrections, additions and emendations is given on pages 367-387 of the July-August 2008 issue of Notitiae, the bulletin of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. Some much less detailed information may also be found in an interview given by Cardinal Francis Arinze.
10. ^ Interview of Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos in the monthly publication "30Days", September 2005).
11. ^ "It is for the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned in Art. 22, 2, to decide whether, and to what extent, the vernacular language is to be used; their decrees are to be approved, that is, confirmed, by the Apostolic See. And, whenever it seems to be called for, this authority is to consult with bishops of neighbouring regions which have the same language. Translations from the Latin text into the mother tongue intended for use in the liturgy must be approved by the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned above" (Sacrosanctum Concilium, Second Vatican Council, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, art. 36, 3-4).
12. ^ Code of Canon Law, canon 455
13. ^ ICEL news
14. ^ A pastoral response to the faithful with regard to the new English Language Mass translations
15. ^ Liturgical Anger, an editorial by Gunther Simmermacher
16. ^ Letter by Fr John Conversett MCCJ
17. ^ Coyle IHM. Mass translations: A missed opportunity
18. ^ SABC response 3 February 2009
19. ^ Letter by Bishop Dowling
20. ^ Clarification on the Implementation of the New English Mass Translation in South Africa
21. ^ Order of Mass
22. ^ Changes in the People's Parts
23. ^ To Members and Consultors of the Vox Clara Committee, 28 April 2010
24. ^ What If We Just Said Wait?
25. ^ Pray Tell
26. ^ St. Leo Parish Council
27. ^ Preparing the way for the Roman Missal – 3rd Edition

External links

Full texts of the Missale Romanum

• 2002 third typical edition of the Vatican Roman Missal (electronic text)
• 1962 typical edition of the Roman Missal scanned in black and white
• 1920 typical edition: a 1957 printing with Pius XII's Holy Week revision but not his other changes of 1955, such as abolishing the Octaves of St Stephen, St John, etc. (electronic text)
• 1920 typical edition of the Roman Missal, with feasts updated to the late 1920s
• Missale Romanum published by Pustet, 1894 (1884 typical edition)
• Roman Missal, published by Pustet, 1862 (1634 typical edition, updated to 1862)
• Missale Romanum Mediolani, 1474, Henry Bradshaw Society

New (2011) English translation

• Order of Mass The new English translation as a web page and as downloadable e-books in ePub and Kindle format

Partial texts

• General Instruction of the Roman Missal of 2002 English translation, but with adaptations for the United States of America
• General Instruction of the Roman Missal of 2002 English translation, but with adaptations for England and Wales
• General Instruction of the Roman Missal of 2002 Latin text, free from adaptations for particular countries
• Promulgation of the Roman Missal Revised by Decree of the Second Vatican Council, 1969
• English translation of the Rubrics of the 1962 Roman Missal
• Ordo Missae of the 1962 Roman Missal with an English translation and audio of the (Latin) text
• Ordo Missae of the 1474 Missale Romanum

Further reading

• Goldhead Group, The (2010). New Translation of the English Roman Missal: A Comprehensive Guide and Explanation. Minneapolis: Lulu. ISBN 055786206X.  An exploration of the changes to the English Roman Missal affecting English speaking Catholics as of the First Sunday of Advent in 2011.