The Roman Catholic Mass (1570) Part I
Although the Roman Mass, standardized by directives of the Council of Trent (1570), is technically a post-Reformation document, it is not an innovation but rather the summation of the medieval development of western Catholic worship. Consequently the mass below is presented as part of the pre-Reformation liturgies as an example of ancient Catholic worship.
Introduction The English text which appears below is a translation of the Low Mass of the Latin Rite which was used from 1570 until the reforms following the Second Vatican Council, which began in 1962. The Roman Mass comprises two classes of material: the "ordinary" of the Mass, those parts that remain constant through all the seasons and celebrations of the church year, and the "proper" of the mass, those parts that vary according to the season, the Sunday of the year, or the particular commemoration of the day. In the Low Mass, the "ordinary" parts (Kyrie eleison, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei) were recited, whereas in the High Mass these would be sung by a choir or a schola cantorum. The Low Mass grew out of the medieval practice at the monastery of Cluny, where the priest was directed to read the sung portions in the absence of musicians. The text we read dates from the time of Pope Pius V in the wake of the Council of Trent in 1568. This rite endured with almost no change until the Second Vatican Council, which called for the revision of the missal in light of the historical and liturgical studies of the first part of this century. The word "Mass" comes from the last words of the rite where the priest dismissed the people with the words, "ite, missa est," meaning "Go, this is the dismissal" or "Go, you are sent." The book that governed the proper performance of the rite of the eucharistic liturgy was therefore called the Missal. It is important to understand the genesis and use of the Roman Missal to appreciate how the Roman rite enjoyed such great stability while suffering liturgical stagnation for almost four hundred years. Briefly the earlier medieval period was very fertile in liturgical production, a fact attested to by Joseph Jungmann, The Mass of the Roman Rite, and by Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy. Throughout the Middle Ages, there was a great proliferation of new and diverse prayers. Popular devotional prayers, as well as prayers to accompany the feasts of different saints, found their place in the Roman Missal. Medieval piety was nourished heavily by liturgical allegory, whereby invented and oftentimes fanciful meanings were overlaid upon the liturgical actions and words. The faithful, unable to participate directly in the Mass, were encouraged to pray the Paternoster in Latin, or in the vernacular if Latin were an impossibility for them. New prayers and hymns were composed and incorporated into prayerbooks to be recited and sung during Low Mass. For the illiterate, the recitation of communal prayers, such as the rosary, was the appropriate participation of the faithful. On the other hand, the Middle Ages witnessed the development of a eucharistic theology strongly sacrificial in nature, which determined the role of the presider as the sacerdotal offerer of the sacrifice. This idea made the Mass more of an exercise of private devotion of the priest. The theology stressed that each Mass was in itself a good and holy work and a new act of Christ himself through which he applied his sacrifice of redemption. The medieval theology tended to accentuate the privileged place of the priest, which led to certain liturgical abuses. Before the Missal was compiled, the rites of the church were scattered throughout a number of liturgical books such as the sacramentary, lectionary, and antiphonary, which were consolidated into this one book for the use of the priest in accomplishing his private Mass. Pope Gregory VII (1073–1085) tried to correct the sad ecclesial situation, marked by gross illiteracy of the clergy, by instituting a reform that included the liturgy. His ambitious program tried to restore the clerical mores as well as ecclesiastical discipline. The Gregorian reform, rather than truly reforming the liturgy, turned out to be a type of instruction given to the clergy so that they would know and recognize better the parts of the Mass, especially the canonical and liturgical rules. The final result of this reform was a movement of unification of the liturgy. It would be mistaken, however, to assume that absolute uniformity was achieved by the Gregorian reform. In Spain, for example, the liturgy of the Latin Rite entered with great difficulty, gradually supplanting the old Mozarabic rites. The Spanish bishops in the northern dioceses of Spain found a way to implant the official Roman rite by using monks from foreign lands. Little by little, the Roman rite gained ground in the Iberian peninsula, first in Aragon in 1071, then moving towards Castille in 1078. At the Council of Burgos in 1085, the local rite disappeared in favor of the official Latin rite, except for the cities of Valencia and Toledo, where special indulgence was granted to preserve the old Mozarabic rite. In Italy, an independent rite associated with St. Ambrose flourished in the city of Milan. All attempts to suppress this rite in favor of religious and political unity and liturgical uniformity in the West were thwarted. The success of the Gregorian reform, however, is attributed to two principal causes: the work of Franciscan mendicants in the thirteenth century and the influence of the printing press in the fifteenth century. The Franciscan order, founded by St. Francis of Assisi in the thirteen century, brought about two results regarding the Mass, namely abbreviation and unification. Formerly in Rome two kinds of liturgies coexisted. The basilica liturgy was known for its conservative and traditional quality, while the curial liturgy, which had been adapted to the needs of the papal chapel which moved about frequently, was much less traditional. The papal chapel adopted the missal, containing all the readings and prayers in one consolidated book, because these could be transported more easily. This later led to the adoption of the missal in an abbreviated form over the use of many different liturgical books. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, Innocent III officially established the Office of the Curia. The mendicant friars of St. Francis, renowned for their itinerant preaching, spread its use throughout Europe. In a papal decree of the Franciscan Pope Nicholas III, the abbreviated and simplified Mass supplanted the ancient basilica liturgy. In spite of the resistance at the basilicas of St. Peter and St. John Lateran, the new missal was rapidly adopted with only minor adaptations of the local churches who maintained the celebrations of local saints within the liturgical year. Shortly thereafter, by another official decree, the calendar of the saints was made universal for the church, unifying the Roman liturgy even more. In the fifteenth century, the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg aided in the widespread diffusion of the Roman Missal. This also lead to the disappearance of many liturgical elements which formerly had been conserved in the independent ancient rites. Prior to the printing press, the liturgical books had been copied by hand, which was slow and costly, but allowed for regional differences in the contents of the missal. The first printed missals appeared in 1457 in Constance, the diffusions center for the Rhenish region. Later, in 1474, the first Roman Missal was published in Milan and the following year in Rome. Other European capitals—like Paris, Lyons, Salisbury, Strasbourg, and Venice—followed suit and undertook the task of printing and distributing the new missal, contributing to even more widespread uniformity according to the Roman usage. A few notable exceptions to the liturgical simplification and uniformity can be found among the monastic and religious orders. The Dominicans, apparently heavily influenced by the basilica-style liturgy, launched their own reform of the liturgy between 1228 and 1238. The Cistercian Order had derived their liturgy from the important reformed Benedictine Abbey of Cluny, which conserved Franco-Roman usages. In 1618 they abandoned their ritual for the newly adopted Missal of Pius V. Other orders, such as the Premonstratensians and the Carmelites, blended their ancient liturgies with later liturgical customs. The need for liturgical reform, especially of the Roman Missal, was recognized from the time of Pope Pius II (1458–1464). During the pontificate of Sixtus IV, several feeble attempts at reform were enacted, especially in the area of liturgical chant at the celebrated Sistine Chapel (1473). Sixtus was formerly the Superior General of the Franciscan Order and favored Franciscan liturgical usage. For many historical reasons, it was necessary to wait for the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century for the long-needed liturgical reform. The liturgists, whose task it was to reform the Roman Missal, exhibited three distinct tendencies: humanist, traditionalist, and classicist. Acting on a mandate by Pope Leo X (1513–1521), the liturgical reformers first revised the hymns, having determined that this area had been impoverished by music of very poor taste. They produced a work which was almost completely new and brought about the flowering of the great age of polyphony. Beyond the musical dimension, several reforms were introduced to improve the liturgy: clarification of the legislation in liturgical matters through the use of rubrics (directions written in red ink); reformation of the Sunday cycle; revision of all the texts of the Mass, eliminating historical accretions to the liturgy of dubious origin and value; and simplification of certain historical additions, which would aid in a better execution of the liturgy. Various synods and regional councils sought more changes which would touch fundamental questions of liturgical reform. Partially in response to these requests, as well as to the demands of the Reformers North of the Alps and of the German Emperor Ferdinand I and the French King Charles IX, the Council of Trent, in its first session (1545–1547), undertook a larger reform of the liturgy. This program was approved during the second session (1547–1552) but was not fully implemented until the last session (1562–1563). The general tenets of Trent called for liturgical uniformity, while upholding the rights for individual diocesan usages which were more than 200 years old. Authorized by the twenty-fifth session of the council, Pope Pius IV began to promulgate the necessary decrees to insure the Tridentine reforms. The formation of a liturgical commission in 1564 was soon thereafter suspended, later to be reestablished in 1566. The next pope, Pius V, completed the work of Trent. The newly revised missal appeared in 1570 and contained several important points: simplification of the feasts of saints in order to reemphasize the priority of the Sunday cycle; suppression of numerous octaves (eight-day observances of certain feasts); and clarification of the rubrics. Although the Mass text fixed by the Council of Trent endured for almost four hundred years, liturgical art and architecture, music, and vessels continued to develop and change throughout the centuries. It would be impossible to describe the typical setting and celebration, since this varied from place to place and from century to century. A helpful study of these ancillary dimensions can be found in Edward Foley's From Age to Age (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 1991). In spite of these subtle changes, the impression that most Catholics had was of the invariability and timelessness of the Roman Rite. The fact that the performance of the liturgy was limited to the priests and servers rendered the faithful mere spectators and fostered the idea that the Mass was a fixed monument. The liturgy was considered as "a finished art-product, as a wondrous work of the Holy Spirit, and it is forgotten that in the service of this higher master, human hands had been at work through the centuries, probing and fumbling and, not always very happily, endeavoring to make the eternally incomplete as fit for its purpose as they could" (Jungmann, The Mass of the Roman Rite, vol. 1, 158). One consequence of this mistaken notion of the unchangeability of the Mass has provoked the reaction of some Catholics who do not accept the recent reform of the liturgy promulgated by Vatican II. The participation of the faithful was hindered for several reasons. First, the Latin language rendered most people incapable of following the action, let alone participating in the parts of the service designated as the people's response. Altar servers, therefore, responded in the name of the people. At the time of the Council of Trent, it became apparent that even many priests did not know Latin sufficiently to understand what they were praying. One of the tasks of Trent, therefore, was seminary reform, to ensure that seminarians would understand the Latin texts. Second, the attitude that the Mass was the sole property of the priest-presider fostered the notion that the faithful would be better served by prayer books and rosary beads to occupy their time during the Mass. One significant attempt to render the Latin Mass more intelligible by the faithful was the personal missal, where the Latin text was juxtaposed with a translation in the vernacular. The personal missal was not, however, intended to foster active participation on the part of the faithful, but rather was a means for them to follow passively the liturgical action. The introduction of the private missal met with negative reaction and the translation of the Latin prayers into the vernacular was forbidden. The intention of the church legislation in this prohibition was to retain a veil of mystery around the Mass. The Tridentine Missal delineated several different parts of the eucharistic liturgy, yet one can broadly uncover a liturgical shape comprised of four parts: the Mass of the Catechumens, the Offertory, the Canon, and the Communion. In the preface of the missal, in the section entitled "Ritus Servandus," detailed instructions are given to the priest as to the celebration of the Mass, beginning with the manner in which he is to prepare himself while vesting and how he is to proceed to the altar. These instructions go into greater detail, delineating all the various parts of the Mass, but in the interest of brevity and clarity, the four-part division mentioned above is helpful. Text: Order of Low Mass Mass of the Catechumens When the priest enters, those present rise and remain standing until he descends to the foot of the altar to begin Mass. They then kneel throughout the Mass except during the two Gospels, when they stand; but usage permits them to sit from the Offertory to the beginning of the Preface, and after the giving of Holy Communion until the reciting of the Communion antiphon. Commentary: The Mass of the Catechumens derives its name as a vestige of the liturgy of the early church when the catechumen (those preparing for Christian initiation) were still undergoing a lengthy period of preparation called the catechumenate. Since the catechumens were not yet initiated to the table, they could remain only for the liturgy of the Word before being dismissed. Gradually from the fourth century onwards, especially after the Edict of Milan in 313 c.e., the practice gradually moved away from adult baptism as normative to infant baptism. Although the practice changed, the liturgical division gives testimony to this historical fact. Text: The priest crosses himself and says aloud: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. I will go up to the altar of God. The server responds: Server: To God, the giver of youth and happiness. Then, except in the Masses of Passiontide and of the Dead, the celebrant and server say alternately Psalm 42:1–5. Commentary: Roughly the first half of the Mass consists of some preparatory rites and the Liturgy of the Word. The purpose of the Liturgy of the Catechumens was to evoke several sentiments. The feeling of penitence and contrition are the object of the Confiteor (Confession), the Aufer a nobis ("Take away from us our iniquities"), the oramus te ("we pray thee, Lord") and the Kyrie eleison ("Lord, have mercy"). The Gloria Hymn creates a feeling of adoration and gratitude. Finally the sense of supplication, found in the variable collect prayers, prepares one for the Epistle, Gospel, and Creed. Text: O God, sustain my cause; give me redress against a race that knows no piety; save me from a treacherous foe and cruel. Server: Thou, O God, art all my strength, why hast thou cast me off? Why do I go mourning, with enemies pressing me hard? Celebrant: The light of thy presence, the fulfillment of thy promise, let these be my escort, bringing me safe to thy holy mountain, to the tabernacle where thou dwellest. Server: There I will up to the altar of God, the giver of youth and happiness. Celebrant: Thou art my own God, with the harp I hymn thy praise. Soul, why art thou downcast, why art thou all lament? Server: Wait for God's help; I will not cease to cry out in thankfulness: My champion and my God! Celebrant: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. Server: As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Celebrant: I will go up to the altar of God. Server: To God, the giver of youth and happiness. The priest crosses himself, saying: Celebrant: Our help is in the name of the Lord. Server: Who made heaven and earth. Then he bows low and says: I confess to almighty God, to blessed Mary, ever-virgin, to blessed Michael the archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy apostles Peter and Paul, to all the saints, and to you, brethren, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed; He strikes his breast three times, saying: through my fault, through my own fault, through my own most grievous fault. Therefore I beseech the blessed Mary, ever-virgin, blessed Michael the archangel, blessed John the Baptist, the holy apostles Peter and Paul, all the saints, and you, brethren, to pray to the Lord our God for me. Server: May almighty God have mercy upon you, pardon your sins, and bring you to everlasting life. Celebrant: Amen. The server repeats the Confession: I confess to almighty God, to blessed Mary, ever-virgin, to blessed Michael the archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy apostles Peter and Paul, to all the saints, and to you, father, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed; He strikes his breast three times, saying: through my fault, through my own fault, through my own most grievous fault. Therefore I beseech the blessed Mary, ever-virgin, blessed Michael the archangel, blessed John the Baptist, the holy apostles Peter and Paul, all the saints, and you, father, to pray to the Lord our God for me. Celebrant: May almighty God have mercy upon you, pardon your sins, and bring to you everlasting life. Server: Amen. All cross themselves as the priest says: May the almighty and merciful Lord grant us pardon, absolution, and remission of our sins. Server: Amen. He bows his head and continues: Celebrant: Thou wilt relent, O God, and bring us to life. Server: And thy people will rejoice in thee. Celebrant: Show us they mercy, Lord. Server: And grant us they salvation. Celebrant: Lord, heed my prayer. Server: And let my cry be heard by thee. Celebrant: The Lord be with you. Server: And with you. Celebrant: Let us pray. Then, as he goes up to the altar, he says silently: Take away from us our iniquities, we entreat thee, Lord, so that, with souls made clean, we may be counted worthy to enter the Holy of Holies: through Christ our Lord. Amen. Commentary: Ascending to the altar, usually elevated by a few steps, the priest places the covered chalice and paten on a linen cloth called the corporal at the center of the altar in front of the tabernacle. The entire liturgy will be celebrated with the priest's back to the people. Text: Bowing down, he says: We pray thee, Lord, by the merits of thy saints whose relics are here … He kisses the altar in the middle. … and of all the saints, that thou wilt deign to pardon all my sins. Amen. The priest now makes the sign of the cross, and, standing at the Epistle corner, begins the Introit, which will be found in the Mass proper to the day. After kissing the altar, he proceeds to the left side (Epistle side) and reads the Introit. When the Introit is finished he returns to the middle of the altar and recites the Kyrie in alternation with the server. Afterwards the priest returns to the middle at the lowest altar step, where he and the servers (acolytes) say the prayers at the foot of the altar. These prayers include the double Confession and the nine-fold Kyrie eleison. These strongly penitential elements found their proper place in the preparatory rite during the Middle Ages when penitential practices abounded in the church. Celebrant: Lord, have mercy. Server: Lord, have mercy. Celebrant: Lord, have mercy. Server: Christ, have mercy. Celebrant: Christ, have mercy. Server: Christ, have mercy. Celebrant: Lord, have mercy. Server: Lord, have mercy. Celebrant: Lord, have mercy. The Gloria, which follows, is omitted when the vestments are black or violet, in votive Masses (other than the votive Masses of Angels, and of our Lady when said on a Saturday), and in certain other Masses where its omission is directed in the rubrics. Commentary: On Sundays outside of Advent and Lent and on special feast days during the week, the Gloria is said, followed by a special prayer called the collect, which varies according to the liturgical feast or season. The opening rites are punctuated with numerous genuflections and altar kissings as prescribed by the rubrics of the Missal. Text: Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace to men who are God's friends. We praise thee, we bless thee, we adore thee, we glorify thee, we give thee thanks for thy great glory: Lord God, heavenly King, God the almighty Father, Lord Jesus Christ, only-begotten Son; Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, who takest away the sins of the world, receive our prayer; thou who sittest at the right hand of the Father, have mercy upon us. For thou alone art the Holy One, thou alone art Lord, thou alone art the Most High: Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit: in the glory of God the Father. Amen. The priest turns to the people and says: Celebrant: The Lord be with you. Server: And with you. He then moves to the Epistle side and says: Oremus. After this he recites one or more Collects, to the first and last of which the server responds: Amen. Commentary: The Epistle is read at the right side of the altar, followed immediately by the gradual, tract, alleluia, or sequence. The gradual and the tract are psalm-based texts, the former consisting of two verses as a kind of vestige of the responsorial psalm, the latter, a section of a psalm used to replace the alleluia during Lent. On special feast days, a sequence, a strophic Latin poem, is added to the alleluia. Only four sequences from the Middle Ages survived the liturgical reform of Pius V following the Council of Trent. Text: The Epistle is now read, and at its close, the server responds: Server: Thanks be to God. The priest then recites the Gradual (or during Eastertide the Alleluia) and the Tract, when one is prescribed. These, the Collect, and the Epistle are to be found in the Mass proper to the day. The missal is now moved to the Gospel side, while the priest, bowing at the middle of the altar, says silently: Cleanse my heart and my lips, almighty God, who didst cleanse the lips of the prophet Isaiah with a live coal. In thy gracious mercy, deign so to cleanse me that I may be able to proclaim fitly thy holy Gospel: through Christ our Lord. Amen. Lord, grant a blessing. The Lord be in my heart and on my lips, so that I may fitly and worthily proclaim his Gospel. Amen. Commentary: The missal is next transferred to the left side where the Gospel will be proclaimed with the priest facing diagonally, half-facing the people. This is also accompanied by numerous signs of the cross and acts of reverence. Text: Then, facing the book, he says: Celebrant: The Lord be with you. Server: And with you. He now makes the sign of the cross upon the book, and all cross themselves on forehead, lips, and breast while he says: A passage from (or The beginning of) the holy Gospel according to (N.). Server: Glory to thee, Lord. The priest then reads the Gospel, which will be found in the Mass proper to the day; after which the server answers: Amen. Commentary: After the proclamation of the Gospel, the missal with its stand is moved to the middle of the altar, from where the Credo will be said every Sunday and on special feasts. If there is to be a sermon, the priest ascends into the pulpit. Text: The celebrant kisses the book and says: Celebrant: Through the Gospel words may our sins be wiped away. If there is to be a sermon, it is delivered after the reading of the Gospel. Commentary: The sermon, which had almost completely disappeared from the Mass in the early Middle Ages, was revived by the mendicant preaching orders. Since this was the only part of the Mass in the vernacular, the sermon constituted a point of intersection with the faithful, who to this point had been following the Mass with a personal missal, when permitted, or praying privately. At various historical periods in certain geographical locations, the sermon became a central focal point of the liturgy. The pulpit was often located in the middle of the nave of the church, so that people might hear better, given the absence of electronic assistance. It was fairly common for the priest to disrobe from the chasuble, the outer, colorful vestment, when leaving the sanctuary to give the sermon. This fact gave the strong impression that the sermon was not an essential part of the liturgy, but more of a time-out. For this reason, the content of the sermon did not necessarily reflect the readings of the day, but took on the air of a morality talk. Text: The priest then returns to the middle of the altar and says the Creed, if so directed in the Mass proper to the day. I believe in one God, the almighty Father, maker of heaven and earth, maker of all things visible and invisible. I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, only-begotten Son of God, born of the Father before time began; God from God, light from light, true God from true God; begotten, not made, one in essence with the Father, and through whom all things were made. For us men, and for our salvation (here all genuflect), he came down from heaven, took flesh of the Virgin Mary by the action of the Holy Spirit, and was made man. For our sake too, under Pontius Pilate, he was crucified, suffered death, and was buried. And the third day he rose from the dead, as the scriptures had foretold. And he ascended to heaven where he sits at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead; and his reign will have no end. I believe too in the Holy Spirit, Lord and life-giver, who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who together with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified; who spoke through the prophets. And I believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. And I look forward to the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.