ADDITIONS AND MODIFICATIONS

Other changes to the Ordinary of the Mass

1. The rite of sprinkling with holy water, which formerly preceded sung mass, was moved into  the body of the celebration as a further alternative penitential act ‘from time to time on Sundays, and especially at Easter-time’.^[1]

2. For most of the items in the new opening section of the 1970 mass, which includes the penitential rite, there are alternative prayers, allowing the celebrant a lot of choice.

3. The second prayer said at the foot of the altar, the Confiteor, followed by the absolution,  was retained in the new mass, incorporated into the penitential rite, reduced in both format (without its references to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints), and in prominence (becoming just one of three alternatives). Where it had hitherto been said twice, separately by the priest and the server, priest and people now all say it together. The words of absolution are said at the end of the penitential rite, whichever alternative is used.

4. Two new prayers and responses, one for the bread and one for the wine, replace the deleted Offertory prayers. Both begin ‘Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation’, and are based on the format of Jewish prayers of thanksgiving and blessing, reminding us that the Last Supper was a Jewish meal.

5. Eucharistic Prayers II to IV are new compositions and represent a significant element of choice at the core of the mass^[2]. The three original new Eucharistic Prayers have since been supplemented by several others, which are decidedly poorer.

The historic Roman Canon (Eucharistic Prayer I) is said to have been at one stage destined for elimination, Academic liturgists in the middle to late twentieth century considered the Canon as an imperfect vehicle for communicating the theology of the Eucharist. Its language is not considered to ‘resonate’ with the speech of twenty-first century Christians. The Canon is now hardly ever used, and is already unfamiliar to congregations ^[3]

Eucharistic Prayer II is partly based on a document once attributed to St Hippolytus, much admired by liturgical scholars and ecumenists, and thought at one time to have been written as early as the third century. It excited many but is now thought unlikely that it was composed by St Hippolytus, or had ever featured in any actual liturgy, being rather a composite example or ideal model (which probably accounts for its ‘perfect’ structure).

Eucharistic Prayer III is described as having been composed specifically as a ‘corrective’ to the perceived flaws of the Canon.^[4]Eucharistic Prayer IV is based on an ancient Eastern EP, the Anaphora of St Basil.^[5]

Thanks to the intervention of Pope Paul VI, the institution narrative (the account of the Last Supper including Jesus’ words) is identical in all the Eucharistic Prayers, and all end with the same  doxology ‘Through him, and with him and in him ….’ accompanied by the elevation of the host and chalice.

6.  The Institution Narrative (item 31) was modified, with the phrase from the gospel ‘which will be given up for you’  (Luke 22:19) added to the words ‘This is my body’ at the Consecration of the bread, and the  phrase ‘the mystery of faith’ removed from the words spoken over the wine (it does not appear in any of the  scriptural accounts of the Last Supper), and moved to a position immediately after the Consecration, where it introduces a choice of  three acclamations.                           

 A shorter fourth (for Ireland only), uses the words of the doubting apostle Thomas when the risen Jesus reveals himself to him: ‘My Lord and my God’ (John 20: 28). (This was what the faithful were encouraged to say in the first half of the twentieth century when looking up briefly at the consecrated host and chalice at the elevation.)

7.  In one of its most controversial translations, the new missal had ‘poured out for you and for all’ for ‘pro vobis et pro multis effendetur’ (literally ‘poured out for you and for many’) in the words of consecration. Those favouring the change did so on understandable theological grounds, and argued that in Aramaic, ‘for many’ could idiomatically mean ‘for all’. However, in the translation of 2010, the policy of Liturgiam Authenticam was applied and the translation was changed so that it reflects once more exactly what the Latin text says (as well as Jesus’ words in the gospel, Matt 26: 28), which is ‘for many’.

8. Item 36, the prayer, Libera nos (Deliver us) after the Pater Noster, had its opening reference to the intercession of  Our Lady and the saints removed, presumably for ecumenical reasons.                                                                                                           ‘Deliver us, we beseech you, Lord, from every evil, [past, present and to come, and by the intercession of the blessed and glorious ever-Virgin, Mother of God, Mary, and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, of Andrew, and all the Saints] graciously grant peace in our days,  that aided by the riches of your mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress.’ A couple of lines have also been added referring to hope in the coming of Jesus.

9. A new response follows: ‘For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and forever’, familiar as the normal ending to the Lord’s Prayer in the Anglican and Protestant traditions. Note that they are separated from the body of the Lord’s Prayer by the priest’s prayer ‘Deliver us, Lord ...’, to which they are a response. This ecumenically-motivated change has no implications for the Lord’s Prayer outside of the mass.

10. Two of the three prayers of the celebrant after the Agnus Dei, Items 41 and 42:  ‘Dominus Jesu Christe’ and ‘Perceptio corporis tui’ have been retained but as alternatives (presumably because of repetition), with the latter modified slightly by the elimination of the priest’s ‘apology’, stating he is unworthy to have received the body of the Lord.

11. Genuflections and signs of the cross by the priest were greatly reduced in number and the detailed rubrics governing his actions at the altar simplified.