The Mass as it was in the City of Rome, part 7

A 4th-century mosaic depicting Christ and St. Peter, Basilica of Sta. Costanza, Rome.

XVIII. THE CANON (continued)

Pope: "Unde et memores sumus, Domine, nos servi tui, sed et plebs tua sancta, Christi Filii tui Domini nostri, tam beatae Passionis, nec non et ab inferis Resurrectionis, sed et in coelos gloriosae Ascensionis: offerimus praeclarae majestati tuae de tuis donis ac datis, hostiam puram, hostiam sanctam, hostiam immaculatam, Panem sanctum vitae aeternae, et calicem salutis perpetuae."

(Wherefore, O Lord, we Your servants and Your holy people are mindful both of the blessed passion of Christ Your Son, our Lord, and also His Resurrection from hell, and His glorious Ascension into heaven and offer unto Your most sovereign Majesty out of Your own gifts and presents, a pure Victim, a Holy Victim, a Spotless Victim; the holy Bread of life eternal, and the Chalice of everlasting Salvation.)

A mosaic depicting the offerings of Abel and Melchizedek in the chancel of the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, built between 526-530 AD

Pope: "Supra quae propitio ac sereno vultu respicere digneris, et accepta habere, sicuti accepta habere dignatus es munera pueri tui justi Abel, et sacrificium patriarchae nostri Abrahae, et quod tibi obtulit summus sacerdos tuus Melchisedech, sanctum sacrificium, immaculatam hostiam.

Supplices te rogamus, omnipotens Deus, jube haec perferri per manus Angeli tui in sublime Altare tuum, in conspectu divinae majestatis tuae: ut quotquot ex hac Altaris participatione, sacrosanctum Filii tui Corpus, et Sanguinem sumpserimus, omni benedictione coelesti et gratia repleamur. Per Christum Dominum nostrum."

(Deign to regard with gracious and kindly attention and hold acceptable, as You deigned to accept the offerings of Abel, Your just servant, and the sacrifice of Abraham our Patriarch, and that which Your high priest Melchizedek offered to You, a holy Sacrifice and a spotless victim.

Most humbly we implore You, Almighty God, bid these offerings to be brought by the hands of Your Angel to Your altar above, before the face of Your Divine Majesty. And may those of us who, by sharing in the Sacrifice of this Altar, shall receive the Most Sacred Body and Blood of Your Son, be filled with every grace and heavenly blessing; through Christ our Lord.)

When the Pope began the Canon, an Acolyte came near, having a linen cloth thrown around his neck, and held the Paten before his breast on the right side [of the Altar?] until the middle of the Canon. The Subdeacon-Attendant then holds it with his hands covered by the planeta, comes before the Altar, and waits there with it until the District-Subdeacon takes it from him. At the end of the Canon, the District-Subdeacon stands behind the Archdeacon with the paten.

(The following prayer is noticeably absent in many early Sacramentaries or Missals and may have been a later addition; thus it may have at least not said primitively (or so it would seem), except in Masses for the Dead: "Memento etiam, Domine, famulorum famularumque tuarum Illo et Illo qui nos praecesserunt cum signo fidei, et dormiunt in somno pacis. Ipsis, Domine, et omnibus in Christo quiescentibus, locum refrigerii, lucis et pacis, ut indulgeas, deprecamur. Per eumdem Christum Dominum nostrum.")

[Be mindful, O Lord, of Your servants and handmaids N. and N., who are gone before us, with the sign of faith, and sleep in the sleep of peace. To these, O Lord, and to all that rest in Christ, we beseech You, grant a place of refreshment, light, and peace; through the same Christ our Lord.]

Pope: "Nobis quoque peccatoribus (Here the Subdeacons rise up) famulis tuis, de multitudine miserationum tuarum sperantibus, partem aliquam, societatis donare digneris, cum tuis sanctis Apostolis et Martyribus: cum Iohanne, Stephano, Matthia, Barnaba, Ignatio, Alexandro, Marcellino, Petro, Felicitate, Perpetua, Agathae, Lucia, Agne, Caecilia, Anastasia, et omnibus Sanctis tuis: intra quorum nos consortium, non aestimator meriti, sed veniam, quaesumus, largitor admitte, per Christum Dominum nostrum."

(To us sinners, also, Your servants, hoping in the multitude of Your mercies, deign to grant some part and fellowship with Your holy apostles and martyrs: with John, Stephen, Matthias, Barnabas, Ignatius, Alexander, Marcellinus, Peter, Felicitas, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia, Anastasia, and with all Your saints; into whose company we ask You to admit us, not considering our merit, but of Your own free pardon. Through Christ our Lord.)

Pope: "Per quem haec omnia, (Here the Archdeacon rises up) Domine, semper bona creas, sanctificas, vivificas, benedicis, et praestas nobis. Per ipsum, et cum ipso, (Here the Archdeacon lifts up the Chalice again with the offertory-veil passed through its handles, and holds and raises it towards the Pope. The latter, meanwhile touches the side of the Chalice with loaves that he carries in his hands) et in ipso, est tibi Deo Patri omnipotenti, in unitate Spiritus Sancti, omnis honor et gloria; Per omnia saecula saeculorum."
R: "Amen."

(Through whom, O Lord, You create, sanctify, fill with life, bless and bestow upon us all good things. Through Him, and with Him, and in Him, is to You, God the Father Almighty, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honor and glory, forever and ever.
R: Amen.)

The Pope sets the Loaves down again in their place, and the Archdeacon puts the Chalice down by them, and removes the Offertory-Veil from the handles of the Chalice.

XIX. THE PATER NOSTER and THE SANCTA

Pope: "Oremus. Praeceptis salutaribus moniti, et divina institutione formati, audemus dicere:

Pater noster, qui es in coelis: sanctificetur nomen tuum: adveniat regnum tuum: fiat voluntas tua, sicut in coelo, et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem.
R: "Sed libera nos a malo."

Pope: "Amen. Libera nos, quaesumus, Domine, ab omnibus malis praeteritis, praesentibus, et futuris: et intercedente beata et gloriosa semper Virgine Dei Genitrice Maria, cum beatis Apostolis tuis Petro et Paulo, atque Andrea, et omnibus Sanctis, da propitius pacem in diebus nostris: ut ope misericordiae tuae adjuti, et a peccato simus semper liberi, et ab omni perturbatione securi (Here the Archdeacon turns around, and after kissing the Paten, takes it and gives it to the second Deacon to hold). Per eumdem Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium tuum, Qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus. Per omnia saecula saeculorum."
R: Amen.

Pope: Pax + Domini sit + semper vobis + cum.

The Pope then drops a fragment of the bread consecrated on the previous Mass, called the Sancta. This was seen as a symbol of unity, linking the Communicants with that of the previous Mass, where the fragment used was consecrated and on through the ages as long as the ceremony had existed.

R: "Et cum spiritu tuo."
(And with your spirit.)

The Archdeacon then gives the kiss of peace to the Chief hebdomadary Bishop, then to the rest of the Clergy in order, and then to the people.

VIIa. ANNOTATIONS

A. THE PATER NOSTER (excerpts from E.G. Atchley's Ordo Romanus I)

St. Gregory was accused of having appointed that the Lord's Prayer should be said directly after the Canon, and of following the Church of Constantinople in so doing.
What is his answer? He does not deny that he has introduced the custom:

"It seemed to me extremely unsuitable to say the Canon over the Oblation, which was composed by some [learned man], and not to say over His Body and Blood that prayer which our Redeemer Himself composed."

From this we can gather that the Lord's Prayer was not used in the Roman Rite before the time of St. Gregory the Great at the liturgical moment when we find it in Ordo I, that is between the last prayer of the Canon and the Fraction. More than this: taking his words as they stand, they seem to indicate that it was not used at any time before the Communion; if so, it would still be said "over the Body and Blood."

St. Augustine has left it on record that "almost the whole Church concludes the Canon with the Lord's Prayer"; and referring to the use of his own Church of Hippo, he says: "Behold, when the hallowing is accomplished, we say the Lord's prayer which ye have received and repeated. After it is said Pax vobiscum, and Christians salute one another with a holy kiss." Was the Church of Rome one of the exceptions which St. Augustine had in his mind?

In the Gallican Churches the Pater Noster was recited after the Fraction, not before; and we find the same in many Oriental Rites. If the Damasian origin of the Canon be the true one, we should naturally expect that that Pope would introduce the Lord's Prayer in the place in which he had been accustomed to hear it, viz. after the Fraction...It is more likely, then, that St. Gregory did not actually introduce the custom of saying the Lord's Prayer, but altered the time at which it was said.

If the Church of Rome had been so singular as not to use it, it is in the highest degree probable that we should have had some allusion to the peculiar custom of so eminent a Church, the most important in the whole of the West; but we have none at all beyond St. Augustine's, "almost the whole Church." And, indeed, this one allusion to the practice of not using it, is rather against the idea that
Rome did not use the Pater Noster; for its omission by so important a Church would, one may believe, hardly have been passed over so briefly by him...

...St. Gregory affirms that it was the custom of the Apostles to consecrate the oblation solely with the Lord's Prayer. Of course, St. Gregory's belief that such was the case is no evidence whatever that it really was so; and it would be very surprising if it were true.
He may have meant that the Lord's Prayer was the only fixed part of the form which they used ; or, more likely, had some passage running through his mind like St. Jerome's statement that our Lord "taught his Apostles that daily in the Sacrifice of his Body believers should be bold to say, Our Father, etc."

St. Jerome wrote this at Bethlehem, c. 415, so that he was most probably referring to the custom of the Church of Jerusalem; perhaps quoting in a free fashion from St. Cyril, who says much the same thing in one of his Catechetical Lectures. St. Jerome's remark can hardly be taken as evidence for the use of the Church of Rome, although we might not unnaturally expect some reference to it here, if the Pater Noster had not formed part of the Roman Mass.

A1. LETTER OF POPE ST. GREGORY THE GREAT TO JOHN, BISHOP OF SYRACUSE, dated 598 AD (EPISTLE XII):

Gregory to John, Bishop of Syracuse.
Someone from Sicily has told me that a friend of his, whether Greeks or Latins I don't know, but having great zeal for the Roman Church, grumble about my arrangements, saying: 'How can he be arranging so as to keep the Church of Constantinople in check, when in all respects he follows her usage?' And when I said to him, "Which of its customs do we follow?" He answered, 'Why, you have caused Alleluia to be said in Masses out of Eastertide, you have ordered the Subdeacons to go in procession disrobed (i.e. not wearing their planetas), you have caused Kyrie Eleison to be said, and you have appointed the Lord's Prayer to be said immediately after the Canon!'


And I answered, "Well, in none of these things have we followed any other Church. For as to our custom here of saying the Alleluia, it is said to have been taken from the Church of Jerusalem in the days of Pope Damasus, of blessed memory, according to the tradition of blessed Jerome; and so we have rather curtailed that practice in this matter, which had been handed down by the Greeks."
I did, however, cause subdeacons to proceed disrobed, and it was an ancient custom of the Church. But it pleased one of our Bishops (I know not which) to order them to proceed in linen tunics. Now, did we take this tradition from the Greeks? Whence comes it today, do you suppose, that the Subdeacons proceed in linen tunics, save that they were ordered so to do by their mother the Roman Church?


As to Kyrie Eleison we neither have said it, nor do we now, as it is said by the Greeks: for among them all the people sing it together, whilst with us it is said by the clerks, and the people make answer; and Christe Eleison (which is never said among the Greeks) is said by us as many times as Kyrie Eleison. But in Ferial Masses we leave out the other things which are usually said, and only say Kyrie Eleison and Christe Eleison, so that we may be engaged a little longer in the words of supplication.


But we say the Lord's Prayer directly after the Canon for the following reason; because it was the custom of the Apostles to consecrate the sacrificial oblation solely with this prayer. And it seemed to me extremely unsuitable to say over the oblations the Canon, which was composed by some learned man, and not to say over his Body and Blood that prayer which our Redeemer Himself composed. Moreover, amongst the Greeks the Lord's Prayer is said by all the people, but with us by the priest alone. In what, therefore, have we followed the customs of the Greeks, since we have either revived old customs of our own, or established new and useful ones, in which nevertheless we are not shewn to have imitated others?


Thus, when an occasion presents itself, let your Charity proceed to the Church of Catana (a city in Sicily); or in the Church of Syracuse teach those whom you believe or understand may possibly be murmuring with respect to this matter, holding a conference there, as though for a different purpose, and so do not desist from instructing them.


For as to what they say about the Church of Constantinople, who can doubt that it is subject to the Apostolic See, as both the most pious lord the Emperor and our brother the Bishop of that city continually acknowledge? Yet, if this or any other Church has anything that is good, I am prepared in what is good to imitate even my inferiors, while prohibiting them from things unlawful. for someone who thinks himself first in such a way as to scorn to learn whatever good things he may see is foolish.