Thus the 1970 Missal stripped the Cadillac, that is fully loaded, Mass of Trent into a rear engine Volkswagen, stripped of accretions that exalted the role of the priest at Mass in a devotional way, a priestly spirituality way.
What a mistake!!!!!!
Thus the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar, which is really a preparatory prayer for the priest and the ministers was eliminated as these prayers do not constitute the Mass in an historic sense. They are preparatory and probably existed to be prayed in the sacristy before the Introit was chanted for the arrival of the priest and ministers.
I personally feel that it is edifying for the laity to see the priest and minsters praying this as a preparation for the Mass and doing so publicly as the Introit is chanted.
Here are the private, devotional prayers of the priest which so contributed to a liturgical priestly spirituality and orientation, completely removed or truncated in the 1970's iconoclastic revision of the EF Mass. Sad! Very sad to say the least!:
PRAYERS AT THE FOOT OF THE ALTAR
(Kneel)
P:
✝
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
P:
I will go unto the altar of God.
S:
To God, Who gives joy to my youth.
(In Passiontide, Psalm 42 is omitted – continue at
✝
Our help...)
P:
Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the unholy nation,
deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man.
S:
For Thou, O God, art my strength, why hast Thou cast me off? And
why do I go about in sadness, while the enemy afflicts me?
P:
Send forth Thy light and Thy truth: they have conducted me and
brought me unto Thy holy mount, and into Thy tabernacles.
S:
And I will go unto the altar of God: to God, Who gives joy to my
youth.
P:
I shall praise Thee upon the harp, O God, my God. Why are you sad,
O my soul, and why do you disquiet me?
S:
Hope in God, for I will still praise Him, the salvation of my
countenance, and my God.
P:
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
S:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without
end. Amen.
P:
I will go unto the altar of God.
S:
To God, Who gives joy to my youth.
P:
✝
Our help is in the name of the Lord.
S:
Who made heaven and earth.
P:
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: through my fault, through my
fault, through my most grievous fault. Therefore I pray 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
for me to the Lord our God.
S:
May almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you your sins, and
bring you to life everlasting.
P:
Amen
S:
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:
(strike breast 3 times)
through
my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. Therefore I
pray 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 for me to the Lord our God.
P:
May almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you your sins, and
bring you to life everlasting.
S:
Amen.
P:
✝
May the almighty and merciful Lord grant us pardon, absolution,
and remission of our sins.
S:
Amen.
P:
Thou wilt turn again, O God, and quicken us.
S:
And Thy people will rejoice in Thee.
P:
Show us, O Lord, Thy mercy.
S:
And grant us Thy salvation.
P:
O Lord, hear my prayer.
S:
And let my cry come unto Thee.
P:
The Lord be with you.
S:
And with your spirit.
P:
Let us pray.
Next, they stripped the priest's private prayers as he ascended the steps to the altar to kiss it and if used, to incense it:
P:
Take away from us our iniquities, we beseech Thee, O Lord; that with
pure minds we may be made worthy to enter into the Holy of Holies.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
AT THE CENTER OF THE ALTAR
P:
We pray Thee, O Lord, by the merits of Thy Saints whose relics are
here, and of all the Saint
s:
that Thou would deign to pardon me all my
sins. Amen.
(Only at High Mass when incense is used)
P:
Be blessed by Him in Whose honor you are to be burnt.
Then prior to the Gospel being chanted, the priest offers these prayers quietly. In the OF Mass, these prayers are so brief and inspiring as to be useless:
P:
Cleanse my heart and my lips, O almighty God, Who cleansed the
lips of the Prophet Isaiah with a burning coal. In Thy gracious mercy,
deign so to purify me, that I may worthily proclaim Thy holy Gospel.
Through Christ our
Lord. Amen.
P:
Pray, Lord, a blessing. The Lord be in my heart and on my lips that I
may worthily and fittingly proclaim His Gospel
The Offertory Prayers along with the other private, devotional prayers of the priest were raped in the Ordinary Form and in no way resemble the richness of the EF's! Sad, very sad and such senseless iconoclasm!
P:
Receive
, O Holy Father, almighty and eternal God, this spotless host,
which I, Thine unworthy servant, offer unto Thee, my living and true
God, for my innumerable sins, offenses, and negligences, and for all
here present; and also for all faithful Christians both living and dead,
that it may profit me and them for salvation unto life everlasting. Amen.
AT THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE ALTAR
P:
O God, Who wonderfully formed the dignity of human nature, and
more wonderfully restored it, grant us through the mystery of this water
and wine, to be made participants of His divinity, Who condescended to
become a partaker of our humanity, Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord,
Who with Thee, lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God,
forever and ever. Amen.
AT THE CENTER OF THE ALTAR
P:
We offer Thee, O Lord, the chalice of salvation, pleading Thy
clemency, that it may ascend in the sight of Thy divine majesty, with a
sweet fragrance, for our salvation and for that of the whole world.
Amen. In a humble spirit and a contrite heart may we be received by
Thee, O Lord, and let our sacrifice be so made in Thy sight this day that
it may please Thee, O Lord God. Come, O sanctifier, almighty and
eternal God, and bless this sacrifice prepared for Thy holy name.
(Only at High Mass when incense is used)
P:
By the intercession of blessed Michael the Archangel, who stands at
the right hand of the altar of incense, and of all His elect, may the Lord
deign to bless this incense, and to receive it as a sweet fragrance,
through Christ our Lord.
P:
May this incense, blessed by Thee, ascend to Thee, O Lord, and may
Thy mercy descend upon us.
P:
Let my prayer be directed, O Lord, as incense in Thy sight, the lifting
up of my hands as an evening sacrifice. Set a watch, O Lord, before my
mouth: and a door round about my lips: that my heart may not incline to
evil words: to make excuses in sins.
P:
May the Lord enkindle in us the fire of His love and the flame of
everlasting charity. Amen.
AT THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE ALTAR
P:
I will wash my hands among the innocent, and I will compass Thine
altar, O Lord, that I may hear the voice of praise: and tell of all Thy
wondrous deeds. I have loved, O Lord, the beauty of Thy house and the
place where Thy glory dwelleth. Destroy not my soul, O God, with the
wicked, nor my life with men of blood. In whose hands are iniquities,
their right hand is full with gifts. But I have walked in my innocence:
redeem me, and have mercy on me. My foot has stood on the right path;
in the churches I will bless Thee, O Lord. Glory be to the Father, and to
the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and
ever shall be, world without
end.
Amen.
AT THE CENTER OF THE ALTAR
P:
Receive, O holy Trinity, this oblation which we offer to Thee in
remembrance of the passion, resurrection, and ascension of Our Lord
Jesus Christ, and in honor of blessed Mary, ever Virgin, blessed John the
Baptist, the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and of these and of all the
Saints; that it may avail unto their honor and our salvation, and may they
deign to intercede in heaven for us who honor their memory here on
earth. Through the same Christ, our Lord. Amen
Then the priest's private preparation prayers are fuller, complete along with the final statement prayed prior to the priest's three-fold "Lord, I am not worthy..." was removed or truncated:
P:
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, Who, by the will of the
Father, with the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, hast by Thy death given
life to the world; deliver me by this Thy most sacred Body and Blood,
from all my sins and from all evils. Make me always cleave to Thy
commandments, and never permit me to be separated from Thee, Who
with the same God the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, God,
forever and ever. Amen.
P:
Let not the partaking of Thy Body, O Lord Jesus Christ, which I,
unworthy, presume to receive, turn to my judgment and condemnation;
but through Thy kindness, may it benefit me, a safeguard both of mind
and body, and a certain remedy. Who with God the Father, in the unity
of the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns God, forever and ever. Amen.
P:
I will take the Bread of heaven, and will call upon the name of the
Lord.
Then there is this wonderful prayer between the priest's reception of the Consecrated Host and the Chalice, completely removed from the OF Mass and not for the better!!!!:
P:
What return shall I render unto the Lord for all He has given me? I
will take the Chalice of salvation, and I will call upon the name of the
Lord. Praising I will call upon the Lord, and I shall be saved from my
enemies.
Then at the ablutions, these wonderful prayers, expunged in the OF or truncated!:
P:
Grant, O Lord, that what we have taken with our mouth, we may
receive with a pure mind; and from a temporal gift may it become to us
an eternal remedy.
P:
May Thy Body, O Lord, which I have consumed, and Thy Blood
which I have drunk, cling to my vitals; and grant that no wicked stain
may remain in me, whom these pure and holy mysteries have refreshed.
Who lives and reigns, forever and ever. Amen
"The Placeat" the devotional prayer said quietly by the priest is totally removed from the OF and not for the better:
P:
May the performance of my homage be pleasing to Thee, O holy
Trinity: and grant that the sacrifice which I, though unworthy, have
offered up in the sight of Thy majesty, may be acceptable unto Thee, and
may, through Thy mercy, be a propitiation for myself and all those for
whom I have offered it. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
And then the Last Gospel, removed from the OF! Why or why even if a later accretion? It reads like a prayer of praise and thanksgiving!
P:
The Lord be with you.
S:
And with your spirit.
P:
The beginning of the holy Gospel according to John.
S:
Glory be to Thee, O Lord.
P:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things
were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made.
In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth
in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was a man
sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to
give testimony of the light, that all men might believe through him.
He was not that light, but was to give testimony of the light. That was
the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world.
He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world
knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But
as many as received him, he gave them power to be made the sons of
God, to them that believe in his name. Who are born, not of blood, nor
of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
(Genuflect)
AND THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH,
and dwelt among us, (and we saw His glory, the glory as it were of the
only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
S:
Thanks be to God.
My final comment: Cardinal Robert Sarah, give these back to the Ordinary Form Mass--what a mistake in removing them, but mistakes can be rectified. Rectify these mistakes Cardinal Sarah!
10 comments:
They're private prayers. They began as such before they made it into the Missal. Just go ahead and use them. What's stopping you? You don't need the go-ahead from Cardinal Sarah or anyone else for that matter. It's not as if you're extemporizing them, since they are part of the Roman Rite.
"It was felt that these private prayers form the clericalism of the pre-Vatican II Mass." Maybe so, but perhaps this anti-clericalism came about by a heightened sense of the priesthood of the faithful the way the Protestants understood it. For active participation as priests, the laity did nothing less than what the presider did. Or, the presider did nothing more than what the laity did. The presider just presided to make for an efficient orderly service. That is why a silent Canon is anathema for the reformers if the laity are priests in the pews. Hey, Luther had it right all along!
You answered your own question: "They are preparatory and probably existed to be prayed in the sacristy before the Introit was chanted for the arrival of the priest and ministers."
It seems these were much more than private prayers, as they were incorporated into the missal, and seem never to have been optional.
It has always mystified me why the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar were abolished in their entirety. When I was an altarboy, initially, they were shortened, but then removed altogether. There is a very poignant painting depicting the depravity of the French Revolution. The subject was a simple, country parish priest fully vested mounting the steps to the guillotine while saying "Introibo ad altare Dei." But self-centered, left-wing loons in the 1960s decided to remove these beautiful prayers which enriched the Roman Rite throughout the centuries.
TJM
It wasn't a question of the PATFOTA being abolished; it was that a new Rite of Mass was devised which rewrote the introductory rites to make them into a dialogue between priest and people and to address the problem that the reformers had with the Tridentine Low Mass, namely that since they were not overlaid with the singing of the Introit and Kyrie (as in a Sung/Solemn Mass) the congregation was left with not much to do. Singing a hymn at this point was allowed, but liturgically out of place and undesirable.
The omission of Ps 42 after 1965 (which corresponds to what happens in the Roman Rite at Requiems and in Passiontide) was to make it easier for the congregation to respond, which they could now do in the vernacular, until such a time as the new form could be introduced.
The full Roman form of the PATFOTA are in the 1962 Missal which now has parity of esteem with the Novus Ordo, and it can be argued that in the light of tradition it is more legitimate than the rite which replaced it.
John Nolan,
Why argue semantics? The end result was that the PATFOTA were eliminated/abolished/written out by left-wing loons who obviously had a hatred for the EF. The congregation can't say the Canon either, so that would hardly be justification for doing the same with the Canon. The whole liturgical movement was perverted by the notion that the people must be at all times be responding or doing something. That was my jackass pastor's excuse for abolishing our parish's magnificent choir.
If I understand correctly the fully loaded Cadillac was stripped by Fiat.
Also, it seems that John has the obvious answer: do them anyway. The Boolean Gate for the EF was opened by BXVI so it and all of its parts allowed. The NO allows quite a bit more tinkering in form so inclusion of certain prayers seems to fit. Q-TypED
TJM
It's not semantics. We have the choice of two distinct rites, one of which has the Roman introductory prayers, the other of which, being a recent concoction, does not. The innovations were based on liturgical assumptions which may have been misguided (in my opinion they were) and it is true that in certain quarters there was antipathy towards the rite the innovators had inherited.
The Church's public worship is in a mess, and has been for my entire adult lifetime. People have left in droves. Until it is recognized that the present crisis is worse than any since Arianism, we will continue to drift on a tide of pious platitudes which the present Pope seems to have in abundance.
John Nolan, I think we are just talking past each other. I am speaking from the historic fact in the 1960s without reference to the two forms of the Roman Rite. The PATFOTA were abolished, suppressed, written out, whatever you want to call.
I totally agree the liturgy is a total mess, and unfortunately there are not many priests in positions of authority, like Father McDonald, who have matured since the "heady" days of liturgical "reform" (I call it destruction). We have too many who are in denial. Either they don't care or they are malicious.
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