Let me count the ways why I despise the Universal Prayers of the Mass:
1. They are composed by people with an ideological agenda and normally we don’t know who that person is.
2. They are like mini homilies pointing out to God what He should do and why or what the composer thinks we should be doing and why and presented in a manipulative way to get the result the ideologue who prepared the interecessions wants.
3. They are too wordy.
4. Did I say they become ideological homilies?
5. They are too long.
From the center right ideology, here are some intercessions from Fr. Z that I despise because these are ideological and preachy:
Let us pray that he will be truly holy and faithful, zealous to fulfill God’s will in sacrificial love in keeping with Office and sacred Tradition entrusted to him.
Let us pray for a Pope who will bring healing and justice to those who are strongly attached to the Church’s ancient liturgical and doctrinal Tradition.
Let us pray for a Pope who will be a consistent point of reference for the unity of all the Churches aligned with Rome.
Let us pray for a Pope who can facilitate unity with separated Churches.
Let us pray for a Pope who will bring crystal clarity to the burning questions of our day regarding faithful and morals.
Let us pray for a Pope who will shine forth in his words and deeds, as well as in his silences and patience, Christ, whose Vicar he must be.
From the center left ideology, Deacon Fritz Bauerschmidt offers these preachy ideological intercessions:
For the Church,
called by God to be the field hospital
in which wounded souls find healing,
let us pray to the Lord
For the growth in our Church and our world
of a culture of encounter,
rejecting the globalized indifference
that comes from disillusionment
and a withdrawal into private interests,
let us pray to the Lord.
For political leaders who will care
for those on the margins
and resist the throwaway culture
that threatens the unborn and the elderly,
the weak and the helpless,
let us pray to the Lord.
For hearts that are open
in listening and responding
to the cry of the Earth,
our common home,
and the cry of the poor,
who bear the image of Christ
who became poor for our sake,
let us pray to the Lord.
For migrants and refugees,
that we might always remember
that they are faces, not numbers:
people who cannot simply be categorized,
but need to be embraced,
let us pray to the Lord.
For Pope Francis,
who proclaimed the joy of the Gospel,
that the merciful Lord may accompany him
to our heavenly homeland,
let us pray to the Lord.
There are examples of the Universal Prayers found in the Roman Missal that are more preferable than the examples above, but even these, though, tend to be wordy and chatty.
May I plead with the next pope, Pope Whatever Your Name Will Be, to mandate that on Sunday only the Roman Canon be used which has all the general intercessions that the Mass needs, no additional ones, made up by ideologues, need be recited.
For the other Eucharistic Prayers, not as brilliant in petitions as the Roman Canon, and mandated by Pope Whatever Your Name Will Be in the future for daily Masses where the Roman Canon is not used, there should be three choices of litanies for the Easter Season, for Ordinary Time after Christmas, for the Lenten Season and for Ordinary Time after Pentecost.
Here’s a model that I recommend as a form of the litany:
For the Holy Church of God, we pray to the Lord.
For world leaders and the peace in the world, we pray to the Lord.
For all who suffer in any way, we pray to the Lord.
For all the Faithful Departed, we pray to the Lord.
26 comments:
Excellent analysis. I have always found the bidding prayers mostly annoying. There was a fad for a time when people in the congregation were asked to speak up and add their own petition, which was awkward.
For my money, if we simply must must must have the "Universal Prayer," because "the early Christians did" or some such flimsy justification, I'd take the ordinariates' Divine Worship: The Missal's way of doing it. That missal presents five forms of intercessions as options--which for some, is not nearly enough options, of course--all offering petitions for our most pressing needs. They're all in this PDF for general edification: https://www.liturgia.it/content/DivineWorshipPewMissalWEB.pdf.
Nick
I find general intercessions so generic and repetitive as to lose meaning, spoken with manufactured feeling by the pronouncer, yet still droned through on autopilot, the congregation struggling to manufacture expected feelings in responses equally droned through on autopilot, and everyone happy to get them out of the way. Asking for specific help particularly in a local matter is another thing entire, but, "Lord, why don't you fix the world?' doesn't cut it.
Ol' Nick - Those early Christians believed Jesus rose from the dead, that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus, and that the Lord established seven sacraments. We believe the same today, but you call such "flimsy justifications." Hmmm...
Father MJK,
Are you already on the sauce? Mourning keeping you up to the wee hours? How else could one be so sophisticated as to conflate the core tenets of the deposit of the Faith with a practice that may or may not have been done by some early Christians in one form or another and that for one reason or another fell out of over practice over time and was revived (as a human construct, if taking your prior assertions as true) in circa 1970 in a form that may or may not actually bear any resemblance to the early Christian practice and that even today is only a liturgical option.
In other words, what a stupid and distracting addition to the conversation. (I know you prefer when people are direct, judging by your little rant about Abp. Chaput the other day)
Nick
Father, in the East, we have a much simpler approach a series of fixed petitions, to wit:
Deacon: In peace let us pray to the Lord All: Lord, have mercy. (To be repeated after each petition)
For peace from on high and the salvation of our souls, let us pray to the Lord.
For peace in the whole world, the well-‐‑being of the holy Churches of God and the union of all, let us pray to the Lord.
For this holy house and for those who enter it with faith, reverence and fear of God, let us pray to the Lord.
For the Holy and Ecumenical N. Pope of Rome, our Patriarch N., Bishop N, present) our Father and (Arch)Bishop N., his honorable presbyterate, the diaconate in Christ, and for all the clergy and the people, let us pray to the Lord.
For the government and for the armed forces, that they may be upheld in every good deed, let us pray to the Lord.
For this city (or holy monastery), for every city and country place and the faithful dwelling in them, let us pray to the Lord.
For favorable weather, an abundance of the fruits of the earth and peaceful times, let us pray to the Lord.
For the travelers by sea, air and land, for the sick, the suffering, the captives and for their salvation, let us pray to the Lord.
For our deliverance from all affliction, wrath, danger, and need, let us pray to the Lord.
Help us, save us, have mercy on us and protect us, O God, by your grace. Let us remember our all-‐‑holy, spotless, most highly blessed and glorious Lady, the Theotokos and ever-‐‑virgin Mary, with all the saints, and commend ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ God. All: To You, O Lord.
The only change in the last 200 years is the addition for travelers by air and the removal of the petition for the Emperor/Kaiser/King/Czar
We in the Roman Catholic branch.have/had nearly identical, at least in the Latin Mass.
"Let us pray for a Pope who will bring healing and justice to those who are strongly attached to the Church’s ancient liturgical and doctrinal Tradition."
=======
God blessed us with such Popes — Saint John Paul II, Benedict XVI, as well as Francis. Unfortunately, more than a few folks within the TLM Movement trampled the liturgical peace efforts of the above-mentioned Popes.
Endless attacks against the "Novus Bogus"/liturgical reform have flowed for decades from the TLM Movement.
Let us pray that the TLM Movement will cease its Satanic war against the Council, Holy Mass of Pope Saint Paul VI, as well as our holy Vatican II Era Popes.
Let us pray that in obedience to Pope Benedict XVI's teachings, the TLM Movement will adhere to the following:
-- "There is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal. In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture."
-- Already from these concrete presuppositions, it is clearly seen that the new Missal will certainly remain the ordinary Form of the Roman Rite..."
-- "Needless to say, in order to experience full communion, the priests of the communities adhering to the former usage cannot, as a matter of principle, exclude celebrating according to the new books.
"The total exclusion of the new rite would not in fact be consistent with the recognition of its value and holiness."
Pax.
Mark Thomas
100! ☦️
It oftentimes comes off as melodrama, at least to me.
Fr. MJK why cannot others share their non-confrontational thoughts? "Nick" is "Nick", BTW.
This is nonsense. The NO crowd was, is and will remain without "satanic" sin.
If this was a car, you would join all else in the lemon law line.
MT Suit,
No, Traditiones Custodes was a declaration of war on the Faithful and the TLM, a despicable and ultra vires act by a tyrant, not a shepherd. In stark contrast, Summorum Pontificum, enacted by Pope Francis' intellectual and religious superior, was an act of peace, consistent with Catholic teaching and Tradition. I belonged to two different parishes when SP was in effect and there were NO problems in the parish over this. Again, I ask. Do you think, at all?
MT Suit, is hiding as usual when confronted with reality
Ol' Nick - Your "sauce" comment is clearly projection.
"...May or may not have been done by some early Christians..."
Think again.
The origins of the Prayers of the Faithful are not recent. "The General Intercessions, also called the Prayer of the Faithful, have been part of the Christian liturgy since the early church. Their origins likely come from Jewish synagogue prayer."
St. Justin Martyr's description of the earliest format for the celebration of the Eucharist contains: "But we, after we have thus washed him who has been convinced and has assented to our teaching, bring him to the place where those who are called brethren are assembled, in order that we may offer hearty prayers in common for ourselves and for the baptized [illuminated] person, and for all others in every place, that we may be counted worthy, now that we have learned the truth, by our works also to be found good citizens and keepers of the commandments, so that we may be saved with an everlasting salvation."
Conflation is not needed. The origins of the Prayers of the Faithful are only "flimsy" in your sauce-clouded mind.
Blessed Easter!
Yeah, I'm pretty sure Christians of all times have brought their petitions before God during their liturgical worship -- that is after all the most appropriate place for such petitions since it is the common prayer of the people. To the extent those petitions sound like political statements in the present time, it might be because modern folks tend to view lots of things thru a political lens.
Even the Orthodox litanies, which I assume the writers of the current Roman Missals were trying to imitate to some degree, are modified when particular needs arise (whether those needs are global, national, or local).
I agree with Pope Gregory the Great who took a meat axe to the "prayer of the faithful." Perhaps he felt they were duplicative of the Roman Canon.
After the sixth century, with the prevalence of infant baptism and the advent of private, rather than public, penance, the different dismissals tended to disappear as there were few adult catechumens and no public penitents. Thus, Pope Gelasius I (492-496), moved the Prayer of the Faithful to the beginning of the Mass and adopted a simpler form similar to a litany whose response was usually “Kyrie, eleison.” Later, Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) shortened these intercessions even more, leaving only the repeated “Kyrie, eleison” response which we still use today.
The reintroduction seems to fly in the face of Mediator Dei which warned against false antiquarianism.
Fr. MJK,
I take your most recent comment to mean that you maintain that quibbling over the historicity and advisability of the Universal Prayer is the same as denying the Resurrection, the sacraments, and transubstantiation. Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
"The origins of the Prayers of the Faithful are not recent." I never said that. That 1980s seminary education really does show, Father.
"St. Justin Martyr's description of the earliest format for the celebration of the Eucharist": oh, you mean one description by one Church Father of the liturgy as celebrated in one place by one community? Are we supposed to take it that every Christian Church conducted their liturgy in exactly the same way for the entirety of the first several centuries of Christianity? Maybe if we get high on your supply, Father, but nothing you said contradicts the assertion that there is no proof that the "Universal" Prayer was a universal practice of the early Church.
As for sauce, the only sauce I've touched in weeks is the red stuff on pizza. I'm sure you can say the same.
TJM,
Good point regarding false antiquarianism. Ever wonder why modernists don't push to revive the early Christian fasting, penitential, and excommunicatory practices?
Nick
Nick,
Those practices are “too hard” for Vatican II man!
Marc, the Byzantine litanies aren't modified for special needs, they have 2 places to be augmented, the Great Litany can add petitions for the deceased and the Litany of Ferverent Supplication can be augmented for special needs. The Orthodox likely follow similar patterning.
You use the word augmented; I use the word modified. In this instance, they mean the same thing. Petitions are added based on the needs of the people.
Yes, Orthodox follow a similar pattern. For example, in ROCOR parishes, there are added prayers for the war in Ukraine. In Serbian parishes, there are added prayers for the situation in Kosovo.
Ol' Nick - Those equivalences are entirely yours, not mine. If "you take it" that way, you take it wrong.
Are we to take St. Justin Martyr's description of the celebration of the Eucharist as a description of what EVERY Christian community was doing?
That's a silly question. First, the time was ca. 154 CE. That's, probably, third generation church - maybe fourth. We know that the organic development of the liturgy and its initial codification came much later. I doubt there were many "universal practices" in the third/fourth generation Church communities.
I am intrigued by the notion, oft stated here, that references to the practices of the earliest Church - maybe the first four centuries - are considered "false antiquarianism" but references to later eras in the church are not see as "false Patristicism" or "false Medievalism" or "false post-Medievalism" or "false Renaissance-ism." Interesting, that.
Father MJK,
You say, “Those equivalences are entirely yours, not mine.”
Go back and read your comment of April 22 at 9:59. Slowly, if that helps. Now tell us, just how stupid do you think the other commenters and I are as to try to laughably gaslight us into saying you weren’t drawing any equivalencies?
Nick
Ol' Nick - I don't have to re-read any comments. I know what I wrote and I know what I meant. You chose to read into it what is not there. I don't think other commenters here are stupid. (One is just plain dunder-headed, but he's the outlier.)
Nick the only dunder-head here is K, the Dem operative masquerading as a Catholic priest. No self-awareness in that creature
Ah, the dunder-head has recognized his name! A step in the right direction!
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