Roman Missal
The Roman Missal is the title of several missals used in the celebration of the Roman Rite. Along with other liturgical books of the Roman Rite, the Roman Missal contains the texts and rubrics for the celebration of the most common liturgy and Mass of the Catholic Church.
History
Before the Council of Trent (1570)
Before the high Middle Ages, several books were used at Mass: a Sacramentary with the prayers, one or more books for the Scriptural readings, and one or more books for the antiphons and other chants. Gradually, manuscripts came into being that incorporated parts of more than one of these books, leading finally to versions that were complete in themselves. Such a book was referred to as a Missale Plenum.As early as the late 7th century, the recurring parts of the Roman Mass became compiled into a new type of liturgical text titled Ordo Missae, a separate section in sacramentaries which instructed on "How the Roman Mass is to be celebrated", following the description in Ordo Romanus I. From the 9th century, these Ordo texts — which appeared as part of missals as well as priestly handbooks or prayer books — flourished in variety and content, particularly in the Frankish Kingdom and along the Rhine. Going beyond earlier types of liturgical writing, they incorporated ritual instructions and private prayers for the celebrant to recite as an aid to the devout offering of sacrifice. These private prayers distinctively included prayers directly addressed to Christ and direct invocations of the Holy Trinity — Gallican responses against Arianism among Germanic peoples. The prayers also reflected a Frankish tendency to verbalise non-verbal gestures. By the reign of Gregory VII, such Rhenish elements had become integral to the rite of the Pope and the Papal Curia, at the same time that the Roman Church began encouraging liturgical unity across Western Christendom.
In 1223 Saint Francis of Assisi instructed his friars to adopt the form that was in use at the Papal Court. They adapted this missal further to the needs of their largely itinerant apostolate. Pope Gregory IX considered, but did not put into effect, the idea of extending this missal, as revised by the Franciscans, to the whole Western Church; and in 1277 Pope Nicholas III ordered it to be accepted in all churches in the city of Rome. Its use spread throughout Europe, especially after the invention of the printing press; but the editors introduced variations of their own choosing, some of them substantial. Printing also favoured the spread of other liturgical texts of less certain orthodoxy. The Council of Trent determined that an end must be put to the resulting disparities.
The Papal Curia chapel missal used during Innocent III's papacy was largely reproduced in the Franciscan Missal, which in turn was adopted by Pope Nicholas for the Roman Missal. The later Roman Missal of 1474, which replicates the papal chapel missal of the 1200s, "hardly differs at all" from the Tridentine Missal promulgated in 1570.
The first printed Missale Romanum, containing the Ordo Missalis secundum consuetudinem Curiae Romanae, was produced in Milan in 1474. Almost a whole century passed before the appearance of an edition officially published by order of the Holy See. During that interval, the 1474 Milanese edition was followed by at least 14 other editions: 10 printed in Venice, 3 in Paris, 1 in Lyon. For lack of a controlling authority, these editions differ, sometimes considerably.
Annotations in the hand of Cardinal Gugliemo Sirleto in a copy of the 1494 Venetian edition show that it was used for drawing up the 1570 official edition of Pope Pius V. In substance, this 1494 text is identical with that of the 1474 Milanese edition.
In the 1500s, the Pre-Tridentine Roman Rite became the basis for Evangelical-Lutheran Rite of the Mass.
From 1570 to the 1960s
Implementing the decision of the Council of Trent, Pope Pius V promulgated, in the Apostolic Constitution Quo primum of 14 July 1570, an edition of the Roman Missal that was mandated for obligatory use throughout the Latin Church except where there was another liturgical rite that could be proven to have been in use for at least two centuries.Some corrections to Pope Pius V's text proved necessary, and Pope Clement VIII replaced it with a new typical edition of the Roman Missal on 7 July 1604. A further revised typical edition was promulgated by Pope Urban VIII on 2 September 1634.
Beginning in the late seventeenth century, France and neighbouring areas saw a flurry of independent missals published by bishops. Some of these were editions of manuscript missals already existing prior to 1370, but had undergone modifications that in some cases touched on the arbitrary. Later accusations of influence by Jansenism and Gallicanism were largely unfounded, as is shown by the fact that the Holy See did never condemned these books. This historical phenomenon of diocesan missals ended, however, when Abbot Guéranger and bishops such as Bishop Pierre-Louis Parisis of Langres initiated in the nineteenth century a vigorous polemical campaign in favour of a return to the Roman Missal. By 1875 all the French dioceses were using the Roman Missal. In 1884, Pope Leo XIII promulgated a new typical edition that took account of all the changes introduced since the time of Pope Urban VIII. Pope Pius X also undertook a revision of the Roman Missal, which was promulgated and declared typical by his successor Pope Benedict XV on 25 July 1920.
Though Pope Pius X's revision made few corrections, omissions, and additions to the text of the prayers in the Roman Missal, there were major changes in the rubrics, changes which were not incorporated in the section entitled "Rubricae generales", but were instead printed as an additional section under the heading "Additiones et variationes in rubricis Missalis."
Pope Pius XII issued no new typical edition of the Roman Missal, but authorized experimentally in 1951 the replacement of revised texts for Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil. After positive reports from the world's bishops, these changes were made universally obligatory in 1955. The Pope also removed from the Vigil of Pentecost the series of six Old Testament readings, with their accompanying Tracts and Collects, but these continued to be printed until 1962.
Acceding to the wishes of many of the bishops, Pope Pius XII judged it expedient also to reduce the rubrics of the missal to a simpler form, a simplification enacted by a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites of 23 March 1955. The changes this made in the General Roman Calendar are indicated in General Roman Calendar of Pope Pius XII.
In the following year, 1956, while preparatory studies were being conducted for a general liturgical reform, Pope Pius XII surveyed the opinions of the bishops on the liturgical improvement of the Roman breviary. After duly weighing the answers of the bishops, he judged that it was time to address the need for a general and systematic revision of the rubrics of the breviary and missal. This question he referred to the special committee of experts appointed to study the general liturgical reform.
His successor, Pope John XXIII, issued a new typical edition of the Roman Missal in 1962. This incorporated the revised Code of Rubrics which Pope Pius XII's commission had prepared, and which Pope John XXIII had made obligatory with effect from 1 January 1961. In the Missal, this Code of Rubrics replaced two of the documents in the 1920 edition; and the Pope's motu proprio Rubricarum instructum took the place of the superseded Apostolic constitution Divino afflatu of Pope Pius X.
Other notable changes incorporated were the omission of the adjective "perfidis" in the Good Friday Prayer for the Jews and the insertion of the name of Saint Joseph into the Canon of the Mass.
Revision following the Second Vatican Council
In 1965 and 1967 some changes were officially introduced into the Mass of the Roman Rite in the wake of Sacrosanctum Concilium, but no new edition of the Roman Missal had been produced to incorporate them. They were reflected in the provisional vernacular translations produced in various countries when the language of the people began to be used in addition to Latin. References sometimes met in an English-language context to "the 1965 Missal" concern these temporary vernacular productions, not the Roman Missal itself. Some countries that had the same language used different translations and varied in the amount of vernacular admitted.A new edition of the Roman Missal was promulgated by Pope Paul VI with the apostolic constitution Missale Romanum of 3 April 1969. The full text of the revised Missal was not published until the following year, and full vernacular translations appeared some years later, but parts of the Missal in Latin were already available since 1964 in non-definitive form, and provisional translations appeared without delay.
In his apostolic constitution, Pope Paul VI made particular mention of the following significant changes that he had made in the Roman Missal:
- To the single Eucharistic Prayer of the previous edition he added three alternative Eucharistic Prayers, increasing also the number of prefaces.
- The rites of the Order of Mass — that is, the largely unvarying part of the liturgy — were "simplified, while due care is taken to preserve their substance." "Elements which, with the passage of time, came to be duplicated, or were added with but little advantage" were eliminated, especially in the rites for the preparation of the bread and wine, the breaking of the bread, and Communion.
- "'Other elements which have suffered injury through accidents of history are now to be restored to the earlier norm of the Holy Fathers', for example, the homily and the 'common prayer' or 'prayer of the faithful'." Paul VI also added the option of "a penitential rite or act of reconciliation with God and the brothers, at the beginning of the Mass", though this was neither an ancient part of the Introductory Rite nor mentioned in Sacrosanctum Concilium.
- He greatly increased the proportion of the Bible read at Mass. Even before Pius XII reduced the proportion further, only 1% of the Old Testament and 16.5% of the New Testament was read at Mass. In Pope Paul's revision, 13.5% of the Old Testament and 71.5% of the New Testament are read. He was able to do this by having more readings at Mass and introducing a three-year cycle of readings on Sundays and a two-year cycle on weekdays.