We have now reached the point where it should be possible in the next few chapters to take the remaining texts of the Mass in order, starting with the prayers at the foot of the altar and ending with the beginning of the Gospel according to St. John, which closes the Old Rite Mass. With the knowledge of basic Latin grammar which you will have acquired by a careful reading of the preceding chapters and a study of the texts which we have so far analysed, you should be well equipped to tackle the remaining texts, with the help of the vocabulary whenever you come across unfamiliar words. I do not propose therefore to analyse these texts in as much detail as hitherto, but simply to attempt to guide you through them, dealing with possible points of difficulty as we go.
The first part of the Mass, sometimes known as the “Mass of the Catechumens” because it was originally the only part of the Mass which those who had not yet been baptised were permitted to attend, can be divided into three distinct sections. Firstly, there are the prayers at the foot of the altar, consisting in an introductory psalm (Psalm 42, vv. 1-5) and a penitential rite. Then come the Introit, Kyrie, and Gloria. The third part begins with the Collect and continues with a series of scriptural readings followed by a sermon or homily and concludes, on Sundays and major feasts, with the Creed. We will look at these in the order in which they occur.
The prayers at the foot of the altar are not strictly part of the Mass at all. They originated as prayers said in the sacristy by way of preparation for the ministers who were about to take part in the celebration. Later the practice arose of saying them during the procession to the altar. This was fine in cathedrals but in the humble parish church the distance from sacristy to altar was not great enough to enable them to be completed in time, so they finished up being recited at the foot of the altar instead. The fact that they are not strictly part of the Mass liturgy is clear at a High Mass or a Missa Cantata, where Mass begins with the singing of the Introit by the choir, while the ministers and servers recite these preparatory prayers in a low voice, inaudible to everyone in the congregation apart from those who happen to be sitting in the first few rows. Their status is also apparent from the fact that they are always recited and never sung. However, in the Novus Ordo the penitential rite has been incorporated into the Mass liturgy itself, an innovation which has attracted a considerable amount of criticism, and not only from traditionalists.
Grammatically the psalm is interesting for the number of different forms of the Latin verb which it exhibits. The imperative is prominent; we have “Iúdica” (“Judge”), “discérne” (“distinguish”), “érue” (“save”), “emítte” (“send forth”) and “spera” (“hope”); the first three of these are addressed to God, the last to the listener. Normally when addressing God we would tend either to add some such word as “quaésumus” (“we beseech”), or use the subjunctive, which in Latin is a more humble and courteous way of asking God for a favour, but here St. Jerome was translating from the Hebrew psalmist, who uses more direct language. The psalm also includes a number of future tenses, “introíbo” (“I will enter”) and “confitébor” (“I will acknowledge”). The latter is one of those deponent verbs which we mentioned in the last chapter, which are grammatically passive in Latin but are translated by an active verb in English. In this instance it is followed by objects in the dative case (“tibi” and “illi”); normally it takes a direct object in the accusative case, as indeed it does in English, and it is only in the Vulgate translation of the psalms that it is ever found in Latin with an object in the dative, the reason being that St. Jerome was following a Hebrew idiom. “Repulísti”, “deduxérunt” and “adduxérunt” are all perfect (i.e. past) tenses. The remaining verbs are in the present tense; “incédo”, “laetíficat”, “contúrbas” and finally “es”, which is the second person singular of the irregular verb “esse” (“to be”).
The penitential rite which follows consists first in a general confession by the priest to the people, to which the server, speaking throughout the rite on behalf of the congregation, replies with a prayer begging God’s mercy for his (i.e. the priest’s) sins. The server then makes a similar confession on behalf of the people to the priest, to which the latter replies with a prayer begging God’s mercy for their sins. He proceeds to ask God’s pardon on behalf of all present, including himself, and the rite concludes with a brief dialogue between priest and server, and two prayers for forgiveness recited silently by the priest as he goes up to the altar to begin the Mass.
Each confession begins with the word “Confíteor” which is followed by a succession of proper names in the dative, indicating the persons to whom confession or acknowledgement of sin is made; God himself of course, Our Lady, St. Michael, St. John the Baptist, Ss. Peter and Paul, and all the saints. At this point the language of each confession differs; the priest confesses “et vobis, fratres” (“and to you, brothers”, i.e to all those present except of course himself), the server “et tibi, pater” (“and to you, father”). In the second part of each confession the priest (or server) asks the saints mentioned in the first part (now all in the accusative case, as objects of “precor”) to pray for him (“oráre pro me”). Again the language is adapted; the priest asks “vos, fratres” (“you, brothers”) to pray for him, the server “te, pater” (“you, father”). There is the same distinction in the response which each makes after the other’s confession; the server says “Misereátur tui omnípotens Deus...et dimíssis peccátis tuis, perdúcat te... ”, and the priest “Misereátur vestri... et dimíssis peccátis vestris, perdúcat vos... ”. “Dimíssis peccátis tuis” (or “vestris”) is an ablative absolute of the past participle, “your sins having been forgiven”; as previously explained, it is impossible to say “having forgiven your sins” in Latin since it does not have an active past participle. In conclusion the priest prays inclusively that God will grant “indulgence, absolution and remission of our sins”.
The brief dialogue which follows consists mainly in quotations from the psalms; again the psalmist uses the imperative (“osténde”, “da” and “exáudi”). In the first of the two prayers which the celebrant says as he goes up to the altar, “Aufer” (“Take away”) is an imperative, but it is here followed by the humble “quaésumus”. The priest then says why he desires our sins to be taken away, “ut mereámur” (subjunctive) to enter into the Holy of Holies. The second prayer asks that our sins be forgiven through the merits of those saints whose relics are here (i.e. in the altar), “quorum relíquiae hic sunt”, and of all the saints.
Mass then begins with the Introit, literally meaning “he goes in” (it is the opposite of “Exit”, meaning “he goes out”, so logically we should put “Introit” rather than “Entrance” on the door by which we enter a room!). There follows a brief excursion into Greek, in the Kyrie. Contrary to what many people think, this is not penitential in nature. At one time a litany was sung at this point (as it still is in the Eastern rites), and the “Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison” was simply an opening request to God, in His mercy, to grant the favours prayed for. The litany still sung at the Easter Vigil is introduced in exactly this way. The litany in the Mass was suppressed by St. Gregory the Great, but he retained this vestige of it. In the Novus Ordo it has either been done away with altogether or incorporated into the penitential rite, at the choice of the celebrant.
On Sundays and feast days, the Gloria now follows. The Gloria is, with the exception of the Creed, probably the simplest text, grammatically speaking, in the Ordinary of the Mass. It falls naturally into three sections. First, the words used by the angels to announce the birth of Christ to the shepherds of Bethlehem, which are well known to everyone and require no elucidation. It has however frequently been a source of puzzlement as to why Catholics and Protestants seem to have different translations (“to men of goodwill” and “goodwill to men” respectively). The reason is that the oldest and best manuscripts, followed by St. Jerome in the Vulgate, have “to men of goodwill”. However, at a very early stage in the manuscript tradition some careless scribe omitted the final letter from the Greek word “eudókias”, thereby transforming it from a genitive (“of goodwill”) to a nominative (“goodwill”). Since the result still made grammatical sense the error was not spotted and subsequent copyists perpetuated it, thereby giving rise to a whole family of manuscripts which contain the error. It was this group of manuscripts that the translators of the Authorised Version used, and so the mistake passed into the English Protestant tradition.
After the angelic announcement there is a passage of praise to God the Father and God the Son, beginning with a series of verbs in the first person plural (which end, you will recall from the previous chapter, in “-mus”); “we praise Thee, we bless Thee, we adore Thee, we glorify Thee, we render thanks to Thee on account of Thy great glory, O Lord God, Heavenly King, God the Father Almighty, O Lord the Son the only-begotten, Jesus Christ, Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father”. The word order, apart from “grátias ágimus” and “Rex caeléstis” is virtually identical to English and presents no difficulties. Why do we thank God for His glory? Because God has made the whole universe for His own honour and glory, so without it neither we nor anything else would exist. By mistranslating this as “We praise you for your glory”, the authors of the English text of the Novus Ordo appear to have entirely missed the point (not that this is their only, or even their worst, mistake. In their translation they apply the words “Laudámus te, benedícimus te, adorámus te, glorificámus te, grátias ágimus tibi” to God the Father alone, instead of to both the Father and the Son).
The Gloria ends with a series of petitions. Christ is addressed as “Qui tollis peccáta mundi” (“[Thou] Who takest away the sins of the world”) and as “qui sedes ad déxteram Patris” (“[Thou] Who dost sit at the right [hand] of the Father”) and is asked to “have mercy on us” (“miserére” is the imperative of the deponent verb, “miseréri”) and to “receive our prayer” (another imperative, “súscipe”). Finally we say why we have every confidence in addressing our petitions to Him, “Quóniam tu solus Sanctus, tu solus Dóminus, tu solus Altíssimus, Jesu Christe, cum Sancto Spíritu, in glória Dei Patris”).
The priest then introduces the Collect by turning to the people and greeting them with “Dóminus vobíscum” (one of many times in the Mass). “Vobíscum” is a funny word; we would have expected “cum vobis” for “with you”. However, when “cum” occurs with a first or second personal pronoun the two words are reversed and run together as a single word. So as well as “vobíscum” you will find “mecum”, “tecum” and “nobíscum” (the third person “with him”, however, is “cum illo”). There is no particular reason for this; it is just an idiomatic usage, the kind of thing which occurs in all languages. The word “sit” (“may [He] be”) is of course understood.
After the Collect comes the Epistle (or alternative Old Testament reading), and the Gradual and Alleluia (or Tract in Lent). The Gradual and Alleluia (or Tract) appear at first sight to be a single chant but in fact they are two. The most ancient Mass liturgies had two or more readings before the Gospel, with a psalm between each of them. Since this psalm was introduced from the altar steps, it became known as the Gradual (“gradus” means “step”). The two pre-Gospel readings were reduced to one at a very early date, and the Gradual psalm, in a shortened form, was thereafter sung immediately prior to the Alleluia. The traditional number of pre-Gospel readings, however, survived on a few days in the liturgical year, notably the Ember days and one or two of the Lenten ferias, and in particular on Good Friday. On these days each of the readings is preceded by its own Collect, with a separate Gradual between them. The Novus Ordo restored the ancient arrangement, but only for Sundays and solemnities, and paradoxically abolished it on those very days (except for Good Friday) on which it had survived. Apart from the Easter Vigil, which represents something of a special case since the Old Testament readings are not strictly part of the Mass, Good Friday is now the only day in the official calendar on which the tradition of more than one pre-Gospel reading has survived intact since the earliest times (though the actual readings themselves were changed in the post-Vatican II reform).
The deacon, as a preparation for singing the Gospel, then says the prayer “Munda cor meum” and requests a blessing from the celebrant, which the latter gives in the prayer “Dóminus sit in corde tuo”. The words are adapted for the purposes of Low Mass, where there is no deacon and the Gospel is read by the celebrant, an indication that High Mass was the original form of the Mass liturgy, and Low Mass a development from it. There are two main verbs in the first prayer, both in the imperative, “munda” and “dignáre” (another deponent verb). “Cleanse my heart and my lips, almighty God” and “thus condescend to cleanse me by Thy gracious mercy”. Each petition has a subsidiary clause attached to it; the first is a relative clause referring to the cleansing of the lips of the prophet Isaiah with a burning coal (“cálculo igníto”), the second gives the reason for the prayer, “that I may have the strength (“váleam”, subjunctive of “valére”) to proclaim (“nuntiáre”) Thy holy Gospel worthily”. The blessing itself we have considered in the previous chapter, when talking about the use of the subjunctive.