After the conclusion of the Eucharistic Prayer (considered in Chapters III and IV), the Communion Rite begins with the Pater Noster, which is introduced by a brief exhortation. “Móniti” and “formáti” are the nominative plural of the past participle passives of “monére” and “formáre” respectively, literally “having been advised” by saving precepts and “having been formed” by divine institution, we make bold (“audémus”) to say the Lord’s Prayer.
St. Gregory was responsible for the position of the Pater Noster immediately after the Eucharistic Prayer, so that, he tells us, the Lord’s Prayer may be said over the Lord’s own Body. The prayer itself is so well known that I do not need to go into it in detail. The first half consists in three petitions, all in the subjunctive, that God’s name be hallowed, that His kingdom may come and that His will be done. We have already met “fiat” in the “Oráte fratres”, meaning “may it become” or, in the present context, “may it happen”. The second half contains another four petitions, this time all for our own benefit. The verbs in this section are by contrast in the imperative, “da”, “dimítte” and “líbera”. “Débita” is grammatically the neuter plural of the past participle passive of the verb “debére”, meaning “the things which are owed”, in other words our sins, which are expressed metaphorically as liabilities towards God, which we are asking Him to cancel (see the parable in Matthew 18: 23-35). It serves as both the expressed object of “dimítte” and the implied object of “dimíttimus”. As we saw in the last chapter, “ne nos indúcas” is a negative imperative.
The Pater Noster is followed by the embolism, said silently except on Good Friday. Embolism comes from a Greek word meaning something inserted or added, because this prayer is an extension of the last petition of the Lord’s Prayer. It begins “Líbera nos, Dómine, ab ómnibus malis, praetéritis, preséntibus et futuris” (“Deliver us, Lord, from all evils, past, present and future”). How can God free us from past evils? There are several possible explanations (not necessarily mutually exclusive). The reference may be to our sins, or those of our forefathers, the burden of guilt for which, and the consequences of which, continue to exist in the present. Or it may be a reference to the fact that since God exists outside time, it makes perfectly good sense to pray for delivery from evils which would have happened had it not been for our present prayer.
The embolism continues with a petition for peace. It begins with a construction we have met once or twice before, the ablative absolute, which as you know consists in a participle, present or past, and a noun or pronoun, in the ablative case (e.g. “elevátis óculis”, from the Canon, or “glória permanénte”, from the preface for feasts of Our Lady). Here we have the present participle, “intercedénte beáta et gloriósa semper vírgine María, cum beátis Apóstolis tuis Petro et Paulo, et Andréa, et ómnibus sanctis”, literally “the blessed and glorious ever Virgin Mary interceding” etc., followed by an imperative “da propítius pacem in diébus nostris”, and an explanation of what we understand by peace “ut ope misericórdiae túae adiúti, et a peccáto simus semper líberi et ab omni perturbátione secúri”. “Adiúti”, “líberi” and “secúri” are all nominative plural, agreeing with the subject of the verb; “in order that, assisted by the help of Thy mercy, we may be both always free from sin and secure from all disturbance”. You will remember, I am sure, that where we have two clauses both introduced by “et”, as here, the first “et” translates as “both”.
The Old Roman Rite embolism is extremely ancient, dating from before the time of Gregory the Great. However the liturgical reformers rewrote it, removing the appeal for the intercession of Our Lady and the saints, on the grounds that such an appeal was inappropriate, coming so soon after the similar appeal in the Canon. St. Gregory clearly did not think it inappropriate, nor did St. Pius V, but Bugnini and his colleagues did, so out it went.
The embolism concludes with a doxology, during which the “fractio”, or breaking of the consecrated Host, takes place. When ordinary bread was used for communion, it was necessary to break it into small pieces, and this requirement is the origin of the fractio. It is now purely symbolic, representing the breaking of Christ’s Body on the Cross. It concludes with the priest breaking off a small portion of the Host which he drops into the chalice, praying that the mingling and consecration of the Body and Blood of Christ may become (“fiat” again) for us who receive it a source of eternal life. A literal translation of the Latin would be “ may become to us receiving [it] towards eternal life”. You will of course recognise “accipiéntibus”, like “intercedénte” in the previous paragraph, as a present participle from the “-nt-“ before the variable word ending.
The choir then sings the Agnus Dei, whose grammatical structure is simple. The second repetition ends with “dona nobis pacem”, serving as an introduction to the Pax, or Kiss of Peace. On Maundy Thursday there is no Pax, and the Agnus Dei ends with “miserére nobis”. This is because the exchange of a kiss on this one day of the year signifies not love but betrayal. The Pax consists in a prayer “Dómine Jesu Christe, qui dixísti”, and the exchange of an embrace between the ministers. Originally, of course, the embrace was a kiss and the whole congregation was involved. The men always stood on one side of the nave, the women on the other, so that there were three groups, ministers, laymen and laywomen, and the kiss was exchanged between the persons in each of these groups, but not between the groups themselves. It was not at all like the so-called sign of peace which occurs in the Novus Ordo.
The Agnus Dei was introduced at this point in the Mass by Pope Sergius I (687-701). Before that it formed the conclusion to the litany. Sergius did not however change the Easter Vigil rite, in which the Agnus Dei continued to be sung as the conclusion to the litany, and not during the Mass, for the next 1300 years, until the post-conciliar reformers removed it from the litany to the Mass, either from a dislike of what they regarded as untidiness in the liturgy, or because they thought that the idea of a Mass without an Agnus Dei would be beyond the capacity of the laity to understand.
In the prayer which follows there is yet another example of a negative imperative formed by the word “ne” and the subjunctive, namely “ne respícias” (“do not regard”). “Eam” (“her”), referring to the Church, is the object of the double infinitive “pacificáre” and “coadunáre”; Christ is asked “to pacify and to unite her, according to Thy will”, normally translated as “to grant her peace and unity” etc.
After the Pax come two prayers to prepare the celebrant for his own communion. The first, though addressed specifically to Christ, introduces the collaboration of the Blessed Trinity in the work of redemption. By now you will be expert at spotting the present participle, “cooperánte”, in the ablative absolute construction, literally “the Holy Spirit co-operating”. There are three main verbs, of which the first two are in the imperative, “líbera” and “fac” (the latter is an irregular formation from “fácere”), and “me” is the object of both; Christ is asked to “free me through this, Thy most sacred Body and Blood, from all my sins, and from all evils”, and “make me always cleave to Thy commandments”. The third verb is a negative imperative, “nunquam permíttas”; this is analogous to the use of “ne” with the subjunctive, but stronger, not just “do not allow”, but “never allow”. “Me” is also the object of “permíttas”, but this time understood rather than expressed, and “separári” is a passive infinitive. The English word order would be “nunquam permíttas [me] separári a te”.
The second prayer is really an expanded version of the Dómine non sum dignus. It is grammatically simple and the word order is more or less the same as in English, so you should not have too much difficulty in understanding it. The word “prosit”, meaning “may [it] benefit”, is from “proésse”, which is formed from the preposition “pro” (“on behalf of”) and “esse” (“to be”). The prayer concludes with one of only two examples of the gerundive occurring in the Ordinary of the Mass (the other being "excúsandas excusatiónes” in the prayer accompanying the censing of the altar). Here it has a purposive sense “for [the purpose of] attaining healing”.
The prayer which the priest says before receiving the Precious Blood is again part of a psalm. “Retríbuam”, “accípiam”, “invocábo” and “ero” are all futures, in the first person singular. “Laudans” is the nominative of the present participle, “Praising [Him] I will invoke the Lord”.
After communion has been distributed the celebrant purifies the chalice whilst reciting two prayers. The first is very ancient, and Roman in origin; it began as a Postcommunion prayer in the Leonine Sacramentary, which you will remember is the oldest surviving Mass book (it is still in use in the Old Rite as the Postcommunion for Thursday in Passion Week). This is why, although it is now said silently by the priest alone, it is expressed in the first person plural. “Capiámus” is subjunctive, “may we take possession of”, and its object is the entire relative clause introduced by “quod”, “[that] which we have taken in our mouth”. “Quod” is a relative pronoun referring to a word (“id”, meaning “that”) which is understood rather than expressed. The second prayer is also ancient, though non-Roman in origin; it comes from the early Gallican liturgy, where it too began as a postcommunion prayer. It was introduced into the Roman Mass liturgy during the Middle Ages, though this time the original text was modified from the first person plural to the first person singular. The phrase “adhaéreat viscéribus meis” is a striking one; it means literally “may [it] stick to my internal organs”. My missal translates it as “may [it] cleave to every fibre of my being”, which is a fair enough rendering of the sense. It is also grammatically dubious, a double subject (“Corpus... et Sanguis”) followed by a singular verb. The Latin grammar in the Gallican sacramentaries is frequently atrocious, but it is usually corrected when Gallican prayers are incorporated into the Roman liturgy, so the use of the singular here is presumably deliberate; the Body and Blood of Christ are regarded as a single entity. “Praesta” is imperative, “grant”, followed as usual by “ut” and the subjunctive, expressing what the priest wants God to grant “that in me there may not remain the stain of sins, whom pure and holy sacraments have renewed”. “Scélerum”, the genitive plural of “scelus” is a dramatic word for “sins”; its meaning is nearer to “crime” or “wickedness”.
The dismissal, which follows the Postcommunion of the day, can take one of three forms. Where the Gloria has been said, the celebrant turns to the people and says “Ite, missa est”, to which the server, or congregation, replies “Deo grátias”. “Missa” is strictly the past participle of the verb “míttere”, meaning to send or to dispatch, but in colloquial Latin it became a noun equivalent to the more literary “míssio”, meaning “dismissal”. So this is a colloquial way of saying, “Go, this is the dismissal”. “Missa” is the word from which we derive “Mass”, because at quite an early date it gave its name to the entire Eucharistic celebration; the first instance of this use is in the Letters of St. Ambrose in the fourth century.
If the Gloria has not been said, the celebrant says “Benedicámus Dómino”, to which the people, or the server on their behalf, reply as before. And if the Mass is a Requiem, he says, without turning to the people, “Requiéscant in pace”, to which the reply is simply “Amen”.
Before giving the blessing, the priest bows before the altar and recites one final prayer to the Holy Trinity, praying that “obséquium servitútis meae pláceat tibi” (literally “the tribute of my servanthood may please Thee”). This is followed by the imperative “praesta” and “ut” with the subjunctive verb, “grant that the sacrifice which I, unworthy, have offered in the presence” (the Latin says “in the eyes”) “ of Thy majesty may be acceptable to Thee, and for me, and for all [those] for whom I have offered it, it may be, through Thy mercy, propitiatory”. “Te miseránte” is of course our old friend the ablative absolute with the present participle, literally “Thou being merciful”.
The celebrant then gives the blessing, and, until the mediaeval period, that was that. However, in the thirteenth century the custom began of reading the beginning of the Fourth Gospel, in which St. John, in origin a humble fisherman on the Lake of Galilee, expounds the mystery of the Incarnation in language of a sublimity seldom equalled and never surpassed. It was recited (never sung) either at the altar, as it is now, or during the procession from the altar back to the sacristy, as it was for example in our own Sarum rite. The reason for doing it seems to have been that this passage, being regarded as a kind of summary of the gospels as a whole, was often recited as part of benedictional formulae, so reading it immediately after the blessing seemed a logical thing to do.
Understanding the Latin, with the help of the vocabulary for unfamiliar words, is not too difficult. Understanding the theology, which is necessary in order to translate the passage accurately into a different language, is another matter altogether, and not one for which I am in any way competent. How should we translate “Verbum erat apud Deum”? It is usually rendered, as in the Jerusalem Bible for instance, “the Word was with God”, but this would be “Verbum erat cum Deo”, and the word used by St. John in the original text is not “syn” or “meta”, which are Greek for “with”, but “pros”. “Apud” in this context has much of the flavour of the French “chez”, for which there is no exact English equivalent. Ronald Knox rendered it as “God had the Word abiding with Him”, which is more cumbersome but certainly closer to the correct meaning. “Hoc” at the beginning of the next sentence refers of course to the Word. After telling us that everything in the universe was created by this Word, St. John goes on to say that “in Him was life, and [His] life was the light of men”. The use of the imperfect tense means that in this sentence he is thinking of the past, the earthly life of Christ, but immediately thereafter he switches to the present “the light shines in the darkness”, and then to the perfect “and the darkness did not master it”. So the darkness (literally “darknesses”) tried and failed to overcome the light, which now shines as the light for all men. “Hóminum” is the genitive plural of “homo”, which means “man” in the sense of “human being”. Latin has a different word for “adult male”, namely “vir”, and so does Greek, so the problem which has so exercised modern feminists did not exist in the ancient world.
In the next few verses the evangelist goes on to describe the mission of John the Baptist, explaining carefully that “he was not the light, but [he came] so that he might bear witness concerning the light”. “Lux” and “lumen” mean the same thing; in fact the Greek original uses the same word. St. Jerome has varied it in translation, purely for stylistic reasons. “That was the true light,” (imperfect tense again) “which enlightens” (present tense) “every man coming into this world”. He was in the world, indeed the world was made (“factus est”) by Him, but the world did not recognise Him. The message is made more emphatic by the reiterated “mundo”, “mundus”, “mundus”, and by the repetition of the last phrase in the next sentence, “He came into His own (“in própria”), and His own people (“sui”) did not receive Him”. The subject of the next clause is the odd word “quotquot”, meaning “whosoever”; it is odd because it does not change its ending, no matter what grammatical role it plays in any given sentence. “Eis” and “his” are datives, “to them” and “to these”, that is to those who received Him, and to those who believe in His name, he gave “potestátem fílios Dei fíeri”, “the power to become sons of God”. The tenses are again worth noting; “recepérunt” and “dedit” are perfects, “credunt” is present. He has given the power to become children of God to those who received Him (i.e. during His earthly life), and to those who now believe in His name. The passage ends with a personal statement, “vídimus glóriam eius, glóriam quasi Unigéniti a Patre”, “we saw His glory” (literally “the glory of Him”), “the glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father”; the “we” being of course St. John and his companions, the other disciples, the eye-witnesses of the Risen Lord.