The Thomist 67 (2003) : 157-95: Auren Ristas

The Thomist 67 (2003): 157-95
THEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES THAT GUIDED THE

REDACTION OF THE ROMAN MISSAL (1970)1
LAUREN PRISTAS
Caldwell College
Caldwell, New Jersey
I
N THE LAST THREE DECADES there has been much discussion,
even heated debate, about the liturgical texts currently in use,
or proposed for use, in English-speaking countries. Articles in
the popular press and in scholarly journals have centered almost
exclusively on the texts produced by the International Commis-
sion on English in the Liturgy (ICEL)—that is, on the quality of
translations, the linguistic theories undergirding them, the
competence of a mixed commission to compose original texts,
and the respective roles of the bishops’ conferences and the Holy
See in approving vernacular translations.2 These matters are
1
I am grateful to the Intercultural Forum for Studies in Faith and Culture at the Pope
John Paul II Cultural Center, Washington, D.C., for the support that enabled me to complete
this article.
2
See, for examples, Robert Speaight, “Liturgy and Language,” Theology: Monthly Review
74 (October 1971): 444-56; Ralph A. Kiefer, “The Eucharistic Prayer,” Worship 50 (1976):
316-23; Richard Toporoski, “The Language of Worship,” Communio 4 (Fall 1977): 226-60;
Ansgar J. Chupungco, “The English Translation of the Latin Liturgy,” Notitiae 18 (1982):
91-100; Cuthbert Johnson, “Prefaces: Shaping a New Translation,” Pastoral Music 16 (April-
May 1992): 34-37; Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, “The Catechetical Role of the Liturgy and the
Quality of Liturgical Texts: The Current ICEL Translation,” Communio 20 (Spring 1993):
63-83; Eamon Duffy, “Rewriting the Liturgy: The Theological Issues of Translation,” New
Blackfriars 78 (January 1997): 4-27, reprinted in Stratford Caldecott, ed., Beyond the Prosaic
(Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998), 97-126; Donald Trautman, “Rome and ICEL,” America 182
(March 4, 2000): 7-11; Letter to the Editor written in response to Bishop Trautman’s article
by the Prefect for the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments,
entitled “Cardinal Jorge A. Medina on the ICEL Controversy,” America 182 (April 14, 2000):
17-19; Ad Hoc Committee on the Forum on the Principles of Translation, The Voice of the
Church: A Forum on Liturgical Translation (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic
Conference, 2001).
157
158 LAUREN PRISTAS
vitally important, for nothing is more formative and expressive of

the Church’s faith than the words with which she prays each day.
Nevertheless, the scholarly and popular controversy swirling
about the vernacular texts has distracted us from what, for the
very same reason, is far more important: the Latin texts them-
selves, their origin and essential character.3
The work of the liturgical reform was vast beyond imagining,
and was accomplished in a remarkably short period of time: a
little over five years. Counting orations alone (i.e., collects,
prayers over the gifts, and postcommunion prayers), the Missal of
Paul VI has about one thousand five hundred prayers, approxi-
mately twice the number of prayers in the 1962 Missal.4 The
orations of the new missal are from a variety of different sources:
some are from the 1962 Missal itself;5 others come from ancient
3
Some studies have been published. For information about the sources themselves, see A.
Dumas, “Les sources du nouveau missel romain,” Notitiae 7 (1971): 37-42, 74-77, 94-95,
134-36, 276-80, 409-10; Anthony Ward and Cuthbert Johnson, “The Sources of the Roman
Missal (1975),” Notitiae 22 (1986): 445-747; 23 (1987): 413-1009; and 32 (1996): 7-179.
For works that examine elements of the Latin typical edition of the Missal of Paul VI in
relation to their sources see Thomas A. Krosnicki, Ancient Themes in Modern Prayer
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1973); Anthony Cekada, The
Problems with the Prayers of the Modern Mass (Rockford, Ill.: Tan Books and Publishers,
1991); Gerard Moore, Vatican II and the Collects for Ordinary Time: A Study in the Roman
Missal (1975) (San Francisco: The Scholars Press, 1998); Lorenzo Bianchi, “A Survey of the
Theology, History, Terminology and Syntax in the Prayers of the Roman Missal,” in
Theological and Historical Aspects of the Roman Missal, The Proceedings of the Fifth
International Colloquium of Historical, Canonical and Theological Studies on the Roman
Catholic Liturgy (Kingston and Surbiton: Centre International d’Études Liturgiques, 2000),
127-64.
4
The alphabetical listing of all the orations in the present Roman Missal in Thaddäus A.
Schnitker and Wolfgang A. Slaby, eds., Concordantia verbalia missalis romani: Partes
euchologicae (Münster: Aschendorff, 1983), col. 2865-2910 contains 1,479 orations,
exclusive of blessing prayers. Annibale Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy (1948-1975), trans.
Matthew J. O’Connell (Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1990), 396 states that the
new missal has “sixteen hundred prayers,” which must be a round number that includes all
the blessing prayers. Matias Augé, “Le collete del proprio del tempo nel nuovo messale,”
Ephemerides Liturgicae 84 (1970): 275 states that the new missal has “about two thousand
prayers” (duemilla preghiere circa), a number that, based on Schnitker’s list, is hard to
explain. Both Bugnini and Augé state that the number of orations in the new missal is more
than twice the number in the 1962 Missal.
5
That is, the last edition of the Roman Missal prior to the reforms mandated by Vatican
II. The 1962 Missal is the last typical edition of the Missal of Pius V, also called the
Tridentine Missal, which was commissioned by the Council of Trent and first appeared in
THE REDACTION OF THE ROMAN MISSAL (1970) 159
sacramentaries or collections of liturgical formularies; still others

are new compositions. Many of the orations that were taken from
earlier missals or codices were edited. The newly composed texts
are woven from threads of two or three ancient orations;
constructed of phrases from biblical, patristic, or ecclesiastical
texts; or composed in their entirety by those who produced the
new missal. Therefore, many of the orations of the Paul VI Missal
are not ancient prayers in the strict sense, but modern redactions
of ancient prayers or entirely new compositions.
At the time the new missal appeared, those involved in the
work of the reform published articles in which they set forth the
principles that guided the selection, arrangement, redaction, and
creation of texts, and explained how the principles were
concretely applied.6 Frequently they offered examples. These
articles have received little scholarly attention though they are
great reservoirs of information about the practical decisions made
by the reformers. Because these decisions were often subjective,
they invite reappraisal by competent scholars of a new generation.
More important, however, than scholarly evaluation of the parti-
cular judgments, even those with widespread application, is the
objective review of the philosophical and theological principles
that drove the reform. This has not yet been undertaken. A
thorough evaluation of these principles would distinguish those
stipulated by the council Fathers from those embraced by the
Consilium7 in the course of the revision process, and evaluate the
1570.
6
See, for example, Henry Ashworth, “The Prayers for the Dead in the Missal of Pope Paul
VI,” Ephemerides Liturgicae 85 (1971): 3-15; Augé, “Le collete del proprio del tempo nel
nuovo messale,” 275-98; Carlo Braga, “Il nuovo messale romano,” Ephemerides Liturgicae
84 (1970): 249-74; Carlo Braga, “Il ‘proprium de sanctis,’” Ephemerides Liturgicae 84
(1970): 401-3; Antoine Dumas, “Les oraisons du nouveau missel romain,” Questions
Liturgiques 25 (1971): 263-70; Walter Ferretti, “Le orazioni ‘post communionem’ de
tempore nel nuovo messale romano,” Ephemerides Liturgicae 84 (1970): 321-41; Vincenzo
Raffa, “Le orazioni ‘post communionem’ de tempore nel nuovo messale romano,”
Ephemerides Liturgicae 84 (1970): 299-391.
7
The task of implementing the reform of the liturgy mandated by Vatican II was given to
a group named the Consilium ad exsequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia
(Consultation to Carry out the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy). The Consilium was
comprised of members, consultors, and advisors. All but three of the forty members were
bishops. Members were not responsible for producing the revised texts themselves, but for
160 LAUREN PRISTAS
latter in relation to both the intentions of the council Fathers and

the relevant Catholic philosophical and theological principles.8
Such studies are essential for a well-founded appreciation of the
present missal and of Catholic liturgical history as a whole.
Thirty years after the promulgation of the missal, the most
critical studies have not yet been done: those that would
definitively establish whether the reform of the liturgy was a
renewal that was entirely faithful to authentic Catholic liturgical
tradition, a reform that departed from the prior liturgical
tradition and inaugurated something fundamentally new, or a
revision that is more accurately placed between the preceding two
possibilities.
Perhaps the most authoritative, though by no means the most
detailed, of the articles appearing in connection with the
promulgation of the Paul VI Missal was written by Antoine
deciding matters of policy and approving schemata proposed by the various coetus (study
groups). The study groups were made up of several consultors; one consultor, called the
relator, was in charge. Consultors worked together to review the missal and draw up the
various schemata. Drafts of schemata were sent to advisors for review before being presented
to the members for approval (Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy, 65-66).
Each study group was assigned a particular task. Coetus 18bis was responsible for the
prayers and prefaces. It had seven members. Five of these are listed as consultors and
functioned at such. Two are listed as advisors but one of these, Antoine Dumas, seems to have
functioned as a consultor for he eventually became relator of the group. See Consilium ad
exsequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia, Elenchus membrorum - consultorum
consiliariorum coetuum a studiis (Vatican: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1964), passim.
Three of the other authors cited in the preceding footnote are named in the same
membership list. Ashworth and Raffa were consultors; Braga was attached to the office of the
Consilium secretary, Annibale Bugnini.
8
For instance, Augé, “Le collete del proprio del tempo nel nuovo messale,” 275-77,
explicitly notes that the Fathers of Vatican II did not envision a reform or enrichment of the
orations of the missal. Rather, he explains, the qualities and limitations of the euchological
texts became more evident in the light of the decision to introduce the use of the vernacular
and of the call in Sacrosanctum Concilium 21 that the liturgical texts “express more clearly
the holy things which they signify, and that the Christian people, as far as possible, be able
to understand them with ease and to take part in them fully, actively, and as it befits a
community.” Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy, 398, names certain principles agreed upon
by the Consilium in October 1966, that is, a year after the council had ended and six months
after study group 18bis had begun its work (on the preceding page, Bugnini reports that the
group’s first task, reviewing and revising all the orations of the temporal cycle, had been
undertaken at a meeting in Louvain, April 5-11, 1966).
Dumas.9 At the time of its publication Dumas was a member of

the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship. Earlier he had been
in charge of the Consilium study group responsible for the
orations of the Paul VI Missal, Coetus 18bis.10 He was, therefore,
intimately involved in the decisions he discusses. Brief though his
article is, it offers a more comprehensive introduction than the
others because it touches upon nearly every type of oration found
in the new missal. Dumas’s article is divided into two sections.
The first lays out the principles followed in selecting, editing, and
composing the orations of the Paul VI Missal, and explains how
these principles were applied. The second illustrates both the
principles and their application by citing specific examples. In his
conclusion, Dumas recommends that the Paul VI Missal be
studied in the light of what he has set forth.
My essay follows his concluding recommendation. Like
Dumas’s article, mine has two parts. The first lays out the texts of
the examples he cites, reproducing in full both the new oration
and its source(s), and discusses the most noteworthy differences
between the old and the new in light of Dumas’s comments on
the same. The second discusses the principles applied in the
reform of the liturgy as these are explicitly or implicitly presented
by Dumas, and then identifies aspects that merit further scholarly
attention.
Dumas’s essay proceeds from principles to the citing of
examples. Mine moves in the opposite direction. The goal is to
present the most concrete picture possible. A study that considers
such a small number of orations cannot draw conclusions about
the character of the missal as whole. Dumas, however, has cited
these examples as specific illustrations of how the principles
directing the reform were implemented. Precisely because he cites
them, these examples are a fitting place for us to start.
9
Dumas, “Les oraisons du nouveau missel romain,” 263-70.
10
Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy, 397 n. 10 lists Dumas as a member of Coetus 18bis
and states that A. Rose became its relator when P. Bruylants died in October, 1966. This
appears to be an error. See Bernard Botte, From Silence to Participation: An Insider’s View
of Liturgical Renewal, trans. John Sullivan (Washington, D.C.: The Pastoral Press, 1988),
151; and Piero Marini, “Elenco degli ‘schemata’ del ‘consilium’ e della congregazione per il
culto divino (Marzo 1964-Luglio 1975),” Notitiae 18 (1982): 668-69.
162 LAUREN PRISTAS
My primary purpose in presenting this material is not to assess

the character of the new missal, but to demonstrate the
importance of studying it carefully in specific relation to its
sources. The scope of the present investigation is so limited that
it can only identify tendencies, not in the revised missal, but in
the examples of revision themselves. Since these tendencies are
pronounced, and therefore may be characteristic of the missal as
a whole, they identify areas for further scholarly investigation.
I. EXAMPLES
We will examine ten orations in the eight numbered examples

that follow. Wherever pertinent, I introduce the example with an
English translation of Dumas’s comments on the revision or type
of revision, and in every case transcribe the full texts of the
orations he cites. Dumas’s citations identify the source prayers as
well as the redaction that appears in the Missal of Paul VI. These
versions are set side-by-side in both Latin and English so that the
reader can see exactly what was deleted, retained, and changed.
A discussion of the most noteworthy features of the revision
follows. I examine only those examples cited by Dumas whose
sources were other orations. The order of presentation is that of
Dumas’s essay. In the orations taken from ancient codices, Latin
orthography, punctuation, and capitalization have been regu-
larized, and unambiguous grammatical or transcription errors
corrected. The translations, both of Dumas’s text and of the
orations, are my own.
A) Revised Orations
Example 1: Accommodation to the Modern Mentality
The first example is of a change made in order to

accommodate modern sensibilities. Dumas writes:
Other texts, having become shocking for the man of today, have been frankly
corrected while respecting the structure of the text and the movement of the
phrase. For example, the former secret for Saturday of the second week of
Lent, which has become the prayer over the offerings for the third Sunday of
Lent,11 changes the expression: non gravemur externis, difficult to understand,
to: fraterna dimittere studeamus, decidedly more evangelical.12
1962: SECRET PAUL VI:13 OVER THE OFFERINGS

SATURDAY OF THE SECOND WEEK OF THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT
LENT
His sacrificiis, Domine, concede His sacrificiis, Domine, concede

placatus, placatus,
ut, qui propriis oramus absolvi ut, qui propriis oramus absolvi
delictis, delictis,
non gravemur externis. fraterna dimittere studeamus.
_____________ _____________
Appeased, O Lord, by these Appeased, O Lord, by these

sacrifices, sacrifices,
grant that we who pray to be set grant that we who pray to be set
free from our own sins free from our own sins
may not be oppressed by the sins of may be eager to forgive those of the
those outside. brethren.
The change from non gravemur externis to fraterna dimittere

studeamus creates an entirely different petition. The 1962 oration
asks God to grant, through the efficacy of Christ’s sacrifice, which
11
Before the liturgical reform of Vatican II, the oration prayed by the priest directly
before the Preface of the Mass was called the secreta (secret) because it was prayed in a soft
voice. In the new missal the same oration is prayed aloud and its name has been changed to
super oblata (over the offerings). In the ICEL sacramentary it is called the “prayer over the
gifts.”
12
Dumas, “Les oraisons du nouveau missel romain,” 267-68: “D’autres textes, devenus
choquants pour l’homme d’aujourd’hui, ont été franchement corrigés, tout en respectant la
structure du texte et le mouvement de la phrase. Par exemple l’ancienne secrète du samedi
de la 2me semaine de Carême, devenue la prière sur les offrandes du 3me dimanche de
Carême, change l’expression : non gravemur externis, difficilement compréhensible, en :
fraterna dimittere studeamus, décidément plus évangélique.” Somewhat puzzling is Dumas’s
initial presentation of this oration as “shocking to the man of today” and his later description
of the shocking bit as only “difficult to understand.”
13
The Missal of Paul VI has appeared in three typical editions dated 1970, 1975, and
2002. All the orations identified as “Paul VI” in this study are identical in all three editions.
164 LAUREN PRISTAS
is about to be re-presented liturgically, that the members of the

Christian community not be oppressed or burdened by the sins of
those outside the Church (presumably pagans, heretics, and so
forth). The revision asks God to make the members of the
Christian community eager to forgive the sins of one another.
The original, then, distinguishes the Church community as a
whole, with the sins of its own members, from the sum of all
those who do not belong to the Church, with their sins, whereas
the revision makes mention only of the sins of Christians and
distinguishes them according to whether, from the perspective of
each individual member of the Christian community, the sins are
one’s own or those of one’s brothers and sisters in Christ.
The 1962 text is not indifferent toward those who are
separated from Christ and from us. Rather, it expresses a deep
confidence in the power of his saving death and resurrection.
Those who pray it acknowledge that no matter what sins are
committed by those outside the Church, or how her members
may suffer as a result of these sins, those who have been redeemed
in Christ are not to be weighed down because faith assures them
that God has already granted them victory in his Son.
The 1962 petition expresses both a thoroughly orthodox
understanding of the nature of evil and a realistic sense of ironic
possibility. Only our own sins necessarily do true harm to us. The
sins of others, which we suffer as physical evil, cannot truly harm
us unless we permit them to engage our will so that a moral lapse
follows. It would be a lamentable irony if those whom Christ has
set free from the sins for which they are personally responsible
were to be brought low by sins for which they bear no
responsibility.
Dumas describes the original oration as “shocking for the man
of today” and “difficult to understand.” Perhaps it seemed so to
him. At first glance many might think the prayer strange. Since
September 11, 2001, however, its petition is easily understood by
Christians of every stripe who have thought about the attacks on
the United States on that date in religious terms. There are two
points that flow from this.
First, the relevance of a particular oration for the Church

universal is not something that can always be judged by persons
of any one time or place. The prudent course is to trust the
wisdom of our liturgical tradition to beg for what we need even
when we cannot comprehend or imagine it. If changed historical
circumstances give fresh relevance to this oration, perhaps no
generation should permit itself to reject as unsuitable a petition
that has enjoyed long use.14
Second, limiting the content of orations to what editors think
can be easily understood by the majority of the faithful unduly
limits the capacity of the prayers to enlighten and inspire. It seems
fitting that the corpus of orations include prayers that present
deeper mysteries of faith so that by meditating upon them the
faithful may grow in wisdom and love.
Dumas asserts that the revised oration is “decidedly more
evangelical” than its source. Certainly the revised text conforms
closely to gospel instruction: its petition echoes the fifth petition
of the Lord’s prayer. But the original oration brings us more
deeply into the mystery of Christ and causes us to internalize
aspects of it that familiar gospel verses do not make plain. The
difference between the two is that the revision petitions that we
do something that everyone who has heard the gospel knows we
are obliged to do, namely, forgive the sins of the brethren, while
the original asks something that only those who have drunk
deeply of the mystery of Christ would see for themselves. Neither,
in my judgment, is more or less evangelical than the other.
Lastly, the literary artistry of the 1962 text is manifestly
superior to that of the revision. Propriis, in the original version,
forms an overlapping double inclusion with delictis and externis,
14
Eugenio Moeller and Ioanne Maria Clément, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 160,
t. 4 (Turnholt: Brepols, 1994), 256-57 lists forty-nine ancient manuscripts in which the 1962
prayer is found. It appears in Masses in times of tribulation (tempore tribulationis), for the
security of places (pro stabilitate locorum), for charity (pro caritate), for the concord of the
brothers (pro concordia fratrum), for rogation days, in Lent and in the time after Pentecost.
It seems to have been used both continuously and widely from the eighth century until the
reforms following Vatican II. A fif tieth codex has a variant according to which we ask not
to be grieved by eternal punishment (poenis non gravemur aeternis).
166 LAUREN PRISTAS
and the result clause, propriis oramus absolvi delictis, // non

gravemur externis, presents a perfectly balanced chiasm:
propriis/externis (sins belonging to us/the sins of outsiders) and
oramus absolvi/non gravemur (we pray to be set free/we may not
be burdened). On account of our own sins, we send prayer up to
heaven; on account of the sins of those outside the Church, we
are in danger of being weighed down. Also, a slight rhyme
produced by the unstressed ablative endings runs through the
1962 oration from beginning to end. The new prayer lacks the
literary sophistication of the older prayer: there is neither double
inclusion nor chiasm, and the rhyme scheme, because it is not
picked up in the revised ending, is abandoned midway through
the text.
Example 2: Exchanging a Negative for a Positive
Dumas’s second example consists of two orations in which

positive phrases were substituted for negative ones. Dumas
explains:
Frequently the direction of the phrase has been turned around, going from a
negative to a more dynamic positive. Thus in the prayer after communion for
the fourth Sunday in Paschal time, the text (Gelasian 272) referring to the
Good Shepherd no longer reads: diabolica non sinas incursione lacerari,15 but:
in aeternis pascuis collocare digneris. In an analogous manner: nostrae
fragilitatis subsidium (prayer over the offerings for the tenth Sunday per
annum) moved from the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, has become nostrae
caritatis augmentum.16
15
Gelasian 272 actually reads “lacerare” (see full text below), but Dumas is clearly correct
in presenting the passive, rather than the active, infinitive.
16
Dumas, “Les oraisons du nouveau missel romain,” 268: “Souvent, le sens de la phrase
été retourné, passant du négatif à un positif plus dynamique. Ainsi, dans la prière après la
communion du 4me dimanche de Pâques, le texte (Gélasian 272) relatif au bon Pasteur ne se
lit plus : diabolica non sinas incursione lacerari, mais : in aeternis pascuis collocare digneris.
D’une manière analogue : nostrae fragilitatis subsidium (prière sur les offrandes de 10me
dimanche per annum, venue du 11me après la Pentecôte) devient : nostrae caritatis
augumentum.”
GELASIAN17 272: ORATION OVER THE PEOPLE PAUL VI: POSTCOMMUNION

WEDNESDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF LENT FOURTH SUNDAY OF PASCHAL TIME
Gregem tuum, pastor bone, placatus Gregem tuum, pastor bone, placatus
intende, intende,
et oves quas praetioso sanguine filii tui et oves quas praetioso filii tui
redemisti, sanguine redemisti,
diabolica non sinas incursione lacerare. in aeternis pascuis collocare
_____________ digneris.
_____________
Appeased, hearken to your flock, O Good Appeased, hearken to your flock, O

Shepherd, Good Shepherd,
and do not allow the sheep that you have and vouchsafe to place the sheep
redeemed with the precious blood of that you have redeemed with
your Son the precious blood of your Son
to be wounded by diabolical attack. in eternal pastures.
1962: SECRET PAUL VI: OVER THE OFFERINGS

ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST TENTH SUNDAY PER ANNUM
Respice, Domine, quaesumus, nostram Respice, Domine, quaesumus, nostram

propitius servitutem, propitius servitutem,
ut quod offerimus sit tibi munus ut quod offerimus sit tibi munus
acceptum, acceptum,
et sit nostrae fragilitatis subsidium. et nostrae caritatis augmentum.
_____________ _____________
Look mercifully upon our service, O Look mercifully upon our service, O
Lord, we beseech you, Lord, we beseech you,
that what we offer may be a gift that what we offer may be a gift
acceptable to you acceptable to you
and a support to our frailty. and an increase of our charity.
17
All orations from the Gelasian Sacramentary are found in Leo Cunibert Mohlberg, Liber
sacramentorum romanae aeclesiae ordinis anni circuli (Rome: Herder, 1960) where they are
arranged in numerical order. The sacramentary that Dumas calls the “Gelasian” is also called
the “Old Gelasian.” It is a unique Frankish recension of a Roman Mass book whose actual
title is that used by Mohlberg. The original manuscript is preserved in the Vatican Library
(Codex Vaticanus Reginensis latinus 316). The ancient sacramentary was the presider’s book.
It contained all the texts he personally needed to celebrate Mass, administer the sacraments,
preside at the Hours and so forth. See Cyrille Vogel, Medieval Liturgy: An Introduction to
the Sources, trans. and rev. by William Storey and Niels Rasmussen (Washington, D.C.: The
Pastoral Press, 1981) 64-65.
168 LAUREN PRISTAS
In the first of the sets presented above, those who pray the
original version are aware of danger and ask for God’s continual
assistance; those who pray the revised version request only the
attainment of their final goal. The oration in the Gelasian Sacra-
mentary is a Lenten super populum, while the version in the Paul
VI missal is a postcommunion in Paschal time. The change in
both setting and use gives rise to several questions. What, for
example, is the exact nature of the super populum prayers in the
ancient missals? in other words, what sort of oration has been
adapted?18 Next, would a traditional Paschal postcommunion
mention attacks of the devil, ask for protection in more delicately
worded terms, or not mention any need at all?19 Finally, is there
an antecedent use for the expression “aeternis pascuis” that
recommends its adoption here?
In the second set presented above, the revised version requests
an increase in charity. Such a gift is a worthy object of petition,
18
The Missal of Pius V has prayers super populum only for the weekday Masses of Lent.
The Gelasian Sacramentary and other ancient Mass books have prayers super populum for
Masses throughout the entire year. Prayed at the end of Mass, these seem to be blessing
prayers that ask that the fruits of the mysteries just celebrated be given to the faithful under
an aspect that particularly befits the season or feast. In this setting, they connote far more
than would be the case if the same prayer were used as the collect in the same Mass.
However, Dumas, “Les oraisons du nouveau missel romain,” 264, comments concerning
the super populum: “We note, finally, that certain prayers over the people formerly used in
Lent, have retaken their place as collects” (“Notons, enfin que certaines prières sur le peuple,
autrefois utilisées en Carême, ont repris leur place de collectes”). He is thinking, evidently,
only of the super populum of the 1962 Missal and, on the evidence of the Gelasian
Sacramentary, his judgment that these prayers were originally collects appears to be wrong.
Missale Romanum (1970) reintroduces “orationes super populum.” Under this title the
third typical edition presents twenty-four prayers any one of which may be used at the
discretion of the priest at the end of any celebration of Mass, or of the liturgy of the Word,
or of the Office, or of a sacrament (Orationes sequentes adhiberi possunt, ad libitum sacer-
dotis, in fine celebrationis Missae, aut liturgiae verbi, aut Officii, aut Sacramentorum). The
broad range of uses stipulated for these prayers “over the people,” and the fact that whether
they are used at all lies at the discretion of the celebrant, distinguishes them from the super
populum of earlier missals wherein specific prayers are assigned to particular celebrations and
are not optional.
19
Certain of the Paschal postcommunions in the Gelasian Sacramentary do ask for
protection: no. 477, Tuesday in the octave of Easter, asks for protection in general terms; no.
503, Sunday of the octave of Easter, begs that we be spared entanglement in the traps of
error; no. 555, the third Sunday of Easter, asks that we be purged of vice and delivered from
every danger.
for an increase in charity is an increase in our participation in

God’s own life. It is an increase in grace. However, by their
essential nature all the sacraments, and especially the Eucharist,
are rites in which God is worshiped and charity or divine life is
either bestowed (Baptism and Penance) or increased (all the rest,
including Penance when it is received devotionally). A petition for
an increase in charity, to be theologically precise, asks only for
what we believe happens whenever the mysteries are worthily
celebrated or received. The 1962 version, on the other hand, asks
for specific assistance: namely, support for our weakness.
Changing the direction of a phrase from “negative” to
“positive” inevitably entails a change in meaning, a point that is
verified in the examples cited by Dumas although he makes no
mention of it. He does, however, describe positive phrasing as
“more dynamic.” The specific change in meaning that results
when a positive phrase replaces one that is negative varies
according to the prayer and the particular change made in it. In
general, however, the practice reduces the dramatic tension in
orations by excising mention of things that threaten well-being in
Christ. In this sense, the revised prayers are actually less dynamic
than the source orations.
More important than the dynamism of particular prayers,
however, is the fact that liturgical texts present a vision of Chris-
tian life that unfolds over the course of each year. Dumas tells us
that negative phrases were “frequently” made positive. If this is
true, the liturgical portrayal of Christian life, and therefore of
Christian spirituality, will have been significantly altered because
mention of those things against which Christians must necessarily
struggle in this world will frequently have been removed. This
editorial practice raises questions for scholars with the requisite
competencies to pursue: whether the revised missal presents a
revised spirituality and, if so, how the new spirituality compares
and contrasts with that (or those) found in earlier missals.
Example 3: Adaptation of a Restored Text
Dumas’s next example is another instance in which the editors

replaced a negative phrase with a positive one. In this case,
170 LAUREN PRISTAS
however, the substitution was made only after the prayer was
restored to its earliest known form. Dumas tells his readers:
It happened sometimes that beautiful texts, retained after a rigorous selection

process or even perfectly restored, and put in the place that suits them best,
still do not give complete satisfaction. In this case a slight adaptation remained
necessary. The most typical case is that of the collect of Easter Sunday that,
rescued from the Gregorian deformation in which it passed into the Missal of
Pius V and, made to conform to the best witness (Gelasian 463), ended with a
regrettable collapse evoking death for the second time in a few words. We
believed it good to put the ending in harmony with paschal joy by replacing a
morte animae with in lumine vitae.20
GELASIAN 463: COLLECT PAUL VI: COLLECT

SUNDAY OF THE PASCH SOLEMNITY OF THE RESURRECTION
Deus, qui per Unigenitum tuum Deus, qui hodierna die, per
Unigenitum tuum,
aeternitatis nobis aditum devicta aeternitatis nobis aditum, devicta
morte reserasti, morte reserasti,
da nobis, quaesumus, da nobis, quaesumus,
ut, qui resurrectionis sollemnia ut, qui resurrectionis dominicae
colimus, sollemnia colimus,
per innovationem tui spiritus a per innovationem tui Spiritus in
morte animae resurgamus. lumine vitae resurgamus.
_____________ _____________
20
Dumas, “Les oraisons du nouveau missel romain,” 268: “Il est arrivé parfois que de
beaux textes, retenus après une sélection sévère ou même parfaitement restaurés, et mis à la
place qui leur convenait le mieux, ne donnent pas encore entière satisfaction. Dans ce cas, une
légère adaptation demeurait nécessaire. Le cas plus typique est celui de la collecte du
dimanche de Pâques qui, dégagée de sa déformation grégorienne passée dans le Missel de Pie
V et rendue conforme au meilleur témoin (Gélasien 463), se terminait par une chute
regrettable évoquant la mort pour la deuxième fois en quelques mots. On a cru bon de mettre
la finale en harmonie avec la joie pascale en remplaçant a morte animae par in lumine vitae.”
The Pius V Easter collect of which Dumas speaks is: “Deus, qui hodierna die per Unigenitum
tuum aeternitatis nobis aditum, devicta morte, reserasti: vota nostra, quae praeveniendo
aspiras, etiam adjuvando prosequere” (“O God, who on this day has unlocked for us the gate
of eternity through your Only-begotten Son who conquered death, attend our vows, which
you inspire by your grace, also with your assistance”).
O God, who unlocked for us the O God, who on this day unlocked
gate of eternity through your for us the gate of eternity
Only-begotten Son who through your Only-Begotten
conquered death, Son who conquered death,
grant, we beseech you, grant, we beseech you,
that we who celebrate the solemnity that we who celebrate the solemnity
of [his] resurrection, of the Lord’s resurrection,
may, through renewal of the Holy may, through renewal of the Holy
Spirit, rise from death of soul. Spirit, rise in the light of life.
The poetic parallelism of the Gelasian text is the literary
expression of a theological truth: the bodily resurrection of Christ
from physical death is the source of our spiritual resurrection
from the death of sin. Therefore, what Dumas describes as a
“regrettable collapse evoking death for the second time in a few
words” is in fact something else entirely. It is an explicit
acknowledgment that Christ’s victory over physical death makes
our escape from spiritual death possible.
One wonders, on this account, whether the criteria for
“complete satisfaction” were not a little too subjective or even
narrowly ideological. It seems likely that the editors saw the
further “slight adjustment” to the Easter collect as nothing more
than changing a negative to “a more dynamic positive.” In this
case, however, the revision is inconsistent with the essence of the
celebration itself. The life we celebrate with Paschal joy is
available only through the destruction of death and is simply not
conceivable otherwise. To shy away from the mention of death’s
death is to blur the character of the life being celebrated. The
good news of the Paschal mystery is definitive victory over death
and all that belongs to its realm.
The “slight adjustment” that disrupts the theological
parallelism of the oration also disturbs the parallelism of its
compositional structure. From a purely poetic perspective,
preserving the literary parallelism requires that the change
introduced by the editors be accompanied by a like change in the
first part of the oration whereby the Only-Begotten Son, instead
of conquering death, rises to life. Here, as in example 1 above,
the literary form of the original is attenuated in the revision.
172 LAUREN PRISTAS
Example 4: Changing Perspective
Dumas’s next example concerns changes made to the collects

of two saints. He writes:
[I]t is easy to understand why, in certain collects for Christian leaders, the
expression: culmine imperii was changed to cura regiminis (Saint Henry), while
terreno regno gave way to terreni regiminis cura (Saint Louis): a simple change
of perspective for the same reality.21
21
Ibid.: “D’autre part, il est aisé de comprendre pourquoi, dans certains collectes de chefs
chrétiens, l’expression : culmine imperii s’est changé en : cura regiminis (saint Henri), tandis
que terreno regno faissait place à terreni regiminis cura (saint Louis) : simple changement de
perspective pour une même réalité.”
1962: COLLECT FOR ST. HENRY PAUL VI: COLLECT FOR ST. HENRY
(JULY 15) (JULY 13)
Deus, qui hodierna die beatum Deus, qui beatum Henricum,

Henricum confessorem tuum e gratiae tuae ubertate
terreni culmine imperii ad praeventum,
regnum aeternum transtulisti: e terreni cura regiminis ad superna
te supplices exoramus; mirabiliter erexisti,
ut, sicut illum, gratiae tuae ubertate eius nobis intercessione largire,
praeventum, illecebras saeculi ut inter mundanas varietates
superare fecisti,
ita nos facias eius imitatione,
mundi huius blandimenta vitare, et
ad te puris mentibus pervenire. puris ad te mentibus festinemus.
_____________
_____________
O God, who on this day brought O God, who having gone before
blessed Henry, your confessor, blessed Henry with the
from the summit of earthly abundance of your grace
sovereignty into the eternal wondrously raised him from care of
kingdom, earthly government unto things
humbly we implore you, caelestial,
that, as you, going before him with grant, through his intercession,
the abundance of your grace, that amid the diverse things of this
granted him to overcome the world
enticements of the age,
so may you grant us, through
imitation of him, to shun the
allurements of this world and we may hasten toward/unto you
attain unto you with pure with pure minds.
minds.
174 LAUREN PRISTAS
1962: COLLECT FOR ST. LOUIS PAUL VI: COLLECT FOR ST. LOUIS
(AUGUST 25) (AUGUST 25)
Deus, qui beatum Ludovicum Deus, qui beatum Ludovicum, e

confessorem tuum de terreno terreni regiminis cura ad
regno ad caelestis regni gloriam caelestis regni gloriam
transtulisti: transtulisti,
eius, quaesumus, meritis et eius, quaesumus, intercessione
intercessione, concede,
Regis regum Iesu Christi Filii tui ut, per munera temporalia quae
facias nos esse consortes. gerimus,
_____________ regnum tuum quaeramus aeternum.
_____________
O God, who brought blessed Louis, O God, who brought blessed Louis
your confessor, from an earthly from care of earthly government
kingdom into the glory of the into the glory of the heavenly
heavenly kingdom, kingdom,
we beseech you through his merits we beseech you, grant through his
and intercession, intercession,
grant us to be partakers of Jesus that, through the earthly
Christ, your Son, the King of responsibilities that we bear,
kings. we may seek your eternal kingdom.
The actual revisions to the two collects were far more

extensive than Dumas reports. The revisions as a whole are
underscored; those of the kind that Dumas mentions are also
italicized. We will begin with the small change in each prayer that
Dumas names.
Henry, a German king who became Holy Roman Emperor,
died in 1024; Louis, king of France, died in 1297. The original
collect for Henry describes his rule as it was understood in his
own day. The revised version describes it in terms that reflect
modern democratic sensibilities. It is anachronistic. The original
collect for Louis does not explicitly mention his rule as king. This
is supplied in the revision—but, again, in terms more reflective of
our historical circumstances than his own. The revision may have
been designed to accommodate a modern mentality. Its effect,
however, is to obscure the truth that holiness is found in persons
of every age and social rank. Henry and Louis were not simply
entrusted with the care of earthly government; they were

Christian rulers who became holy as they ruled because of the
Christian way in which they ruled.
In order to appreciate the nature of the other changes made to
the collect for Henry, we need to know what the editors sought
to achieve in their revision of the sanctoral orations. Dumas tells
us:
In the sanctoral prayers we . . . put greater emphasis on the personality of the

saint, his mission in the Church, the practical lesson that his example gives to
men of today. All the corrections or new compositions in the new missal
proceed in this direction.22
When the editors excised mention of Henry “overcoming the

enticements of his age” by the grace of God, they created a prayer
that tells us nothing about Henry’s personality or his way of
holiness. The failure of the corrections to this prayer to proceed
in the direction established for all the sanctoral orations suggests
that the editors of the new missal did not view Henry’s example
of freedom from worldly enticements as something suitable for
imitation by modern Christians, or that they thought the original
collect posits too great an opposition between heaven and earth,
or possibly both. Since these themes recur and become more
explicit in later examples, we shall consider them as they reappear
below.
There are three other differences that a more extensive
treatment would examine that can only be identified here. The
new text (1) omits the reverential formula “humbly we implore
you,” (2) asks that Henry intercede for us rather than that we
imitate him (a change that flows directly from the decision to
omit reference to Henry’s particular virtue), and (3) severs the
connection between purity of mind and freedom from the
attractions of this world established by the original prayer.
22
Ibid., 264-65: “Dans le sanctoral, on . . . mieux mettre en valeur la personnalité du
saint, sa mission dans l’Èglise, la leçon pratique que donne son exemple aux hommes
d’aujourd’hui. C’est dans ce sens que vont toutes les corrections ou créations qu’il sera facile
de relever dans le nouveau Missel.”
176 LAUREN PRISTAS
The change in the petition of the revised collect for Louis is

striking and shares common features with the new oration for
Henry. The 1962 prayer for Louis begs that we may have
partnership with Christ who is the King of kings—here,
particularly, the King of King Louis—whereas the revised text
asks that we may seek, but does not specify that we also find,
“your eternal kingdom.” The petition of the revised text,
therefore, is stunningly effete in comparison to that of the
original collect which seeks nothing less than full incorporation
into Christ. Similarly, the old collect for Henry begs that God
make us attain unto, or reach (pervenire), himself, whereas the
new version asks only that we hasten (festinimus) unto him. The
verb pervenire stipulates arrival, festinare does not.
A second feature common to both revised collects is a new
emphasis on the things of this world which, in addition, are
presented in a wholly positive light. In the revised prayer for
Henry, we hasten “amid the diverse things of this world,” instead
of asking, as in the original version, to be able to shun its
allurements. In the somewhat convoluted revised collect for
Louis, we ask God to grant, through the intercession of the saint,
that we may seek his eternal kingdom “through the earthly
responsibilities that we bear.” In the source text we ask to be
granted partnership with Christ “through the merits and
intercession”of the saint.
The changes to these prayers, which are much more extensive
than Dumas indicates, highlight the methodological importance
of returning to the sources. Those who desire to gain a full and
accurate understanding of the work of the Consilium must
examine all the pertinent primary texts, and not rely exclusively
upon even those articles, like Dumas’s own, that were written by
the reformers themselves for the express purpose of describing
and explaining their work. The number of changes is too great,
and their nature too substantial, for even the most thorough
summary to be adequate.
B) Centonized Orations
In the section devoted to the creation of new texts, Dumas

describes a practice he calls “centonization,” whereby new prayers
are composed by stitching together phrases from two or more
ancient orations. Dumas explains: “This is a method that allowed
a revival of the ancient euchological treasury by using the best
texts so as to present them in a new form in the traditional
Roman style.”23 The rest of our examples present the centonized
texts cited by Dumas so that the reader can see the process
firsthand and judge the success of particular instances.
Example 5
Dumas tells us that the truth of the text was the first concern
of the redactors,24 and that care for the truth manifested itself in
changes to a great many prayers. Among these were those that
were thought to posit too great an opposition between heaven
and earth. The following remarks of Dumas are cited to introduce
the first centonized prayer because it seems also to illustrate how
the editors dealt with texts that they judged to place heaven and
earth in unfitting opposition:
Concern for the truth required adaptation in the case of numerous orations, as
we have said above. For example, many texts, for a long while too well-known,
put heaven and earth into radical opposition: from whence the antithetical
couplet oft repeated in the old missal: terrena despicere et amare caelestia,
which, though a right understanding is possible, is very easily badly translated.
An adaptation was imperative that, without harming the truth, took account
of the modern mentality and the directives of Vatican II. Thus the prayer after
communion for the second Sunday of Advent says quite justifiably: sapienter
23
Ibid., 268: “C’est un procédé qui a permis de renouveler le trésor euchologique ancien,
en utilisant les meilleurs textes pour les présenter sous une forme nouvelle, dans le style
romain traditionnel.”
24
Ibid., 263-65.
178 LAUREN PRISTAS
perpendere in place of the word despicere which is so often poorly

understood.25
25
Ibid., 267: “Le besoin d’adaptation s’est révelé nécessaire dans le cas de nombreuses
oraisons, par souci de vérité, comme nous l’avons dit ci–dessus. Par exemple, plusiers textes,
depuis longtemps trop connus, mettaient en opposition radicale la terre et le ciel ; d’où le
couple antithétique, souvent répété dans l’ancien Missel : terrrene despicere et amare caelestia
possible de bien comprendre mais très facile de mal traduire. Une adaptation s’imposait donc
qui, sans nuire à la vérité, tenait compte de la mentalité moderne et des directives de Vatican
II. Ainsi, la prière après la communion du 2me dimanche de l’Avent dit très justement :
sapienter perpendere, au lieu du mot : despicere, si souvent mal compris.”
VERONESE26 173: VERONESE 1053: PAUL VI:

COLLECT SECRET POSTCOMMUNION
ASCENSION MONTH OF SEPTEMBER FIRST SUNDAY OF
ADVENT
Da nobis, Domine, Prosint nobis, Domine, Prosint nobis,

non terrena sapere sed frequentata mysteria, quaesumus,
amare caelestia quae nos a Domine,
et, inter praetereuntia cupiditatibus frequentata
constitutos, terrenis expediant mysteria,
iam nunc inhaerere et instituant amare quibus nos, inter
mansuris. caelestia. praetereuntia
ambulantes,
iam nunc instituis
amare caelestia et
inhaerere mansuris.
_____________ _____________ _____________
Grant us, O Lord, O Lord, may the O Lord, we beseech

not to savor of what is mysteries we have you, may the
earthly, but to love celebrated profit mysteries that we
what is heavenly, us, have celebrated
profit us,
which free us from by which you now
and, placed in the earthbound desires already cause us,
midst of passing and cause us to who walk in the midst
things, love the things of of passing things,
already now to cling to heaven. to love heavenly things
what is lasting. and to cling to what
is lasting.
Because the English cognate for despicere is “despise” we are
disposed to find the Latin expression terrena despicere et amare
caelestia rather harsh. In actual fact terrena despicere is better
translated “to look away from, disdain, or refuse to obey earthly
things” than “to despise the things of earth.” The vocabulary of
26
All Veronese orations are found in Leo Cunibert Mohlberg, Leo Eizenhöfer, Petrus
Siffrin, eds., Sacramentarium Veronense, Rerum Ecclesasticarum Documentas, Series maior,
Fontes 1 (Rome: Casa Editrice Herder, 1956) where they appear in numerical order. The so-
called Veronese Sacramentary (or Leonine Sacramentary) is not a true sacramentary, for it
was never used in public worship. Rather, it is a private collection of Roman formularies. The
manuscript dates from the first quarter of the seventh century but the prayers in it are dated
variously from 400-560 AD (Vogel, Medieval Liturgy,38, 43). See ibid., 38-45 for a
description of the codex (Cod. Bibl. Capit. Veron. LXXXV [80]) and a survey of scholarly
opinions concerning it.
180 LAUREN PRISTAS
the two orations from the Veronese collection in the prayers

transcribed above, like that of the collect for Saint Henry already
examined, is not nearly so strong, even though all three texts do
present earthly and heavenly things as potentially or actually in
competition for our affections. Whether they go so far as to
suggest an opposition that is inconsistent with orthodox
Christianity is a subject for a more extensive treatment than can
be provided here. What is clear, however, is that the reformers
made the antithetical parallelism of the Veronese texts synthetic
in the revision by omitting two phrases: (1) non terrena sapere,
literally, “not to take on the smell/flavor of the things of earth”;27
and (2) cupiditatibus terrenis expediant, literally, “they may set
[us] free from disordered desires for the things of earth.”
The italicized words in the Paul VI postcommunion are those
supplied by the revisers. The words quibus and instituis are
italicized even though different grammatical forms of the same
words, quae and instituant, appear in Veronese 1053 because the
change in them significantly alters the theological contours of the
prayer. The new theology must be credited to the revisers.
In Veronese 1053, the mysteries cause us to love the things of
heaven. In the Paul VI text, the mysteries become instruments by
which God causes us to love heavenly things. The new wording
fails to do justice to the Catholic belief that sacraments actually
cause what they signify. The new oration is ambiguous,
permitting but not requiring a purely symbolic view of sacrament.
In composing this postcommunion prayer, the revisers began with
an oration that unambiguously expresses the Catholic
understanding of sacramental efficacy and changed it to an
oration with which few Reformation Christians would disagree.28
The modern editors also substituted ambulantes, a present
participle active, for constitutos, a perfect participle passive. This
27
Meaning that we are not to take our inspiration or character from them.
28
The issue here is not whether sacraments are instrumental causes, but whether the
oration affirms their efficacy. Aquinas’s understanding of the instrumental causality of
sacraments does not preclude their having power to produce sacramental effect—indeed, just
the opposite: “if we hold that a sacrament is an instrumental cause of grace, we must needs
allow that there is in the sacraments a certain instrumental power of bringing about the
sacramental effects” (STh III, q. 62, a. 4).
exchanges explicit acknowledgment of a divinely willed condition

(placed) for a self-description (walking, living). Like the new
collects for Saints Henry and Louis, this new postcommunion
calls greater attention to our situation in this world. Here,
however, an infelicity is introduced. Those who pray the new
prayer inform God about his actions and their own: “by which
you cause us, who walk in the midst of passing things, to love
heavenly things.”
Example 6
Dumas tells us that the present prayer over the offerings for
December 22 was centonized from three different orations, all
found in the Veronese collection.
VERONESE 666: VERONESE 1261: SECRET VERONESE 146: SECRET

COLLECT BIRTH OF THE LORD MONTH OF APRIL
MONTH OF JULY
Auxiliare, Exsultantes, Domine, cum Tribue nos, domine,

Domine, muneribus ad altaria quaesumus, donis tuis
supplicibus tuis, ut ueneranda concurrimus: libera mente servire, ut
opem tuae gratiae quia et omnium nobis purificante nos gratia
consequantur, qui hodie summa votorum et tua, iisdem, quibus
in tua pietate causa nostrae famulamur, mysteriis
confidunt. redemptionis exorta est. emundemur.
__________ __________
__________
Aide, O Lord, Rejoicing, we hasten with Grant us, O Lord, we

your suppliants gifts to your holy altar, O beseech you, to wait
that they may Lord, for today, the upon your gifts with a
obtain the help of highest of all desires and free mind, that, through
your grace who the cause of our your grace purifying us,
trust in your redemption has appeared. we may be cleansed by
mercy. the same mysteries
which we serve.
182 LAUREN PRISTAS
PAUL VI: PRAYER OVER THE

OFFERINGS
DECEMBER 22
In tua pietate confidentes, Domine, Trusting in your mercy, O Lord,

cum muneribus ad altaria veneranda we hasten with gifts to your holy
concurrimus altar,
ut, tua purficante nos gratia, that, through your grace purifying
us,
iisdem quibus famulamur mysteriis we may be cleansed by the same
emundemur. mysteries which we serve.
Phrases from each of the Veronese orations were cut and

pasted to form the new prayer over the offerings. Only one word
underwent a change of form (confidunt to confidentes) and not a
single new word was introduced.
Veronese 1261 contains no petition. Those who pray it state
their motive for running to the altar with gifts: the highest of all
desires and the cause of redemption has appeared. Still, they ask
for nothing. Nor is there an ut clause: there is nothing that the
faithful expect as they bring their gifts. The Savior’s birth and the
joy of it have left them both breathless and wanting for nothing;
the oration is a burst of pure delight. The Paul VI oration is also
without a petition, though the presence of the ut clause gives it a
somewhat different character. Those who pray the new oration
seem more to be informing God of their purpose than to be
carried away by sentiments proper to the liturgical moment.
Example 7
The new prayer over the offerings for Ash Wednesday was
centonized from two ancient sources, a Gelasian secret and a
Bergamese preface.29 The Gelasian oration appears at the
beginning of Lent, the Bergamese preface in the Mass immediately
before Palm Sunday.
29
The Bergamese Sacramentary is a ninth- or tenth-century Ambrosian or Milanese rite
text—that is, it is a Western, non-Roman sacramentary. The manuscript is cited as Bergamo,
S. Alessandro in Colonna, Codex 242 (Vogel, Medieval Liturgy, 109, 437).
GELASIAN106: SECRET BERGAMESE 454:30 PREFACE PAUL VI: PRAYER OVER

SUNDAY AT BEGINNING THE OFFERINGS
OF LENT ASH WEDNESDAY
Sacrificium, Vere dignus . . . aeterne Deus, Sacrificium

Domine, cuius nos misericordia quadragesimalis
quadragesimalis praevenit ut bene agamus initii sollemniter
initii sollemniter subsequitur ne frustra agamus, immolamus, te,
immolamus te, accendit intentionem qua ad Domine,
Domine, bona opera peragenda deprecantes, ut per
deprecantes, ut inardescamus tribuit efficaciam paenitentiae
cum epularum qua haec ad perfectum caritatisque labores
restrictione perducere valeamus. Tuam ergo a noxiis
carnalium a noxiis clementiam indefessis vocibus voluptatibus
quoque obsecramus, ut nos ieiunii temperemus, et a
voluptatibus victimis, a peccatis mundatos, peccatis mundati,
temperemur. ad celebrandam unigeniti filii ad celebrandam
tui domini nostri passionem Filii tui passionem
facias esse devotos, per quem mereamur esse
maiestatem. devoti.
__________ __________
__________
O Lord, we Truly . . . eternal God, whose We solemnly offer

solemnly offer mercy goes before us that we this sacrifice at the
unto you this may act well, follows after lest beginning of Lent,
sacrifice at the we act in vain, sets afire imploring you,
beginning of Lent, intention, by which we may be Lord, that through
imploring, O roused unto the performance of the labors of
Lord, that with good works, grants power by penitence and
the restriction of which we are able bring these charity we may
carnal feasting we to completion. We, therefore, abstain from sinful
may also abstain implore your clemency with pleasures, and,
from sinful unwearied voices, that cleansed cleansed from sin,
pleasures. from sins through the sacrifices we may be able to
of fasting, you may cause us to be faithful in
be faithful in celebrating the celebrating the
passion of your Only-begotten passion of your
Son our Lord through whom. . Son.
.
30
Angelo Paredi, Sacramentarium Bergomense: Manoscritto del secolo IX della biblioteca
di S. Alessandro in Colonna in Bergamo, VI (Bergamo: Edizioni “Monumenta Bergomense,
1962), 146. The text is from the Mass entitled “Sabb. in tradit. symbol” (Saturday for
handing on the Creed).
184 LAUREN PRISTAS
The Gelasian secret begs from God that the fast from food may
be accompanied by a like fast from sin. The first half of the
Bergamese preface is a hymn to God’s mercy that provides the
motive for the petition that God cause us, by the fast his mercy
inspires and makes possible, to be cleansed from sin and faithful
in celebrating the passion of his Son. If we look at what the Paul
VI prayer omits or adapts, as well as what it adopts from the
Gelasian Sacramentary, we see that restraint in the matter of food
is replaced by the labors of penitence and charity, and the
preposition “cum” by the preposition “per.” In the Gelasian
prayer, it is God who gives the grace of abstaining from sinful
pleasures; in the Paul VI text, this comes about through our
ascetical labors. Similarly, the word “facias” has been omitted
from the portion of text adapted from the Bergamese preface. In
the preface, God causes us, cleansed of sin, to be faithful in the
celebration of his Son’s passion; in the Paul VI oration, again it
is our ascetical efforts that produce these effects.
The crucial question is whether the Bergamese preface and the
Paul VI prayer express the same understanding of agency, or to
put it another way, whether the efficacy accorded our labors in
the new prayer is the same as that which is attributed to sacrifices
of fasting in the older text. The two statements are grammatically
equivalent, but do not carry the same weight in their respective
contexts. The first part of the Bergamese preface unequivocally
affirms that God's grace precedes and accompanies every
meritorious deed. The text as a whole acknowledges that salutary
acts are both from God and from their human agents. The Paul
VI oration, which makes no mention of our need for God's grace,
is vague about the graced origins of our striving and its every
result. Compared to the source prayers, the Paul VI text has a
much weaker and less precise theology of grace.
Example 8
Dumas’s last example of a centonized prayer is the new

postcommunion for Palm Sunday. Its sources are a collect and
postcommunion from the Mass for Palm Sunday in the Gelasian

Sacramentary.
GELASIAN 332: GELASIAN 330: PAUL VI:

POSTCOMMUNION COLLECT POSTCOMMUNION
PALM SUNDAY PALM SUNDAY PALM SUNDAY
Sacro munere satiati Deus, quem diligere et Sacro munere satiati

supplices te, amare iustitia est, supplices te, Domine,
Domine, ineffabilis gratiae tuae deprecamur,
deprecamur, in nobis dona
multiplica;
ut qui debitae ut qui fecisti nos morte ut qui fecisti nos morte
servitutis Filii tui sperare Filii tui sperare
celebramus officio, quod credimus, quod credimus,
salutationis tuae fac nos eodem facias nos eodem
suscipiamus resurgente resurgente
augmentum. pervenire quod pervenire quo
tendimus. tendimus.
__________ __________
__________
Sated with sacred gift, O God, whom to love Sated with sacred gift,
humbly we beseech and esteem is humbly we beseech
you, Lord, justice, you, Lord,
that we who celebrate increase in us the gifts
in the duty of of your ineffable
bounden service grace,
may receive an that you who have that you who have
increase of your made us, by the made us, by the
salvation. death of your Son, death of your Son,
to hope for what to hope for what
we believe, we believe,
make us, by the rising may make us, by the
of the same, to rising of the same,
reach that toward to reach whither
which we aim. we aim.
The verb “aim” is an acceptable but weak rendering of the

Latin verb tendere which means “to direct oneself” or “to direct
the course of one’s life,” as well as to “to stretch” or “to bend.”
As such the new and old orations do not simply ask that we reach
186 LAUREN PRISTAS
our goal, but assume that we are applying ourselves to reaching

it both consciously and consistently. The new text is a lovely
oration that demonstrates that centonization, risky in itself, can
yield impressive results when the theology, not simply the words,
of the ancient texts is adroitly incorporated into the new
composition.
The revisers also composed new orations by transposing
biblical, patristic, and ecclesiastical texts, and, in certain instances,
wrote entirely new orations themselves. Dumas’s article cites
examples of these also, but it would be too great an undertaking
to examine them here.
II. PRINCIPLES UNDERGIRDING THE DECISIONS OF THE

REDACTORS
A) Accommodating the Modern Mentality
There can be no doubt that correctly identifying the primary

principle, and indeed all the principles, that directed the decisions
of the reformers, and then accurately assessing both the principles
and their application, is a matter of the highest importance.
Dumas never explicitly identifies the foremost principle that
guided the redactors. He does, however, repeatedly speak of the
liturgical reforms accommodating the modern person,
contemporary sensibilities, or current historical circumstances.31
31
See for examples in Dumas, “Les oraisons du nouveau missel romain,” “. . . of a Missal
that, while it must remain faithful to the Roman style characterized by the complementary
qualities of clarity, density, and sobriety, had to open itself to contemporary
aspirations—according to the very fruitful directives of Vatican II” (263); “At a more
profound level, liturgical texts, no longer failing to recognize the horizontal dimension, have
opened themselves to the human preoccupations which constitute the major concern of the
Church today” (264); “Without doubt, because of the complexity of our life dominated as
it is by industrial technology, these values exert a greater attraction upon our contemporaries
for whom the sober harmony of Roman art is prized above the artificial elegance of the
Baroque” (265); “In the liturgical renewal, in particular, concern for the truth and simplicity
was, for the revisers, imperative from the outset that the texts and the rites may be
perfectly—or at least much better—accommodated to the modern mentality to which it must
give expression while neglecting nothing of the traditional treasury to which it remains the
conduit” (266); “In the oration after the third lesson of the Paschal vigil, slavery ‘in Egypt’
His remarks suggest that the revisers labored under the conviction
that changes in us and our world had rendered the forms and
words of our liturgical rites somewhat obsolete and that these,
therefore, needed to be changed. Further, examination of the
examples he cites seems to verify this: phrases that were thought
to be difficult or shocking for modern persons were corrected or
adjusted. Dumas’s constantly reiterated concern that the liturgy
be “accommodated to the modern mentality” raises the question
of whether the primary referent governing the work of the
reformers was, in fact, the modern person, or, to express the same
possibility in a somewhat different way, whether the reformers
understood the task of reform to consist in reshaping the liturgy
according to the suppositions of the modern age as they perceived
them.
To be clear, the issue is not whether liturgy is historically and
culturally conditioned; inevitably it is.32 Nor is the issue whether
the liturgy must befit the human beings who celebrate it; surely it
must. The liturgy communicates divine realities, the saving fruits
of the Paschal Mystery, to human beings in sacramental
celebrations that are, like Christ, fully divine and fully human.
Liturgical or sacramental rites, therefore, must befit both the
divine mysteries and their human recipients. This requires fidelity
to the truth of Christ and to what he himself has revealed to us
about our human nature. That is, liturgy must embrace and
express a view of the human person that accords with gospel
revelation.
If the reformers gave priority to the mentality of the age rather
than to the justification and sanctification that is accomplished
through liturgical incorporation into Christ, or if uncritical
has become ‘slavery under Pharaoh’ for reasons one can imagine” (268). Also, statements
presented earlier in the essay pertain in the present context: “Other texts, having become
shocking for the man of today, have been frankly corrected” (267); “On the other hand, it
is easy to understand why, in certain collects for Christian leaders, the expression: culmine
imperii [at the summit of sovereignty] was changed to cura regiminis [care of government] (St.
Henry), while terreno regno [earthly kingdom] gave way to terreni regiminis cura [care of
earthly government] (Saint Louis): a simple change of perspective for the same reality” (268).
32
Indeed, certain prayers and even whole celebrations, for example the Feast of the Most
Holy Rosary, had their origins in historical events.
188 LAUREN PRISTAS
acceptance of modern philosophy’s view of the human person led

them to set aside traditional modes of ritual expression in favor
of rites and words chosen for congruence with this modern
anthropology, then we must consider the possibility that a
theological error lies at the very heart of their work.
In short, the primary issue is whether, in assimilating
historical, cultural, and even philosophical influences, liturgy
brings them under its sovereignty, or the other way round.33
Establishing whether the reformers, in their practical decisions,
granted sovereignty to the liturgical celebration of the Paschal
Mystery or, however unwittingly, to the mentality of the age will
require careful scrutiny of a great many texts and cannot be
undertaken here. My purpose is only to note that accurate
identification of the principles that, in fact, guided the decisions
of the reformers is the most important issue for further
investigation. If a theological error lies at the very heart of the
reform, or exerted more or less continual influence upon it, then
a complete reexamination of the reform is needed.
B) The Truth of Liturgical Texts: Literal, Historical, and Symbolic
Dumas highly prizes historical accuracy and literal

expression.34 This is an issue distinct from, but not altogether
33
Timothy Vaverek, “Cardinal Newman and Liturgical Development” Antiphon 3, no.
2 (1998): 11-17, at 14. Vaverek’s article discusses Newman’s seven notes for distinguishing
development from corruption and applies them to liturgical development.
34
See, for examples, in Dumas, “Les oraisons du nouveau missel romain,” under the
subheading “historical truth”: “[the revisers] of the missal discarded without appeal the
recollections of hagiographical legends: the dove of Saint Scholastica, the maritime exploit
of Saint Raymond, the miraculous designation of Saint Peter Chrysologus” (264); under the
subheading “truth of inspiration and style”: “It suffices to declare that we no longer find in
the orations mention of fasts that are no longer observed, nor of torrents of tears that were
never shed. Many superlatives and excessive adverbs, even if tolerable in Latin, have been
pitilessly eliminated (ibid.); under the subheading “simplicity”: “It suffices, therefore, that
each prayer express the main point of its content without repetition or detours, submissive
to the principles required for a good homily: to have something to say, to know how to say
it, and to stop after it has been said” and “the elimination of . . . types of prayers which in
other respects are inclined to be obscure or tedious when accurately rendered into modern
languages” (265); under the subheading “adaptation,” something we quoted above: “from
whence the antithetical couplet oft repeated in the old missal: terrena despicere et amare
unrelated to, the matter addressed in the preceding section.

Indeed, some of the same sentences could be cited in both
connections. Here, however, we are interested not in why texts
were changed but how they were changed—that is, what kinds of
things were included and excluded, and what modes of
expression were accepted and rejected.
After remarking that the list of things emended out of concern
for the “truth of inspiration and style” is too long for him to
itemize, Dumas gives two examples: “we no longer find in the
orations mention of fasts that are no longer observed, nor of
torrents of tears that were never shed.”35 The two, evidently, are
representative types of a great number of different changes. In
presenting them together under a single heading Dumas, I believe,
conflates two issues. The first is whether the truth of an oration
depends upon its reflecting the actual situation of those who pray.
The second is whether truth requires that language always be used
literally.
Paul VI changed the laws on fasting so that those between the
ages of 21 and 59 ceased to be bound under pain of mortal sin to
fast on all the weekdays of Lent.36 Only two days of obligatory
fast remain: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, though according
to the Catechism of the Catholic Church fasting itself remains one
of the principal forms of penance in Christian life.37 The word
“fast,” whether appearing as a noun or a verb (ieiunium and
ieiunare), is found three times in orations of the Paul VI Missal;
two of these are in texts used exclusively on Ash Wednesday.38
caelestia, which, though a right understanding is possible, is very easily badly translated”
(267); and “changes the expression: non gravemur externis, difficult to understand, to:
fraterna dimittere studeamus” (268).
35
Ibid., 264: “Qu’il suffice d’assurer que l’on ne trouve plus, dans les oraisons, mention
des jeûnes qui ne sont plus observés ni des torrents de larmes qui ne furent versés.”
36
“Paenitemini” (Apostolic Constitution on Penance, 17 February 1966), Acta Apostolicae
Sedis 58, no. 3 (31 March 1966): 184.
37
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2d ed. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana,
2000), para. 1434. The other two are almsgiving and prayer.
38
Schnitker and Slaby, eds., Concordantia verbalia missalis romani, col. 1138. “Ieiunium”
appears in the collect and postcommunion for Ash Wednesday; it also appears in the collect
for the third Sunday of Lent. In addition, “ieiunium” is found in two prefaces: the proper
preface for the first Sunday of Lent and the fourth Lenten preface.
190 LAUREN PRISTAS
The new missal uses the word solely in reference to fasting from
food. The word “fast” appears thirty-six times in the orations of
the 1962 Missal, where it is used in reference to both fasting from
food and fasting from vice.39
Dumas sees the change as required by “concern for the
truth.”40 He evidently assumes that truth requires orations to
reflect the circumstances of the praying community. It is not the
nature of liturgical prayer, however, simply to reflect the
congregation’s situation. Rather, the prayers of the liturgy place
appropriate sentiments on our lips and in our hearts and minds,
and present us with ideals to which we are meant to aspire, and
which we are called by God to attain, even as they give us words
to plead from God the grace of attaining them.
Therefore, to omit mention of fasting in our liturgical texts
simply because we are no longer obliged to rigorous fasting under
pain of serious sin seems not to be a matter of truth, but of
excessive literalism. The twofold effect is that liturgical prayer
fails to present us with a full picture of how we ought to be living
and permits us to forget that a supererogatory fast is a great good.
According to Dumas, “concern for the truth” manifested itself
in changes to a great many texts besides those that contained
references to fasting. His declaration invites further examination
of the missal so that we may become aware of all the ways in
which the orations have been adjusted to fit the circumstances of
the faithful and of how these adjustments, in turn, have changed
the liturgical depiction of Christian life and practice.
Dumas also tells us that the editors excised the mention of
“torrents of tears that were never shed.” Weeping is a physical
act, but it also describes a spiritual state—namely, that of
contrition and repentance. “Torrents of tears” is a figurative way
39
André Pflieger, Liturgicae orationis concordantia verbalia, prima pars: Missale romanum
(Rome: Herder, 1964), 293-94. The actual number of prayers is thirty-four, but two of them
are used twice. A prayer that speaks of fasting from vice follows the lesson from Micah on
Ember Saturday in September: “Grant us, we beseech you, O Lord, so to abstain from bodily
feasting that we may likewise fast from (our) besetting vices” (“Praesta quaesumus, Domine,
sic nos ab epulis abstinere carnalibus: ut a vitiis irruentibus pariter jejunemus”).
40
For another explanation see Augé, “Le collete del proprio del tempo nel nuovo
messale,” 288-89.
of naming that state. Similarly, Dumas tells us that “In the oration
after the third lesson of the Paschal vigil, slavery ‘in Egypt’ has
become slavery ‘under Pharoah’ for reasons that one can
imagine.”41 This prayer is the eleventh and last that we shall
examine. It reads:
1962 MISSAL: ORATION AFTER THE FOURTH PROPHECY OF THE PASCHAL VIGIL42
Deus, cuius antiqua miracula O God, whose miracles of old

etiam nostris temporibus coruscare we perceive to shine forth even in
sentimus, our own times,
dum, quod uni populo a since what you granted to one
persecutione Aegyptiaca people in freeing them from
liberando dexterae tuae potentia Egyptian persecution with the
contulisti, power of your right arm,
id in salutem gentium per aquam that you worked unto the salvation
regenerationis operaris, of the nations through the water
of regeneration;
praesta, ut in Abrahae filios et in grant that the fullness of the whole
Israeliticam dignitatem totius world may pass into the sons of
mundi transeat plenitudo. Abraham and the honor of Israel
[literally Israelite worthiness].
The actual phrase in the 1962 Missal, then, is “a persecutione

Aegyptiaca,” that is, from Egyptian persecution, not “slavery in
Egypt.” In the Paul VI Missal, it becomes “a persecutione
Pharaonis,” from the persecution of Pharaoh. The images of the
original oration are all national and are played off against one
another in couplets: one people/the nations // Egyptian/Israelite.
God’s act that sets one people free from another people is
repeated, in a greatly heightened sense, for all nations in the
waters of baptism. The prayer recalls that salvation passed from
one nation to the whole world, and begs that the fullness of
salvation granted in Christ may now pass, as it were, back into
41
Dumas, “Les oraisons du nouveau missel romain,” 268: “Dans les oraisons de la Vigile
pascale, après la 3me lecture, la servitude ‘en Egypte’ est devenue la servitude ‘sous Pharaon’
pour les raisons que l’on devine.”
42
The third lesson of the Paschal Vigil in the Paul VI lectionary and the fourth lesson in
the 1962 Missal are both from Exodus 14-15. Both are followed, except for the differences
noted in the body of the essay, by the same oration.
192 LAUREN PRISTAS
the people who were the first to experience God’s saving acts: the
people of Israel. To change “Egyptian” to “of Pharaoh” not only
disturbs the parallelism and poetry of the prayer, it betrays a
literalism that expects very little of the faithful by way of
knowledge of salvation history, spiritual imagination, or capacity
for nonliteral modes of expression. If the faithful are so poorly
prepared for full, active, and conscious participation in liturgical
celebrations, the appropriate remedy is sound catechesis.
Lowering the level of a liturgical text only lowers the level of
participation that it makes possible because it correspondingly
diminishes the capacity of the text to engage us.
Dumas’s remarks about both tears and Pharaoh, as well as the
fact that the new missal restricts its use of the word “fast” to the
physical fast from bodily nourishment,43 raise the question of
whether the reformers shied away from symbolic forms of
expression to a significant degree.44 If so, a great number of
questions arise in consequence. Fully exploring the ramifications
would require the help of scholars with diverse areas of expertise:
anthropology, liturgy, philosophy, theology, art, and literature,
to name the most obvious.
CONCLUSION
Our examination of the revisions to the Roman Missal has

been confined to the orations that Antoine Dumas, an advisor to
the Consilium and member of the Sacred Congregation for Divine
Worship, presented to us for study. In examining only eleven of
43
Use of the word “fast” in reference to vice has a long history; it is prominent already
in the writings of the fifth-century monk John Cassian (e.g., De institutis V.10-11 and 21-22).
44
The likelihood of this seems confirmed by two other examples, although they are of a
different order because they do not involve orations and are not mentioned by Dumas. One
pertains to the lectionary and the other to the psalter. In the 1962 Missal, the first Scripture
lesson in the Masses for the evangelists Matthew and Mark is Ezekiel 1:10-14, the text that
names the four living creatures, man, lion, ox, and eagle, that became the symbols of the four
evangelists. In the new lectionary, Ezekiel 1:10-14 is not used at all—even though the
lectionary was specifically designed to broaden the faithful’s liturgical exposure to the Word
of God, and the passage itself continues to exert noteworthy iconographic influence in our
churches. The second example is the decision to remove the “cursing psalms” from the psalm
cycle of the Liturgy of the Hours.
approximately fifteen hundred orations, and these somewhat

rapidly, we have not, obviously, established anything at all about
the character or quality of the orations in the new missal. These
eleven orations, however, were put forward by Dumas as
illustrative of the principles of revision, and for this reason merit
close attention.
Common to all eleven is a presentation of Christian life in
which nothing threatens well-being in Christ or casts a shadow of
any sort. Only two words in the revised orations suggest that
things are sometimes difficult. The first is “studeamus” of
“fraterna dimittere studeamus” in the prayer over the offerings for
the third Sunday of Lent (example 1, above). The verb studere has
a range of meanings extending from “try” and “strive” to “be
eager to” and “be zealous for.” The second is the word “labores”
in the prayer over the offerings for Ash Wednesday (example 7,
above). Labor in Latin is a strong word which the English cognate
“labor” does not quite equal, for the Latin generally describes
work that brings forth sweat. Apart from these two examples,
about which it could be argued that functional equivalents are
supplied in the revisions, all the actual or potential difficulties of
Christian life named in the source texts have been excised from
the new ones. For the prayers we have examined these are:
spiritual dangers posed by the sins of non-Christians, attacks from
diabolic incursions, human frailty, worldly enticements, and
disordered desires.
Authentic Christian life is never without its hardships in this
world. We have promised in Baptism to die with Christ, and
dying is not easy. The tendency to exclude mention of difficulties
that we all experience in the nature of things seems especially ill-
advised because the matter at issue is not polite conversation, in
which it is sometimes wiser not to mention unpleasant things, but
prayer to our Lord. If we fail to speak of such things to him, we
also fail to seek his help with them.
Excising mention of things that pose dangers to spiritual well-
being includes the practice of editing orations so that they present
the things of this world in a neutral or wholly positive light.
Dumas, in his discussion of “terrena despicere et amare caelestia,”
194 LAUREN PRISTAS
identifies “the modern mentality and the directives of Vatican II”

as the two reasons for revisions of this kind. Nowhere in his
essay, however, does he explicitly name either the directives of
the council or the aspects of the modern mentality that he judges
to have required such revisions. This raises an important question
for further study: whether the Fathers of Vatican II actually
modified Church teaching about the Christian’s relationship to
the things of this world in a way that required amendment to our
liturgical texts, and, if so, whether the actual changes made to the
prayers implemented the revised teaching with appropriate
nuance.
An important doctrinal issue presents itself in the new
postcommunion for the first Sunday of Advent. Comparison with
its source (Veronese 1053) reveals that the Paul VI oration
forsakes a clearly worded Catholic sacramental theology for
something that, in its vagueness, is utterly consistent with much
Protestant sacramental thought. This raises a question that has
significant pastoral implications and, therefore, merits further
investigation: whether the fullness of Catholic truth expressed in
the original orations was preserved in the revisions. Orations
which are found to have suffered losses in this respect need to be
restored, and their deficiencies supplied by sound catechesis in the
meantime.
The centonized prayer over the offerings for Ash Wednesday
is a second example in which the fullness of Catholic truth is not
preserved in the new oration. The theological issue here is the
Catholic doctrine of grace. In his essay, Dumas writes: “We are
able to say that henceforth liturgical prayer helps us better to
understand that the kingdom of God is constructed here below
out of humble human realities.”45 This statement, while amenable
to orthodox interpretation, does not tell the whole story. Humble
human realities cannot attain to, never mind be the raw material
for, the kingdom of God unless God’s grace, as the Bergamese
preface puts it, “goes before us that we may act well, follows after
45
Dumas, “Les oraisons du nouveau missel romain,” 264: “On peut dire que, désormais,
la prière liturgique aide mieux à comprendre que le royaume de Dieu se construit ici-bas, à
partir des humbles réalités humaines.”
lest we act in vain, sets afire intention, by which we may be

roused unto the performance of good works, and grants power by
which we are able bring these to completion.” Christian faith tells
us that humble human nature is called to an end infinitely beyond
the scope of its natural powers, nothing less than everlasting
interpersonal communion with the Blessed Trinity, and that it is
made capable of reaching this end solely by divine grace. Dumas’s
failure to mention God’s grace is the more grave in the context
we cite precisely because he is stipulating a principle that guided
the reform. Furthermore, this principle, with its theological defect
uncorrected, seems to have guided the centonization process that
excised mention of God’s work as the new prayer over the
offerings for Ash Wednesday was stitched together from the older
texts. The very important question that arises in this connection
is to what extent the failure to give due acknowledgment to the
need for God’s grace permeates the new missal, for the faithful
are ill-served by prayers of a Pelagian hue.
In three of the examples we saw that the literary devices that
give depth, beauty, and polish to the original orations—indeed,
that draw us into their abundance—do not appear in the revised
texts. Nor were we able to discover comparable compositional
sophistication in the new orations. This is no small matter. Form
and content are intrinsically united in all literary composition;
together they are the text and, because we are incarnate spirits,
together they engage us. On this account, it seems likely that
redactions which lower the literary quality of liturgical texts
correspondingly diminish their capacity to draw the faithful into
full, active, and conscious participation.46 This, together with the
editorial practice of excising phrases or concepts that are
“difficult to understand,” raises several questions for scholars to
pursue: whether the faithful are drawn to fuller participation by
prayers of unexceptional literary quality or by those of greater
sophistication and beauty; whether the faithful are more actively
engaged by prayers whose full meaning is immediately
comprehensible or by those whose depths continue to unfold as
46
Cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium 14.
196 LAUREN PRISTAS
they are heard again and again; whether the prayers of the new
missal foster greater participation than those of its predecessor.
These questions are raised solely in reference to the Latin texts;
the accessibility provided by vernacular translations has no
bearing on them.
The traditional Roman orations are highly sophisticated and
stunningly concise literary compositions that overflow with
surplus of meaning—connotation far outstripping denotation. In
his classic essay “The Genius of the Roman Rite,” Edmond Bishop
says of them: “the ideas are as simple and elementary as the
expression is pregnant and precise.”47 Dumas, however, tells us
that liturgical orations should be “submissive to the principles
required for a good homily: to have something to say, to know
how to say it, and to stop after it has been said.”48 It is difficult to
harmonize the two descriptions. Further, the classic Roman
orations do not have those who pray them inform God about
themselves—something observed in two of the orations that we
examined. These are, perhaps, hints that a new, or at least very
different, understanding of the nature and function of the
orations may have exerted an influence upon the Consilium’s
work. Liturgical prayer forms the faithful theologically and
spiritually. If the new and revised orations are significantly
different from those of the older missals, then it is possible that
the faithful are now receiving a significantly different theological
and spiritual formation. This is another area for scholars to
evaluate.
Both in Dumas’s remarks and in the changes he cites a number
of shifts are clearly discernible: toward literalism, toward
rationalism, toward an historical approach to liturgy that puts the
modern person at the center, and away from such things as
47
Edmond Bishop, “The Genius of the Roman Rite,” in Liturgica Historica: Papers on the
Liturgy and Religious Life of the Western Church (Oxford: Clarendon, 1918), 3. I am grateful
to Neil J. Roy of The Catholic University of America for suggesting that I quote Bishop in this
context.
48
Dumas, “Les oraisons du nouveau missel romain,” 265: “obéissant aux principes requis
pour une bonne homélie : avoir quelque chose à dire, savoir le dire, s’arrêter après l’avoir
dit.”
miraculous events49 and symbolic or non-literal expression. These

tendencies, clearly evident in such a small sampling of texts,
reflect Enlightenment preoccupations and presuppositions. They
raise the question of whether Enlightenment presuppositions have
shaped our new liturgical books and rites, and, if so, in what
ways, to what extent, and with what effect—all issues that merit
exploration by scholars with the requisite philosophical and
theological competencies.
It is likely that, for those who have the eyes to see such things,
every liturgical text manifests the grace and glory, and bears the
smudge and smell, of the age that produced it. The Paul VI Missal
presents an anomaly for, as we have seen, the reformers revised
the texts of every age. In consequence, and this needs to be
confirmed or contradicted by careful objective examination, it
may be the case that nearly all the texts of our missal reflect the
strengths and weaknesses, the insights and biases, the
achievements and the limitations of but one age, our own—as the
anachronistic collects for Saints Henry and Louis certainly do. If
this is indeed so, then Catholics of today, in spite of the access
made possible by vernacular celebrations, have far less liturgical
exposure to the wisdom of our past and the wondrous diversity
of Catholic experience and tradition than did the Catholics of
earlier generations.
The work of the liturgical reform, as Dumas reminds us, was
enormous beyond imagining and accomplished in a very short
period of time. We owe those who labored to produce the new
texts a debt of gratitude. One way to express that gratitude is to
study their work well—not only the final product of their labors,
49
For example, “the revisers . . . of the missal discarded without appeal the recollections
of hagiographical legends: the dove of Saint Scholastica, the maritime exploit of Saint
Raymond, the miraculous designation of Saint Peter Chrysologus” (“les réviseurs . . . ont
écarté sans appel les réminiscences de légendes hagiographiques : colombe de saint
Scholastique, exploit maritime de saint Raymond, désignation miraculeuse de saint Pierre
Chrysologue”) (ibid., 264); and “In the sanctoral prayers we have avoided all excessive
justification, all recalling of famous feats which are common to many (foundations, miracles,
etc)” (“Dans le sanctoral, on a évité toute apologie excessive, tout rappel de faits notiores et
communs à plusieurs [fondations, miracles, etc]”) (ibid.).
198 LAUREN PRISTAS
but the work itself—so it might be better understood and

appreciated, as well as refined, corrected, and perfected.

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The Thomist 67 (2003): 157-95

THEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES THAT GUIDED THE

vitally important, for nothing is more formative and expressive of

sacramentaries or collections of liturgical formularies; still others

latter in relation to both the intentions of the council Fathers and

Dumas.9 At the time of its publication Dumas was a member of

My primary purpose in presenting this material is not to assess

We will examine ten orations in the eight numbered examples

Example 1: Accommodation to the Modern Mentality

The first example is of a change made in order to

1962: SECRET PAUL VI:13 OVER THE OFFERINGS

His sacrificiis, Domine, concede His sacrificiis, Domine, concede

Appeased, O Lord, by these Appeased, O Lord, by these

The change from non gravemur externis to fraterna dimittere

is about to be re-presented liturgically, that the members of the

First, the relevance of a particular oration for the Church

and the result clause, propriis oramus absolvi delictis, // non

Example 2: Exchanging a Negative for a Positive

Dumas’s second example consists of two orations in which

GELASIAN17 272: ORATION OVER THE PEOPLE PAUL VI: POSTCOMMUNION

Appeased, hearken to your flock, O Good Appeased, hearken to your flock, O

1962: SECRET PAUL VI: OVER THE OFFERINGS

Respice, Domine, quaesumus, nostram Respice, Domine, quaesumus, nostram

for an increase in charity is an increase in our participation in

Example 3: Adaptation of a Restored Text

Dumas’s next example is another instance in which the editors

It happened sometimes that beautiful texts, retained after a rigorous selection

GELASIAN 463: COLLECT PAUL VI: COLLECT

Example 4: Changing Perspective

Dumas’s next example concerns changes made to the collects

Deus, qui hodierna die beatum Deus, qui beatum Henricum,

Deus, qui beatum Ludovicum Deus, qui beatum Ludovicum, e

The actual revisions to the two collects were far more

entrusted with the care of earthly government; they were

In the sanctoral prayers we . . . put greater emphasis on the personality of the

When the editors excised mention of Henry “overcoming the

The change in the petition of the revised collect for Louis is

In the section devoted to the creation of new texts, Dumas

perpendere in place of the word despicere which is so often poorly

VERONESE26 173: VERONESE 1053: PAUL VI:

Da nobis, Domine, Prosint nobis, Domine, Prosint nobis,

Grant us, O Lord, O Lord, may the O Lord, we beseech

the two orations from the Veronese collection in the prayers

exchanges explicit acknowledgment of a divinely willed condition

VERONESE 666: VERONESE 1261: SECRET VERONESE 146: SECRET

Auxiliare, Exsultantes, Domine, cum Tribue nos, domine,

Aide, O Lord, Rejoicing, we hasten with Grant us, O Lord, we

PAUL VI: PRAYER OVER THE

In tua pietate confidentes, Domine, Trusting in your mercy, O Lord,

Phrases from each of the Veronese orations were cut and

GELASIAN106: SECRET BERGAMESE 454:30 PREFACE PAUL VI: PRAYER OVER

Sacrificium, Vere dignus . . . aeterne Deus, Sacrificium

O Lord, we Truly . . . eternal God, whose We solemnly offer

Dumas’s last example of a centonized prayer is the new

postcommunion from the Mass for Palm Sunday in the Gelasian

GELASIAN 332: GELASIAN 330: PAUL VI:

Sacro munere satiati Deus, quem diligere et Sacro munere satiati

The verb “aim” is an acceptable but weak rendering of the

our goal, but assume that we are applying ourselves to reaching