The Roman Missal, in its new liturgical translation, comes into force for all French-speaking dioceses on the 1st Sunday of Advent 2021. The opportunity to look back on its origins, which date back to the early Middle Ages.
Before the High Middle Ages, several books were used for the celebration of Mass: the sacramentary – with the Eucharistic prayer (the canon), orations and prayers -, the Gospel book and the letter-writer for readings from Scripture. Holy, and the antiphonary for the cantors. These liturgical books contained many variations depending on the ecclesiastical regions or the abbeys, notably in the organization of the sanctuary, the choice of sung pieces or the calendar. It is only gradually that the manuscripts will integrate all these parts into one or more books forming a whole. This type of work will be called full missal, full missal, that is to say complete.
Then, from the 8th century first, changes to the Gregorian sacramentary in Gaul gave birth to a Roman sacramentary par excellence, thanks to the Carolingian Renaissance. This Sacramentary becomes, with its quality texts, the basis of the current Roman Missal as well as of Gregorian chant.
At the beginning of the 13th century, the mendicant orders appear: the particularity of these communities is to be itinerant, and not to be fixed in a particular diocese. A great diversity of rites then exists in the Latin Church, varying from one diocese to another, both in terms of form and calendar. The need is felt for a rite common to all. In 1223, Saint Francis of Assisi recommended his brothers to use the rite of the Roman curia, adapted to an itinerant apostolate.
The beginnings of Roman standardization
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In the first half of the 13th century, Pope Gregory IX (1227–1241) thought of extending to the entire Latin Church the use of the curial missal (missal used in the Vatican), which the Franciscans had adopted, but this was not reflected not immediately in fact. It was in 1277 that Pope Nicolas III promulgated this missal for the diocese of Rome first. Thanks to the diffusion provided by the Franciscans, it spread rapidly and partly influenced many local liturgies of the Latin Church.
The invention of printing in the 15th century accelerated the process with the printing of the missal in use in Rome. The first known edition was produced in Milan in 1474.
From the Tridentine Roman Missal to the current Missal
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The Council of Trent, in 1563, concerned about the “doctrine concerning the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass”, asks the Pope to watch over the doctrinal perfection of the ways of saying Mass in the Church, in reaction to the Protestant heresies on this subject. . Pope Pius V responds to the council’s request with the bull Where first, by which, on July 14, 1570, he promulgated his edition of the Roman missal. He imposes it on the whole of the Latin Church, with the exception of places and communities that have had their own rite for more than 200 years.
From this date, the Roman missal has undergone several changes resulting in many new versions, in particular with Vatican II. The initial version of the Vatican II Roman Missal was published in Latin on April 3, 1969, following the constitution Roman Missal of Pope Paul VI. It will be followed by two other versions in 1975 and 2002. “It is the latter, referred to as typical third edition (Typical 3rd edition), which is in force today in the Latin Rite Catholic Church, which has been translated again ”, specifies Bernadette Mélois. It will be published on October 29, and used in all French-speaking dioceses from Sunday, November 28.
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