Bulletins
September 25, 2016
Download the Bulletin as a PDFThe special prayer for peace
“Lord Jesus Christ, who said to your apostles ‘Peace I leave you my peace I give you’ look not on our sins but on the faith of your Church and graciously grant her peace and unity in accordance with your will, who live and reign for ever and ever. Amen.”
which in the Extraordinary Form of the Mass the priest prays in a low voice immediately after the Agnus Dei and in the Ordinary Form of the Mass he prays out loud immediately after the Pater Noster made its appearance since the eleventh century, first of all in German territory. It replaced an older prayer for peace. From then on it recurred regularly, even in Italian Mass plans, and thus was introduced into the Missal of Pius V.
Note that the Missal of Pope Pius V was produced in the year 1570. That same special prayer for peace, however, was missing from many liturgical books still in the late Middle Ages. Prior to the Missal of 1570, which means prior to the Council of Trent, there would have been a multiplicity of liturgical books that were in use for the Holy Mass throughout the Latin Rite. Sometimes prayers were kept in books (called Sacramentaries) separate from other books that just had readings (called Lectionaries). Sometimes all the sacred texts required for Holy Mass were in the same volume and might have been described as a Missale Plenum or a “complete Missal”. The Council of Trent and Pope Saint Pius V sought to organize some of the chaos and suppressed any liturgical traditions that were less than two hundred years old and assembled all the sacred texts for the Roman Rite into one book: the Missale Romanum ex decreto sacrosancti Concilii Tridentini restitutum or "The Roman Missal Restored According to the Decrees of the Holy Council of Trent.". In short hand we call it the Missal of Pius V.
Fr. Jungmann continues...
It is the first formal prayer in the Ordo Missae addressed to Christ. This address to Christ which is already found, in a different way, in the Agnus Dei, and which has here been continued obviously in view of the Communion about to be received, is retained also in the following Communion prayers.
This prayer for peace is a prayer for the priest in preparation for giving the pax. It presupposes the kiss of peace (emphasis mine), which starts here at the altar and thence is continued through the church.
May the peace of Christ and the Church abound in our hearts!
Fr. Christopher J. Pollard
