Low Mass – Votive of the Passion

As the Friday High Mass on pilgrimage had been a Votive of the Holy Cross, I suggested to Fr Rowe, when he readied himself to offer his Low Mass in the Christus Rex mobile chapel, that perhaps a Votive of the Five Wounds would be a suitable variant; but – most annoyingly – even a search of the Missæ pro aliquibus locis in the only available Missal failed to turn it up: so we settled for a Votive of the Passion (from which the Votive of the Five Wounds varies only in its orations in any case).  I was privileged to be Father's server, and took the opportunity to memorialize the occasion thanks to my iPhone's camera...

The Introit

The Gospel

The Secret

The Canon

After the Consecration

The Pre-Communion Prayers

The Last Gospel

The orations of the Votive Mass of the Passion are particularly mediæval in feel:

Lord Jesu Christ, who didst descend from the heavens to earth from the bosom of the Father, and shed thy precious Blood in remission of our sins: humbly we pray thee, that at the Day of Judgement, at thy right hand we may deserve to hear: Come, ye blessed: Who with the same Father and the Holy Ghost livest and reignest God, world without end. Amen. 

May the sacrifice offered unto thee, O Lord, by the interceding Passion of thy Onlybegotten Son, ever quicken and defend us: Who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen. 

Lord Jesu Christ, Son of the living God, who at the sixth hour didst ascend the gibbet of the Cross for the redemption of the world, and shed thy precious blood in remission of our sins: we humbly pray thee, that, after our death, thou grant us joyfully to enter the gates of paradise: Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

It is interesting how the thoughts of the Collect are repeated in the Postcommunion; He Who came down from heaven, from the bosom of the Father, to redeem the world went up upon the infamous gibbet, there to shed His Blood, that great price of our salvation, that costly offering of His life which alone purchased the forgiveness of our sins; He we pray, that after death we may enter into the courts of the Lord with rejoicing, hearing on the Day of Doom that most joyful voice, Come, ye blessed. 

Fr Hunwicke points out that this Mass was very popular in late mediæval England, to the extent that Cranmer reused this phraseology at the conclusion of the intercession before the prayer of consecration in his 1549 recasting of the Mass: 

...that, at the day of the generall resurreccion, we and all they which bee of the misticall body of thy sonne, may altogether be set on his right hand, and heare that his most ioyfull voyce: Come unto me, O ye that be blessed of my father, and possesse the kingdom, whiche is prepared for you from the begynning of the worlde...