The Experience of High Mass

I've been reading again, on and off, about the Anaphora of Addai and Mari (the most ancient and most frequently used Eucharistic Prayer of the Assyrian Church of the East, and which famously lacks an Institution Narrative; a certain ex-Cardinal, now ex-Pope, politely explained that the Words of Consecration were not present explicitly and ad litteram but "in a dispersed euchological... manner" – I defer to his theological acumen), and the theories of some liturgiologists about the development of the Roman Canon, accepting for the sake of argument both that Addai and Mari is orthodox and valid (as the Roman Church has pronounced, back in 2001, when Bl John Paul II approved the decision of the CDF about this), and that it preserves evidence of the evolution of the Eucharistic Prayer, whereby the oldest forms developed without initially having the Verba Domini present as a coherent Institution Narrative: as I say, this is evidently controversial, but, per impossibile or at least per improbabile, it is an interesting thought experiment (Gedänkenexperiment) to posit an unrecorded stage in the development of the Roman Canon, earlier even than the evidence adduced by St Ambrose in the late fourth century (when he records the central portion of an earlier version of the Canon, from what is now the Quam oblationem, through the Qui pridie and Simili modo, to the Unde et memores and a shorter combination of the Supplices and Supra quæ), which would have – like Addai and Mari – omitted Qui pridie, Simili modo and Unde et memores.

Pursuing this thought, and recalling that the section of the Roman Canon from Quam oblationem to Supplices inclusive – that is, from the equivalent of a consecratory epiclesis, through the Institution Narrative, anamnesis, oblation, prayer for acceptance and equivalent of a communion epiclesis – may be termed the "Canon within the Canon", as the modern rubrics require the celebrant and all concelebrants to recite it together (the rest of the Canon consisting of intercessions for the living and the dead, with commemoration of the Saints, and a concluding doxology, to say nothing of the Preface and Sanctus), it is at least curious to imagine what this section would look like if, as in Addai and Mari, it still appeared sans Verba and sans anamnesis:

Be pleased, O God, we pray, to bless, acknowledge, and approve this offering in every respect; make it spiritual and acceptable, so that it may become for us the Body and Blood of your most beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Be pleased to look upon these offerings with a serene and kindly countenance, and to accept them, as once you were pleased to accept the gifts of your servant Abel the just, the sacrifice of Abraham, our father in faith, and the offering of your high priest Melchizedek, a holy sacrifice, a spotless victim.

In humble prayer we ask you, almighty God: command that these gifts be borne by the hands of your holy Angel to your altar on high in the sight of your divine majesty, so that all of us, who through this participation at the altar receive the most holy Body and Blood of your Son, may be filled with every grace and heavenly blessing. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Ironically, the Anaphora of Addai and Mari is if anything more explicit in affirming its intention to do as Christ commanded, offering up His Body and Blood, celebrating the Mystery of His Passion, Death and Resurrection, and calling down the Holy Spirit to render fruitful the oblation for the communicants, than this entirely hypothetical and indeed anachronistic reconstruction of the central parts of an earlier Roman Canon (since the equivalent paragraphs as reported by St Ambrose are shorter and simpler), as that ancient Eastern Anaphora includes such words as:

O my Lord, in thy manifold and ineffable mercies, make a good and gracious remembrance for all the upright and just fathers who were pleasing before thee, in the commemoration of the body and blood of thy Christ, which we offer to thee upon the pure and holy altar, as thou hast taught us... 

that all the inhabitants of the world may know thee ... and we also, O my Lord, thy unworthy, frail and miserable servants who are gathered and stand before thee, and have received by tradition the example which is from thee, rejoicing and glorifying and exalting and commemorating and celebrating this great and awesome mystery of the passion and death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ... 

And let thy Holy Spirit come, O my Lord, and rest upon this offering of thy servants, and bless it and sanctify it that it my be to us, O my Lord, for the pardon of sins, and for the forgiveness of shortcomings, and for the great hope of the resurrection from the dead, and for new life in the kingdom of heaven with all who have been pleasing before thee...

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But whatever of this, in plain truth, until the reforms of the 1960's, the Words of Consecration (following now the plain and obvious teaching of the Church, rather than rather confusing reinterpretations thereof) were not heard by anyone except the priest and perhaps those listening in at his side (as M.C. at our monthly Missa cantata, I can overhear the celebrant quite easily – according to the rubric, he ought read the Canon is such a quiet voice that he can hear himself, but no one else can, which is quite a difficult rule to fulfil evidently), and the experience of well over a thousand years was the same for all in attendance: the Consecration was accomplished in awe-filled silence.

The Canon was not originally said secretly, sotto voce: that roughly seventh century record of Roman ceremonial, the Ordo Romanus Primus, indicates that it was chanted in the same tone as the Preface, as is logical. However, in the Gallican Church the Institution Narrative, aptly enough called the Mysterium (and regarded as so holy it has only been found recorded in one surviving manuscript), was recited inaudibly, and evidently this practice spread, either from the non-Roman to the Roman West – or from the East, since the Emperor Justinian tried in vain to prevent the Anaphora at the Divine Liturgy being recited in a low voice (rather than chanted, presumably, as all the audible parts were and are).

I recall that Dix claimed this practice of praying the Eucharistic Prayer softly rather than in a loud voice developed first in Syria and environs, and spread from Jerusalem and Antioch throughout the Church – partly for reasons of brevity (a long prayer, such as the Anaphora of St Basil, which was originally used on all Sundays in the Byzantine Rite, takes a long time to say, let alone chant), partly because the choral parts were growing in complexity and length (tempting the priest to "get on with" saying the prayer, while the choir continue singing a not yet polyphonic but certainly elaborate setting of the Sanctus, for instance), and also partly out of a sense of devotional awe and dread.

The Eucharistic Sacrifice was emphasised as the mysterium tremendum et fascinans, the awe-inspiring appearance and Epiphany of Christ in His very Flesh and Blood in the Sacrament of the altar, worthy of worship, worthy of every reverence: the proleptic chants of the Cherubikon, as sung in the Byzantine Rite, amply demonstrate this attitude of holy fear and love. In the East, the actual words of consecration (according to the more typically Western theory) are still chanted aloud, from within the iconostasis; in the West, they were not, but instead the innovation of the Elevation of the Host (and, later, of the Chalice) was introduced in the twelfth century – the two by-then-sundered portions of Christendom thus in their respective fashions half-veiled, half-revealed the Eucharist made present at the consummation of the Divine Mysteries.

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Put simply, the Western Mass (leaving aside the Byzantine East and the rest for the moment) divides into the choral and chanted parts, perceptible to the ear (the Introit, Kyrie, Gloria, Collect, Epistle, Gradual, Alleluia or Tract, Gospel, Creed, Preface, Sanctus, Lord's Prayer, Pax, Agnus Dei, Communion, Postcommunion and Ite missa est); and the sacred Action itself, for the most part effected in silence, spoken in secret by the cultic priest.

The parts said in a low voice may themselves be divided into two groups: the first – the Secret, Canon and Embolism (Libera nos) – are the immemorial constituents of the Mass, while the second – the prayers at the foot of the altar, the blessing of the deacon at the Gospel, the offertory prayers, the various prayers before, during and after Communion (some of which, as famously the Domine non sum dignus, came to be said aloud, but not chanted as the older chanted parts were), and the Placeat, blessing and Last Gospel (again, some of these came to be said aloud) – were gradually added over the course of the Middle Ages. (Local forms of the Roman Rite, such as the Dominican, codified in the thirteen rather than the sixteenth century, have shorter and simpler collections of such prayers.)

In the Ambrosian Mass (as said at Milan, both in its older and in its reformed version), the Secret and the Embolism are chanted aloud – the latter is chanted aloud on Good Friday even according to the  traditional Roman Rite. It appears that the Secret and Embolism were probably chanted aloud (as was the Canon too, originally), but motives of reverence and brevity led to their secret recital in the Roman Mass.

When able to join the congregation at High Mass, rather than – as too many do – read along furiously in my hand missal, ignoring the music (good or bad), I prefer to participate in the Sacred Liturgy precisely as Holy Church surely intends: by listening to all that is chanted aloud, and – when sacred silence descends – by praying as I am able. As the mediæval English canonist Lyndwood so wisely wrote, the Canon is silent Ne impediatur populus orare, Lest the people be impeded from praying. (Of course, when serving as M.C., as next Sunday, I have perforce to be busy about directing the celebrant and servers – one attendee, ex-army, congratulated me on my sergeant major manner, which may or may not be the ideal!)

While attending to all that is chanted, I also tend to look to the words of the Secret in my missal, and of course I know from long experience the words of the Canon and Embolism (and much else), and by the gesture and posture of the priest and ministers I know exactly what is going on at each stage. Sometimes, though, as was done in the early Middle Ages, I will pray psalms rather than pray along with the Canon: the psalms of preparation for Mass, as found in old Missals, are eminently suitable for this.

Consider the Mass as falling into two parts (as is the traditional division): the Mass of the Catechumens, during which nearly all is aloud (obviously the Introit masks the preparatory devotions of the sanctuary party); and the Mass of the Faithful, during which far less is, relative to that which is accomplished in mystery, in the pregnant silence.

The fore-Mass contains psalm chants selected with an eye to the liturgy of the day (the Introit, Gradual, Alleluia or Tract), cries for mercy (the Kyrie), songs of prayer and praise and faith (the Gloria Patri of the Introit, the Gloria in excelsis, the Creed), the Collect – the first and only time the celebrant prays aloud until the Mass proper begins, assuming it to be High Mass – which sums up the orientation of the feast, and the two lessons, the Epistle and Gospel (chanted by subdeacon and deacon respectively). Christ appears to us in the solemn proclamation of His Gospel; His salvific teaching is imparted to us by His minister, His priest, in the homily or sermon. Therefore, while Mass is fundamentally oriented toward divine worship, the Mass of the Catechumens has a partially didactic quality also.

When the Mass-Sacrifice begins at the Offertory, the chant of the Offertory ought, in a sense, occupy us, rather than the proper liturgical role of the priest (saying his private prayers as he arrays the elements, prepares himself and censes the oblations and altar, ere he too is censed) or his assistants. True, knowledge of the ritual and its forms of prayer informs the spirit of worship, facilitating actual participation; but I would argue that, just as one may well join in singing a hymn in the modern Mass during the preparation of the gifts, while the priest and ministers prepare according to the simpler rules and words appointed, so too in the older form of the Mass it is fitting to attend to the Offertory chant (and motet) rather than too closely to monitor the activities in the sanctuary.

I well recall two devout Italian ladies, who at Mass (OF) sat side by side, hand missals open – and reading in a low but still audible voice every single word the priest said, even at the Consecration! That to me seemed rather odd.

Instead, when the priest concludes the offertory, and in that marvellous chant tells us "Up hearts" (Sursum corda), to which we reply "We have them toward the Lord" (Habemus ad Dominum), then is the time to hearken to his words of praise, as he gives thanks to God for His marvellous works in the Preface, mingling our praise with that of the angels: then we join in the liturgy of heaven, singing the Sanctus.

Silence descends: the bell rings; the priest bows low; he genuflects, then elevates the Sacred Host – to Which incense is offered in adoration. Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. Now is the time to worship and pray! As I mentioned in my perhaps less than immediately apposite prolegomena above, the fact that the Roman Canon is all but silent, and the words of consecration themselves are never heard, instead focusses attention on the "Do this" of the Lord's command at the Last Supper: the Mass is no mere verbal sacrifice, but a sacred action.

After the Canon, the Lord's Prayer is sung; soon enough, the priest gives us (as Luther of all people rightly noted) a pre-communion blessing, in the words Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum; and again we plead for mercy with the Lamb of God now present, once slain yet ever alive, as our Christian Sacrifice present on our altar, as the choir sings the Agnus Dei. Thus fortified, we proceed to receive Him in Holy Communion.

Again, the communion chant is for us, to assist us in our devotion; while the priest's chanting of the Postcommunion (only his fourth prayer aloud, counting the Preface and Pater noster as well as the Collect) leads us in the sentiments that we ought have after receiving Our Lord in the Sacrament. The deacon dismisses us with those concise and mysterious words Ite missa est. All else following is added devotion.

This, I think, is a sane and sensible way to hear and participate in Holy Mass. (At Low Mass, some modifications must be made in this method; while in the Ordinary Form, as is unfortunately evident, the banality of much of the music, and the perhaps overly didactic atmosphere engendered by the relatively larger amount of text proclaimed aloud, can sometimes distract – that said, I find that an unpleasantly sloppy Mass ratchets up in tone once the Liturgy of the Word is over, and the more stable, less easily mucked-with Liturgy of the Eucharist begins.)

Prex Eucharistica Brevior

To my astonishment, the official documents of the work of the liturgical reformers in the late sixties, all in Latin except for some rulings from Paul VI quoted in Italian (!), quite openly refer to their ongoing drafts for what is now Eucharistic Prayer II as Prex eucharistica brevis or Prex Eucharistica II Brevior – the brief or briefer Eucharistic Prayer!  How breathtaking, given that this brevity is what has turned it into the most commonly used Eucharistic Prayer of the modern Roman Rite, which raises the question of whether the Roman Mass is really quite as Roman as it was when the Roman Canon, and it alone, was used for sixteen hundred years at Mass.

What caught my attention was that, while the first half of their draft Prayer was all but identical to the version eventually approved, with only verbal differences of little note, the whole of the intercessions, from after the communion epiclesis down to the doxology at the end, was in reverse order.  Assuming that readers have easy access to the new translation of E.P. II, here is the second half of its 1967 draft, first in Latin, then in a translation I have prepared (based upon the new translation in order to make it sound familiar); the whole passage runs straight on from the prayer in the preceding line, that the Holy Spirit gather all who are sharers of the Body and Blood of Christ into one:

...et cum beata Dei genetrice Maria, beatis Apostolis, 

et omnibus Sanctis qui tibi a sæculo placuerunt 

partem habeamus.

Memento etiam Domine illorum qui dormierunt in spe resurrectionis 

et admitte eos in lucem vultus tui,

Nobis quoque famulis tuis, una cum Papa nostro et Antistite nostro,

et omnibus fidelibus in Ecclesia toto orbe diffusa,

concede ut perficiamur in caritate

et ad regnum tuum pervenire valeamus,

in quo te laudemus et conglorificemus per Filium tuum Jesum Christum

per quem tibi gloria et honor in Sancto Spiritu

nunc et in sæcula sæculorum.

Amen.

…and may have some share 

with Blessed Mary, the Mother of God, the blessed Apostles, 

and all the Saints who have pleased you throughout the ages.

Remember also, Lord, those who have fallen asleep in the hope of the resurrection

and welcome them into the light of your face.

To us, also, your servants, together with N. our Pope and N. our Bishop,

and all the faithful in the Church spread throughout the world,

grant that we may be brought to the fulness of charity

and be worthy to enter into your kingdom,

where we may praise and glorify you

through your Son, Jesus Christ,

through whom to you be glory and honour in the Holy Spirit 

now and for ever.

Amen.

What is interesting is, as mentioned, the order: Saints (the Church triumphant) – the Dead (or the Church suffering in Purgatory) – the Church Militant.  This order was reversed in later drafts; while most of the text was retained, certain parts have been united: partem habeamus and ad regnum tuum pervenire valeamus have evidently been combined into the phrase æternæ vitæ mereamur esse consortes; other parts have been changed: gone are Nobis quoque famulis tuis (itself copied from the Roman Canon) and omnibus fidelibus; other parts have been added, such as universo clero, omniumque in tua miseratione defunctorum and Omnium nostrum, quæsumus, miserere.

It may be noted that the words universo clero were intended to substitute for Nobis quoque famulis tuis (since that phrase in the Roman Canon is thought to refer to the celebrating clergy), and similarly Omnium nostrum, quæsumus, miserere was intended to substitute for omnibus fidelibus.  Unfortunately, the impression is given, by separating it from the prayer for the Church, of an unpleasant clericalism, as if the Church consists of only Pope, Bishop and clergy.  That is why so many priests, foolishly and disobediently it is true, have unofficially amended those words of E.P. II for years; and frankly to at the least add "and all the faithful" in a future reform would seem quite reasonable.

An emended draft makes clear that, when this last section was reordered, at first the words et universo clero and omniumque in tua miseratione defunctorum were not yet included, and even the words et eos in lumen vultus tui admitte were omitted for a while, while the Hippolytan doxology was kept, and even reverted somewhat to its original text, cum Sancto Spiritu in Ecclesia.  Later still, E.P. II as we have it to-day was finalized, and sent up for Papal approval...

Vernacular Liturgy: Dolphins, bless the Lord

While in a very interesting bookshop off Cuba Street in Wellington, I found a useful book: Lauds, Vespers and Compline in English (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1965).  It advertises itself as being reprinted from (in conformity with Sacrosanctum concilium) "an officially approved edition of the Roman Breviary".

Therefore, I have this week (recovering from my holiday) been using this book for Lauds, Vespers and Compline: it's curious to pray in English again.  I find the translation of the psalms used - the Confraternity version adapted to the Breviary - strangely reminiscent of the Grail Version.  It is most useful as regards the Office Hymns, which it wisely translates as prose.

Some of the phrases used are a little odd: this morning, for the feast of St Agnes, the Sunday psalms being appointed, I was amazed to read in the Benedicite, "You dolphins and all water creatures, bless the Lord"!  I thought cetus meant whale; but perhaps the translators understood it to signify cetaceans in general.

The History of the Mass

The T of Te igitur, the start of the Canon, 

turned by pious tradition into an image of Christ Crucified, 

picturing the mystery of Sacrifice made present in the Mass

Primitively the priest kissed the altar but twice, at the start and at the end of Mass, greeting it and then farewelling with due and proper reverence – for the altar represents Christ Himself, as the Pontifical states; in the 12th century comes the first evidence for the kissing of the altar during the Canon (initially during the Supplices te, at the mention of "this altar", and later during the Te igitur also); later still, in the Roman Mass – not in the Dominican Rite, which had already been strictly standardized during the 13th century – came a kissing of the altar before each Dominus vobiscum, conveying as it were the Lord's greeting from His holy altar to His holy people.  

Here we see the progressive enrichment of the Liturgy, as it grew from acorn to stately oak; as Tolkien said, it would be mad to chop down the oak to get back to the acorn!  A pity Paul VI was too busy moping around the Vatican to listen to sensible advice rather than the sly wheedlings of a Wormtongue...  (Lest what I write below seem to contradict this, let me say that, while admiring each twig and leaf, in the first place one should regard the trunk and principal branches which give shape to the whole tree in its native growth habit.)

Jungmann points out that the Roman Rite, when brought north of the Alps, progressively replaced the variety of liturgical forms called in retrospect the Gallican Rite, but was also enriched itself.  The Frankish mentality preferred a prayer to accompany each action, whereas the Roman Mass in its ancient form often performed rites in silence (such as the washing of hands): hence the bare solemnity of the Mass had further devotions added to its starkly majestic form.

Of old, back in the first millennium, Mass in the City of Rome was a very sober affair: basically, what prayers, readings and chants are said aloud in the Traditional Mass, plus the Secret, Canon and Libera nos, constituted the whole of the Mass.  Staggeringly, all other prayers in the Mass, whether in what came to be the Traditional Mass, or in now what is the Ordinary Form of the modern Roman Rite, are secondary additions; very beautiful, very significant as many of them are, time was when they were not.

This has important consequences for liturgiology.  While I would be the last to discount, let alone view as "clerical corruptions" the many devout prayers added later, it is vital to realize that the Roman Liturgy is in essentials very concise, even more so than the Novus Ordo!  It is also why, much as I admire the Offertory prayers of the Extraordinary Form over their impoverished equivalents in the modern Mass, I know that both are additions, more or less happy, more or less doctrinally rich, to the essential Action.

What are the variable prayers of the Mass?  The Collect, Secret, Preface (anciently, and still at Milan, one for each proper Mass) and Postcommunion; very early sources often have a second Collect also (still preserved at Milan as the Oratio super sindonem, the prayer "over the corporal" as it is spread out at the start of the Offertory), and quite often an Oratio super populum, the "prayer [of blessing] over the people" after the Postcommunion, as well – for long preserved only on the weekdays of Lent.  These prayers, very rich in doctrine, admirable in their concision (even the Milanese or Ambrosian Rite, brother of the Roman, is not quite so concise; and the other Western and Eastern Rites just go on and on...), are the bedrock of the Liturgy – together with the fixed prayers.

What the variable chants and readings?  The Introit, Gradual, Alleluia or Tract, Offertory and Communion; the Epistle and the Gospel.  As the traditional Easter Vigil testifies, the Offertory came into use later than the other chants, as its more "advanced" music also reveals; this explains the mystery of the  Oremus before the Offertory, by the way: in the earliest period, the Secret was prayed directly after this Oremus, with no chant nor any other prayers intervening.  The traditional liturgy also retains certain days when there is more than one pre-Gospel reading...

What of the Ordinary chants?  The Kyrie was introduced, after the Eastern fashion, by Pope St Gregory the Great in the late 6th century; the Agnus Dei, by the Syrian Pope Sergius in the 7th; the Gloria in excelsis was at first restricted to Papal Mass for Christmas, then progressively extended to other feasts (and likewise gradually extended to episcopal and finally merely presbyteral Masses); the Creed was only introduced at Rome in the 11th century, after much Papal resistance!  Only the Sanctus is of immemorial use.

What are the fixed prayers of the Mass?  Of old, there was no Confiteor nor other preparatory prayers, no Offertory prayers except the Secret, no Communion prayers (the Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum is in fact a blessing imparted to the people to prepare them for a worthy Communion, as the Lord's Prayer is the prayer therefor; Luther of all people recognized this it must be said, and a comparison with other Rites East and West bears this out).  The fixed prayers were but two, and those most sacred: the very Canon of the Mass itself, and the Libera nos or Embolism that follows the Lord's Prayer.  We know that, as still at Milan, before the reign of Pope St Gregory the Great the fraction took place before the Lord's Prayer; he moved it to afterward, and also inserted the name of St Andrew, his patron, into the Embolism.

Given this, I much prefer to participate at Mass, sung Mass, the standard and most traditional form of the Liturgy, by attending to these chants, readings and prayers; other prayers are of great value (I still say the third Confiteor as a private heartfelt plea even when the strict '62 types omit it!), but these primary strata that I have enumerated express the very genius of the Roman Rite.  For this reason, knowing, say, the great variety of forms used in the Middle Ages at the Offertory, I generally use just one – the short Dominican version of the Suscipe sancta Trinitas – as my private prayer during that part of the Mass.

While some prefer to have their noses burrowed in their Missals during High Mass, reading every word muttered in secret by the celebrant while blocking out the singing of the choir (which is not always a bad idea, I know!), I think it obvious that Holy Church intends us to be moved especially by what is chanted aloud, ceteris paribus: so attend to the Introit, not to the sacred ministers saying Psalm 42 and so forth... though of course one may at points quietly pray one's own prayers, as every man's devotion listeth.

I have been interested in the lengthy arguments about liturgical forms (surprise, surprise) still ongoing over at that superb blog, The Anglo-Catholic, devoted to furthering the great and good work of corporate reunion of orthodox Anglicans with the Holy See; and I do prefer the richness of the Traditional Mass over the relative poverty of the Novus Ordo, especially given the devout way the former is celebrated, as against the philistinism so common, alas, in the celebration of the latter.  But I think a certain kind of hyper-orthodoxy, requiring every Mass prayer to be a veritable dogmatic treatise, and daring to fault even the Canon on this point, feeling it must be bolstered by the most emphatic Offertory prayers lest people misunderstand the Sacrifice, is overwrought.

The Roman Canon is most beautiful and august in its expression; its archaic form and structure, its mysterious words (think of the Supplices te rogamus: one mediæval writer advised that its obscurities are more to be feared than probed!) demonstrate what has been more and more emphasised by true students of liturgy: that it is very ancient indeed, and probably only the Assyrian Anaphora of Addai and Mari (itself not uncontroversial!) is of comparable date among Eucharistic Prayers still in use to-day.  

The mere fact that the Canon of the Mass does not contain an epiclesis proves it older than virtually all Eastern and Western forms, since the epiclesis, as an explicit invocation of the Holy Ghost to come down and transform the elements into Christ's Body and Blood, is a later and secondary development: Our Lord consecrated by His blessed words, This is My Body, This is My Blood.  As Dix pointed out, making the Holy Spirit the Agent seems not so consonant with Christ as the Primary Agent, the Priest Whose action makes the Eucharist (though of course, the Three Persons together work the wonder, as all operations of the Trinity ad extra are common to the Three).

(Lest some bright spark say, What about Eucharistic Prayer II?  Isn't that by St Hippolytus, and so therefore older than the Roman Canon?  Well, no!  The latest scholarship indicates that the prayer attributed to Hippolytus is not his work; and when you compare that prayer to the modern E.P. II, only about half of the latter traces back to the former; it was padded out and reworked by Bugnini's cohorts in the sixties, and as it is is hardly traditional.)

I have a book, Theodore Schnitzler's The Mass in Meditation, Volume I (St Louis: Herder, 1959), which is but a devout consideration of the Canon alone (Volume II, not in my possession, considers the rest of the Mass).  Such ought be the meditation of all, priest or layman, who draw near to God's altar in longing and trembling.

Let the last word be with Holy Church, lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost, at the Council of Trent (22nd Session, 17th of September 1562, Doctrine on the Sacrifice of the Mass, Chapter IV):

And whereas it beseemeth, that holy things be administered in a holy manner, and of all holy things this sacrifice is the most holy; to the end that it might be worthily and reverently offered and received, the Catholic Church instituted, many years ago, the sacred Canon, so pure from every error, that nothing is contained therein which does not in the highest degree savour of a certain holiness and piety, and raise up unto God the minds of those that offer. For it is composed, out of the very words of the Lord, the traditions of the apostles, and the pious institutions also of holy pontiffs.

Some Perspective at Last

My friend Robert, himself studying for a doctorate in history by researching eighteenth-century Anglican laymen, alerted me to an online history of the Scottish Episcopal Church by one Gavin White, which proves most illuminating. It turns out that the much-vaunted Scottish Liturgy - the ne plus ultra of homegrown Anglican rites that were not transparent copies of the Roman Missal - was used only by a minority of a minority.

Finally, I've found some statistics about the Scottish Episcopalians: their latest membership figures give their adherents as numbering 44,280. That's about 0.9% of all Scots.

By comparison, there are 850,000 Catholics in Scotland, or about twenty times more. Furthermore, I assume that, as is the wont of Anglicans, the practice rate of Episcopalians is less than that of Catholics...

I now quote at length from White's chapter on Worship, trusting that that gentleman will be happy about this:

And yet there was a Eucharistic liturgy, or succession of such liturgies, of quite a different tradition. It was used in the Diocese of Aberdeen where most Episcopalians were to be found, and occasionally elsewhere. Bishop Gadderer of Aberdeen, who had brought the English Jacobite or "Non-Juring" episcopal succession into the Scottish Episcopal Church, published an office for Holy Communion in 1724, with pen and ink alterations. In 1731 there was a Concordat to use either Scottish or English, but some thought the former meant Gadderer's rite, and some the virtually forgotten book of 1637. There was another printing in 1735, and in 1743 a final Gadderer version which spread, and in 1744 Bishop Rattray's studies favoured either a liturgy of 1718 or that of 1735. There was then a version of 1755 and finally that of 1764, but with alterations to the Invocation of the Holy Spirit which was vital to all these productions.

...

But just having an Epiclesis raised all sorts of new problems. Was the prayer asking that the Holy Spirit fall upon the communicants, or upon the elements of bread and wine ? If the latter, did this consecrate them, and if so, did that downgrade the Words of Institution ("This is my body...") ? Which were the critical words, or should the whole prayer be taken in its entirety without any critical point ? And should the Epiclesis be before the Words of Institution or after ? And if the elements were consecrated by the Epiclesis, should there be a phrase guarding against abuse by saying they were consecrated for the benefit of the faithful who received them ? In Aberdeenshire a few clergy became studied in the art of liturgy, and favoured eastern practices, which were opposed by others. The 1764 liturgy was thus something of a compromise, with the Epiclesis after the Words of Institution. This allowed those who wished to believe that the consecration was effected by the Words of Institution to regard the Epiklesis as an optional prayer for an effective use of the consecration. The 1764 form had, however, become so widespread in the north that the 1911 Scottish Book of Common Prayer, which seemed to limit the Epiclesis to its effect on the congregation, "to the end that all who shall receive the same may be sanctified in body and soul, and preserved unto everlasting life", was somewhat resented. It was in fact an attempt to make the old Scottish Liturgy more widely acceptable, and in this it succeeded.

But in the 1920s eastern theories of liturgical development were all the rage, and in the theological college the priest knelt at the Epiclesis, while no "special significance" was given to the Words of Institution. Furthermore, it was proposed to put an "Amen" after the Epiclesis. Of such things are revolutions made; an observer complained that, "An attempt is being made to commit the Scottish Church to an Eastern theory of consecration and no other", while "even the 1764 Liturgy was at pains to preserve the Western theory of consecration", by using heavy print for the Words of Institution. But belief in eastern antiquity ceased to dominate liturgical scholarship, and the Epiclesis was preserved as a relic of penal days in the north rather than a theological proposition. Yet all this argument about the Epiclesis was rather unreal; most of the students of the college would never use the Scottish Liturgy anyway, but only the English Communion Office.

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But the Scottish Liturgy in the 1929 Prayer Book was marred by an historically correct but hopelessly impractical section in which the Prayer of Consecration, the Prayer of Oblation, the Epiclesis, and the lengthy intercession of the Prayer for the Church Militant, stretched on and on with no congregational participation. As was remarked of this book, "among frequent worshippers moments of sleepy oblivion are quite common during the Canon until they are roused to attention by the recitation of the Lord's Prayer." ... [ROTFL!]

Yet all of this passed over the heads of the majority of Episcopalians who never used the Scottish Liturgy in any of its forms. Those who had come into Scottish Episcopalianism from Qualified chapels after 1788 were guaranteed the right to continue to use the English Communion Office, and in the more southerly dioceses even those of Jacobite ancestry were accustomed to the English Prayer Book and had never known the Scottish Liturgy. Throughout the nineteenth century there was a constant see-saw as the balance tipped one way or another - - the Scottish was paramount, but the English was protected, the English was paramount and only those congregations which already used the Scottish could continue to do so, then the Scottish - - but with the 1970 liturgy both the older forms were cast into the shade, and everyone used a liturgy with an Epiclesis whether they knew it or not.

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That the 1929 Prayer Book went wrong in ordering the prayers of the Eucharist in such soporific fashion was seen when certain clergy in Glasgow initiated a revision which led, after an opinion poll, to the 1970 Liturgy or Grey Book. This placed the intercession before the offertory, rather on the lines of the English Series 2. It became very widely used, and the 1929 book only lingered on amongst the most suspicious. Then came a temporary Orange Book of 1977, and finally the 1982 Liturgy, or Blue Book, rather on the lines of the English Alternative Service Book Rite A. 


It turns out a little learning is a dangerous thing: all I've known of the Scottish Liturgy is from liturgical books and commentaries thereon!

Portraying the 1982 book as any good is quite ridiculous; it is a violent break from the organic development still found in its very latest, 1970 edition. (Perhaps the Piskies simply imitated Rome's unfortunate Reform a decade or so later.)

I will note, however, that the long Scottish Canon (the three prayers of Consecration, of Oblation and of Intercession placed back-to-back) is only 13% longer than the Roman Canon as Englished in the current Book of Divine Worship of the Anglican Use. It does seem unkind and frankly pretty ignorantly smug to condemn it as "correct but yawn-inducing"... this is precisely the demon of modernism, which replaces doctrinal theology with (lazy navel-gazing) subjective experience.