L Sursum corda. IFT up your hearts. Answer. We lift them up unto the Lord. Then joining his hands before the breast, he says: Priest. Let us give thanks unto our Lord God. Answer. It is meet and right so to do. ¶ Then shall the Priest turn by his right to the Lord's Table, and say, with hands raised and extended as at the Collect: Vere dignum. T is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto thee, O Lord, [*Holy Father,] Almighty, Everlasting God. (Here shall follow the Proper Preface, according to the time, if there be any specially appointed; or else immediately shall be said or sung by the Priest:) Therefore with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious Name; evermore praising thee, and saying, Here the Priest joins his hands before the breast, and bowing moderately, both Priest and People say together the Sanctus, during which the server rings the sacring bell thrice. usage, however, it was said by the Priest turned towards the altar. This originated from the custom, which is still continued in the Greek rites, of shutting the gates or drawing the curtains of the sanctuary before this part of the service, so that the Priest was withdrawn from the people, and, therefore, did not turn towards them when addressing them, as at other times. This custom having passed away in the West, there is no reason why the Sursum corda should not now be said toward the people, as the Prayer Book has directed. (See Romsée and Le Brun, in loc.) "These words [Holy Father] must be omitted on Trinity Sunday." (Rubric of Bk. of C. P.) That is if the first Preface of Trinity Sunday is said; but if the second Preface is read, the words would be retained. The English Prayer Book has no alternate Preface for Trinity Sunday. Sanctus. HOLY, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts, Heaven and earth are full of thy glory: Glory be to thee, O Lord Most High. Amen. Then the Priest standing erect, places the left hand a little below the breast, and with the right hand makes the sign of the cross from the forehead to the breast.22 saying privately: B Benedictus qui venit. LESSED is he that cometh in the name of the 14. Then shall the Priest, kneeling down at the Lord's Table, say, in the name of all those who shall receive the Communion, this Prayer following, his hands being joined before the breast: WE E do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us. Amen.23 "At the beginning of the Benedictus ye turn to the altar and make the token of the cross upon you in mind of our Lord's passion." (The Myroure of our Lady, p. 330.) This prayer is a free rendering of parts of two prayers said by the Priest in preparation for Mass, and found in most of the English missals as in the Roman missal. The corresponding Latin is as follows: "Ad CHAPTER V. THE CANON Of the Mass. 1. Having said the above prayer, the Priest rises, and "standing before the Table," finds the place of the Canon in the book with his left hand, the right hand resting upon the altar beyond the corporal. Then he "so orders the bread and wine that he may with the more readiness and decency break the bread before the people and take the cup into his hands," moving the ciborium (if one be in use) forward on the corporal, and placing it uncovered at his right alongside of the chalice; or he places it between the paten and the chalice, moving the latter back a little. When the Priest, standing before the Table, hath so ordered the Bread and Wine, that he may with the more readiness and decency break the Bread before the People, and take the Cup into his hands, he shall say the Prayer of Consecration, as followeth : He says the whole Canon with hands extended, except when it is otherwise ordered. When the sacred name is mentioned before consecration, the Priest bows his head towards the cross; each time it is mentioned after consecration, he bows his head towards the Sacrament. 2. First, he joins his hands before the breast; then mensam dulcissimi convivii tui, pie Domine Jesu Christe, ego peccator de propriis meritis nihil præsumens, sed de tua confidens misericordia et bonitate, accedere vereor et contremisco. Exaudi me sperantem in te; miserere mei pleni miseriis et peccatis, tu qui fontem miserationis numquam manare cessabis." "Da mihi, quæso, dominici Corporis et Sanguinis non solum suscipere sacramentum, sed etiam rem et virtutem sacramenti. O mitissime Deus, da mihi Corpus unigeniti Filii tui Domini nostri Jesu Christi, quod traxit de Virgine Maria, sic suscipere, ut corpori suo mystico merear incorporari, et inter ejus membra connumerari.' These last two sentences are found in the prayer attributed to Saint Thomas Aquinas. immediately extending and raising them as high as the shoulders, at the same time raising his eyes to the cross,' he says, LL glory be to thee, Almighty God, our heavenly Father, (Immediately casting down his eyes, and slowly joining the hands before the breast and bowing his head profoundly, he continues) for that thou of thy tender mercy, didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ; (Then standing erect, and extending the hands before the breast, as at the Collect, he adds) to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption; who made there, by his one oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world; and did institute, and in his holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory of that his precious death and sacrifice (Joining his hands before the breast, he continues) until his coming again." 1 Our Canon, unlike the old Latin Canon, opens with an ascription of praise; it would seem, therefore, that the ceremonial actions of the Priest ought to follow the analogy afforded by the first part of the Gloria in Excelsis. The English Canon reads thus: "Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption; who made there (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world; and did institute, and in his holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory of that his precious death, until his coming again; Hear us, O merciful Father, we most humbly beseech thee; and grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine, according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood: who, in the same night that he was betrayed, took bread," etc. This first paragraph of the Canon is very much like the following passages from Saint Thomas: "The passion of Christ was a sufficient (sufficiens) and superabundant satisfaction (satisfactio) for the sins of the whole human race." (Summa, iii. 49, 3.) "Because men are purged from sin by the passion and death of Christ, and that there might remain with us the continual memory (jugis memoria) of so great a benefit, the Son of God as his passion drew near, left with his faithful ones the memory (memoriam) of his passion and death to be continually celebrated (jugiter recolendam), by giving to his disciples his Body and Blood under the forms of bread and wine; which [Sacrament] the Church in every land that is Christ's continues to celebrate in memory (in memoriam) of his venerable passion. (S. Thom. Opusculum iii. 8.) 3. Here the server taking the sacring bell in his right hand, goes up, and kneels on the foot-pace at the right of the Priest. He rings the bell thrice at each consecration, viz.: once when the Priest genuflects after the consecration of the host or the chalice; once at the elevation of the host or chalice; and once again when the host is replaced upon the paten, or the chalice upon the corporal. He bows his head at each time of consecration, and raises the chasuble with his left hand at each elevation. The Priest, disjoining his hands, says: Consecration of the Host. OR in the night in which he was betrayed, (¶ Here FOR the Priest is to take the paten into his hands,3 and holding it between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, he raises it a few inches from the altar, saying:) he took bread; (He immediately replaces the paten upon the corporal, and takes the large host between the thumb and forefinger of the left hand. Holding it a little raised from the paten, so that the figure impressed upon it will be held upright, he raises his eyes to heaven, then straightway bowing his head he makes the sign of the cross with his right hand over the host, saying) and when he had given thanks,+ (¶And here to break the bread which he does after This direction in all the English Uses is placed before the words Qui pridie, etc., but in the Book of Common Prayer since 1662, as in the present Roman missal, it has been placed before the words "He took bread." In the Latin Canon the cross was made at "He blessed;" as these words do not occur in our Prayer of Consecration, the most convenient place for this cross would seem to be at "given thanks." Mr. Scudamore gives two or three examples of a cross made at this place. See Notitia, etc., 2 ed., p. 598. A fraction or the semblance of a fraction was directed by some of the medieval missals, but was altogether distinct from the solemn fraction which took place after consecration. (Ibid., pp. 606-607.) |