6. Gradual. A few verses from the Psalms, the shrunken remainder of a whole Psalm.
7. Sequence. A hymn now obsolete except on Feast of the Seven Dolours, Easter, Pentecost, Corpus Christi and at Masses for the dead.
8. Gospel.
9. Creed.
10. Collect, now obsolete, though the unanswered invitation, “Let us pray,” still survives.
11. Offertory. A verse or verses from the Psalms sung at the offering of the elements.
12. Secret. A prayer or prayers said at the conclusion of the Offertory.
13. Sursum Corda. “Lift up your hearts,” with following versicles.
14. Preface. There are now ten proper or special prefaces and one common preface. In older missals they were extremely numerous, almost every Sunday and Holy-day having one assigned to it. Many of them were very beautiful. In older missals, Nos. 13, 14 and 15 were sometimes arranged not as the concluding part of the Ordinary, but as the opening part of the Canon of the mass.
15. Sanctus, or Tersanctus, or Triumphal Hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy,” &c., ending with the Benedictus, “Blessed is he that cometh,” &c.
Canon of the Mass.
1. Introductory prayer for acceptance. Te igitur, &c.
2. Intercession for the living. Memento, Domine famulorum, &c.
3. Commemoration of apostles and martyrs. Communicantes et memoriam, &c.
4. Prayer for acceptance and consecration of offering. Hanc igitur oblationem, &c.
5. Recital of words of institution. Qui pridie quam pateretur, &c.
6. Oblation. Unde et memores, &c.
7. Invocation. A passage difficult of interpretation, but apparently meant to be equivalent to the Eastern Epiklesis or invocation of the Holy Ghost. Supplices te rogamus, &c.
8. Intercession for the dead. Memento etiam, Domine, famulorum, &c.
9. Lord’s Prayer, with a short introduction and the expansion of the last petition into a prayer known as the “Embolismus.”
10. Fraction, i.e. breaking of the host into three parts, to symbolize the death and passion of Christ.
11. Commixture, i.e. placing a small portion of the consecrated bread into the chalice symbolizing the reunion of Christ’s body and soul at the resurrection.
12. Agnus Dei, i.e. a three-fold petition to the Lamb of God.
13. Pax, i.e. the kiss of peace. The ancient ritual of the Pax has become almost obsolete.
14. Three prayers, accompanying the Pax and preliminary to communion.
15. Communion of priest and people (if any), a short anthem called “Communio” being sung meanwhile.
16. Ablution of paten and chalice.
17. Post-communion, i.e. a concluding prayer.
18. Dismissal.
The Canon of the Mass strictly ends with No. 9; Nos. 10-18 being an appendix to it.
Mass of the Catechumens. After preparation and vesting.
1. The Deacon’s Litany.
2. Three Anthems with accompanying prayers.
3. Little Entrance, i.e. ceremonial bringing in of the Book of the Gospels.
4. The Trisagion, i.e. an anthem with an accompanying prayer different from the Latin Sanctus or Tersanctus.
5. Epistle.
6. Gospel with a prayer preceding it.
7. Bidding prayer.
8. Prayer for catechumens.
9. Dismissal of catechumens.
10. Spreading of the corporal.
Mass of the Faithful.
11. Prayers of the faithful.
12. Cherubic Hymn, “Let us who mystically represent the Cherubim, &c.” not represented in the Latin liturgy.
13. Great Entrance, i.e. of the unconsecrated elements with incense and singing and intercessions.
14. Kiss of peace.
15. Creed.
16. The Benediction, i.e. 2 Cor. xiii. 14.
17. Sursum corda.
18. Preface.
19. Sanctus, or Tersanctus, or “Triumphal Hymn.”
20. Recital of Words of Institution, prefaced by recital of the Redemption.
21. The oblation.
22. The invocation or Epiklesis.
23. Intercession for the dead.
24. Intercession for the living.
25. The Lord’s Prayer.
26. Prayer of humble access (a) for people (b) for priest.
27. Elevation with the invitation “Holy things to holy people.”
28. Fraction.
29. Commixture.
30. Thanksgiving.
31. Benediction.
In both these lists many interesting features of ceremonial, the use of incense, the infusion of warm water (Byzantine only), &c., have not been referred to. The lists must be regarded as skeletons only.
There are six main families or groups of liturgies, four of them being of Eastern and two of them of Western origin and use. They are known either by the names of the apostles with whom they are traditionally connected, or by the names of the countries or cities in which they have been or are still in use.
Group I. The Syrian Rite (St James).—The principal liturgies to be enumerated under this group are the Clementine liturgy, so called from being found in the eighth book of the Apostolic Constitutions, which claim in their title, though erroneously, to have been compiled by St Clement, the 1st–century bishop of Rome; the Greek liturgy of St James; the Syriac liturgy of St James. Sixty-four more liturgies of this group have existed, the majority being still in existence. Their titles are given in F. E. Brightman’s Liturgies, Eastern and Western (1896), pp. lviii.-lxi.
Group II. The Egyptian Rite (St Mark).—This group includes the Greek liturgies of St Mark, St Basil and St Gregory, and the Coptic liturgies of St Basil, St Gregory, St Cyril or St Mark; together with certain less known liturgies the titles of which are enumerated by Brightman (op. cit. pp. lxxiii. lxxiv.). The liturgy of the Ethiopian church ordinances and the liturgy of the Abyssinian Jacobites, known as that of the Apostles, fall under this group.
Group III. The Persian Rite (SS. Adaeus and Maris).—This Nestorian rite is represented by the liturgy which bears the names of SS. Adaeus and Maris together with two others named after Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius. This group has sometimes been called “East-Syrian.” The titles of three more of its now lost liturgies have been preserved, namely those of Narses, Barsumas and Diodorus of Tarsus. The liturgy of the Christians of St Thomas, on the Malabar coast of India, formerly belonged to this group, but it was almost completely assimilated to the Roman liturgy by Portuguese Jesuits at the synod of Diamper in 1599.
Group IV. The Byzantine Rite.—The Greek liturgies of St Chrysostom, St Basil and St Gregory Dialogus, or The Presanctified, also extant in other languages, are the living representatives of this rite. The Greek liturgy of St Peter is classified under this group, but it is merely the Roman canon of the Mass &c., inserted in a Byzantine framework, and seems to have been used at one time by some Greek communities in Italy. To this group also belongs the Armenian liturgy, of which ten different forms have existed in addition to the liturgy now in general use named after St Athanasius.
We now come to the two western groups of liturgies, which more nearly concern the Latin-speaking nations of Europe, and which, therefore, must be treated of more fully.
Group V. The Hispano-Gallican Rite (St John).—This group of Latin liturgies, which once prevailed very widely in Western Europe, has been almost universally superseded by the liturgy of the Church of Rome. Where it survives, it has been more or less assimilated to the Roman pattern. It prevailed once throughout Spain, France, northern Italy, Great Britain and Ireland. The term “Ephesine” has been applied to this group or family of liturgies, chiefly by English liturgiologists, and the names of St John and of Ephesus, his place of residence, have been pressed into service in support of a theory of Ephesine origin, which, however, lacks proof and may now be regarded as a discarded hypothesis. Other theories represent the Gallican to be a survival of the original Roman liturgy, or as an importation
