Book Notice: The Post-Communion Prayers of the Missale Romanum (1970/1975/2002)

The Post-Communion Prayers of the Missale Romanum (1970/1975/2002). A Comparison of Translations, with the Sources of Each of the Prayers

497 pp; Lectionary Study Press, 2020

Kindle e-Book, $5.99 / £4.79 / € 5,49

Available from Amazon: USA, UK, Italy, Germany, France, Spain (and other localised Amazon sites)

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Long-time readers of NLM may recall that, at the end of 2014, I uploaded the first part of a comparative study of the post-communion prayers of the Novus Ordo, with the second part following shortly afterwards. In these documents, there were two aims. The first was to allow easy comparison of the different English translations of these prayers, stretching from the early 1970s to ICEL’s most recent renderings. The second aim, and perhaps the more important one in the long-term, was to provide the source texts for every one of the 385 unique post-communion prayers in the post-conciliar Missal, along with parallel English translations of these in order to assist those whose Latin is not as strong as it could be.

I am very happy to be able to say that this project is now finally complete, and available as a Kindle e-Book from Amazon! [1]

In this liturgical resource, all the post-communion prayers are organised in the order they appear in the reformed Missal: i.e. Proper of Time (126 unique prayers), Proper of Saints (78), Commons (60), Ritual Masses (19), Masses for Various Needs and Occasions (54), Votive Masses (17), and finally Masses for the Dead (31). First, the Latin text of the oration is given, along with its different English translations. This is followed by the Latin text of the source(s), which is provided with an English translation and paralleled alongside the post-communion so any similarities and/or differences can be seen at a glance.

Sample page: 29th Sunday per annum (click to enlarge)

Sample page: St Josaphat, 12th November (click to enlarge)

Sample page: VNO 17, Unity of Christians,
formulary C (click to enlarge)

Detailed appendices are also provided, giving an index of sources, some statistics, extracts from documents relating to the revision of the Mass propers (including two translated from the unpublished schemata of Groups XIII and XVIII bis of the Consilium ad exsequendam), an index of where post-communion prayers are duplicated in the Missal, and finally an index of first lines.

Sample page from the index of sources (click to enlarge)

Sample page from the statistics (click to enlarge)

For those who wish to dig into the history of the post-communion orations of the Roman Missal for the forma ordinaria, I hope that this e-book makes for an excellent place to start. It should also be helpful for more seasoned researchers and students of the liturgy, as all the source references are (where possible) keyed into the Corpus Orationum series, thus making it easier to look up each prayer for more detailed study and comparison.

NOTES

[1] Or, more precisely, as complete as it reasonably can be at the moment. I suspect that many of the prayers designated as “new compositions” have, at the very least, texts that have inspired their authors. This would require much more in-depth research than has been carried out by anyone up until now. My own feeling is that the documents of the Second Vatican Council likely provided a good portion of the creativity behind these new prayers.