As we have repeatedly pointed out the entire Church, those on earth forming the Church Militant, the souls being purified in Purgatory forming the Church Suffering, and the glorious array of saints in Heaven forming the Church Triumphant are all present at the celebration of the Church's Liturgy. Therefore, the Church would now acknowledge this fact through the next of Her prayers which form the Eucharistic Prayer. This prayer, the Communicantes, from the first word of the prayer in Latin, runs:
"In communion with those whose memory we venerate,
especially the glorious ever-Virgin Mary,
Mother of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ,
and blessed Joseph, her Spouse,
your blessed Apostles and Martyrs,
Peter and Paul, Andrew,
(James, John,
Thomas, James, Philip,
Bartholomew, Matthew,
Simon and Jude;
Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus,
Cornelius, Cyprian,
Lawrence, Chrysogonus,
John and Paul,
Cosmas and Damian)
and all your Saints;
we ask that through their merits and prayers,
in all things we may be defended
by your protecting help.
(Through Christ our Lord. Amen.)"
While we are unable to see it in the English translation, within the Latin text Jungmann notes a very important point, this prayer is an incomplete sentence! He says:
"The Communicantes that follows [the memento for the living] is not, as it now stands, a grammatically complete sentence. The first question therefore regarding it naturally is: what is it connected with? . . . Just as by origin the Communicantes is a continuation of the Memento, so also its content is a reinforcement of the plea in that Memento: Remember all of them, for the congregation which now stands before Thee with its sacrifice does not stand solitary, since it belongs to the great nation of the redeemed, whose foremost ranks have already entered into Thy glory (170)."
Gueranger also adds to this thought, for he notes this is the first prayer which ends with the "Through Christ our Lord. Amen," although this is optional in the Ordinary Form of the Mass. We shall, however, address this at the end of this post.
This prayer serves a twofold purpose, the first of which is to remind us of the great communion we share with the saints in Heaven, especially through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The second purpose is to implore their intercession, not for the merits of the Sacrifice, for that is offered purely through Christ, but that through their intercession for us we may be able to worthily offer ourselves in union with the Sacrifice.
We here venerate the memory of the saints in order to understand the communion brought about through the Mass, for the saints chosen hold a special significance for the entire Church, but especially for the Roman Rite. Naturally, we first acknowledge the pre-eminent position held by the Mother of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth. While we may glance over this line, however, it also holds great importance for us, considering the heresies which beset the Church of Rome over the centuries, especially those which attack our Divine Lord and our Blessed Lady. With these few words it is declared that Mary was a virgin throughout her entire life, before, during, and after the birth of Jesus, and thus is also recalled the miraculous Incarnation of Christ. The next title assigned to her, is appropriately enough, "Mother of God," Theotokos, God-bearer. It was this title that Nestorius opposed to be assigned to her, but the great Council of Ephesus upheld for her! Then, by finishing her praises with, "God and Lord, Jesus Christ," is given unto Christ all of those other declarations of the other Ecumenical Councils, primarily Nicea I and the Council of Chalcedon.
The importance of confessing all of this at this moment should be fairly obvious to us. The Sacrifice of Christ is about to be accomplished before us, as well as His coming in the Holy Eucharist, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. In order for this to bear the fruit of our redemption, however, these declarations of the Councils must be upheld, or the salvation of man shall fall apart! In paying honor to Mary, then, a confession of the truths of the Faith is given to the Father!
But let us continue in our consideration of the saints here named, for we now encounter a change to the Canon which came about under the reign of Pope St. John XXIII. He declared that St. Joseph was to be added to the Roman Canon universally in the Church, something which had not occurred since the Missal was set by Pope St. Pius V. This change was brought to completion recently by Pope Francis, when almost at the start of his Pontificate, he declared St. Joseph was to be named after the Blessed Virgin in all the Eucharistic Prayers of the Roman Rite.
The reason for this is easy to understand. It was not until 1870, that Blessed Pius IX declared St. Joseph to be Patron of the Universal Church. However, once this occurred, in union with the dogmas concerning Mary's Immaculate Conception and Assumption, universal devotion to St. Joseph grew so that it was only natural to place him in the Great Prayer of the Church. Yet we may see how devotion to him is tied to Mary as he is named as, "her spouse." Additionally, St. Joseph's place here is especially fitting as this prayer and the past two form a recommendation to God the Father of the entire Church, of Whom St. Joseph is the universal protector and patron. As he watched over the infant Christ, so now he also watches over the Church, the Body of Christ.
Moving on in the list of saints, though, Holy Church now names the Apostles and some of the prominent martyrs of Rome. We should not find it odd there are no Confessors here named, nor Virgins, for devotion to the Confessors of the Church did not start until after the termination of the persecutions, after which time the Canon was mostly established. Therefore, the saints venerated in the early Church would mostly be martyrs, and the Virgin Martyrs occur in the second naming of saints later in the Eucharistic Prayer.
We start, however, with the naming of the Twelve Apostles, the foundations of the entire Church. The order does not seem to have any real bearing, except for certain groupings of saints in the location of their burial and St. Peter and St. Paul at the beginning. And it is fitting these two head the list, for not only are they the Fathers of Rome, they are often called the Pillars of the Church, for as St. Peter was the first Pope and Apostle especially to the Jewish people, St. Paul was the great teacher of the nations and Apostle to the Gentiles, as he himself testifies (Galatians 2:7).
Following these two, we have Andrew, the first Apostle; James and John, "the sons of thunder" on account of their zeal (Mark 3:17), and these were the two who along with St. Peter were privileged to see the Transfiguration and the Agony in the Garden of our Lord; then we have St. Thomas, whose finger which was placed into the side of Christ after the Resurrection is preserved in the Basilica of Holy Cross in Jerusalem in Rome; following him are named St. Philip and St. James the Lesser, both of whom are buried in Rome in the Basilica of the Twelve Apostles; then comes St. Bartholomew, whose body is also in Rome in the Basilica of St. Bartholomew on the Island; then St. Matthew, writer of perhaps the first Gospel to be composed (according to tradition, although recent historical research would credit this title to St. Mark); and lastly St. Simon and St. Jude, both of whom are also buried in Rome in St. Peter's Basilica.
The Church, however, is founded on Scripture and Tradition, and the Tradition comes to us from the Apostles through the Fathers of the Church. For this reason, the Canon now names twelve Father Martyrs, highly important to the Church in Rome, to complement the Twelve Apostles named. We begin with St. Linus, St. Cletus, and St. Clement, the three immediate successors to St. Peter as Bishop of Rome and consequently Pope. Nevertheless, the Papacy extends down to the present day, and therefore, two other popular Popes are named, to show its enduring nature. These are St. Sixtus, the seventh Pope, and St. Cornelius, the 21st Pope. Yet the Faith is not only passed on to us through the Papacy, but also through the Bishops, and so St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, is next named.
Holy Mother Church would not have Her sons and daughters believe that only Popes and Bishops may attain the level of sanctity, for She next names the great Deacon St. Lawrence, one of the great martyrs of the Church of Rome, who is buried in one of the seven pilgrimage basilicas of the city. Following him, we have three lay martyrs of the Church of Rome, St. Chrysogonus, St. John, and St. Paul. Nevertheless, while union with Rome is necessary to remain in the Church of Christ, for where Peter is, the Church is, it is not necessary to abide in Rome and the final two saints, St. Cosmas and St. Damian testify to this, for they were not of Roman stock.
Thus terminates the 26 saints mentioned in this portion of the Mass, although all the saints after Andrew may be omitted at the Priest's discretion. Let us here, however, mention that it was the custom in some places to add local saints, or saints specially geared to a religious order if the Mass was one said by an order. Due to the nature of length, however, this met with great debate, and the custom was suppressed so that only a saint may have been added on his or her feast day, or perhaps the founder of an order. Nonetheless, even this custom, in order to maintain unity with the Liturgy of Rome and show the universality of the Church died out, although there have been movements in recent years to revive the practice of adding a saint on their feast day, much as done in Eucharistic Prayer III.
The standard, then, is to simply include the saints of antiquity, with the exception of St. Joseph, which we have explained, and to include all other saints under the title, "and all your Saints," for it would be impossible to adequately name all who deserve mention here. The point is to recall the glorious company, who through devotion to the Eucharist and Christ's Church have attained the glory we hope to gain through this Sacrifice and Sacrament. As stated above, we ask that their prayers may gain a gracious hearing with God so that we may worthily receive His grace and offer ourselves in union with the Sacrifice of Christ, being offered at the hands of the Priest.
It is necessary to here mention briefly the practice of the diptychs in the Liturgies of the Early Church. It was upon these folded tablets that the names of those to be mentioned in the course of the Eucharistic Prayer would be inscribed. Thus, the name of the Pope and local Bishop, the Sponsors and prominent members of the Church to be prayed for, as well as the saints to be mentioned would all be written on separate diptychs so that the Celebrant could easily remember who to pray for. This was also meant as a symbol to remind the Faithful of all the petitions brought to the altar of God, and thus to also place themselves upon it. With the formation of missals, however, this practice fell out of use, but the symbolism should not be forgotten by us.
We should also mention that the beginning of this prayer has variable formulas for the great Solemnities of the Liturgical Year. Thus, on the Nativity of the Lord, Epiphany, Holy Thursday, Easter, the Ascension, and Pentecost, the Priest begins the Communicantes by calling to mind the Feast celebrated before calling to mind the saints. The remembrance of the central Mysteries of the Life of our Lord recalls to our minds that the Liturgy makes us present to all these events, for it is outside of time, and while it primarily makes present the Paschal Mystery, it also brings us in touch with all the events of the life of our Lord, and even all of history itself!
Finally, the last point we shall mention is the ending of this prayer, "Through Christ our Lord. Amen," all said by the Priest. This is the first time this appears in the Roman Canon, showing the essential unity of these first three prayers. For our explanation of this, we turn to Gueranger:
"Thus ends this third Prayer, which is, like the other two, a Prayer of recommendation. First of all, the Priest prayed for Holy Church, the Pope, the Bishop, all Catholics, then for those for whose intention the Holy Sacrifice is being offered; to these he joined other persons in whom he is interested, finally, he reminded God of the union which exists between the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant, and the the names of the Saints in Heaven were heard at our Altar here below. These three Prayers form but one, for which reason, only at the conclusion of this third, the Priest, joining his hands, terminates with the usual words: Per eumdem Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen (The Holy Mass, Section: Communicantes)."
With these prayers of recommendation finished, it is now time to move forward in the Great Prayer, to the climax of the Mass, namely the Consecration of the Bread and Wine into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, and the making present of the Sacrifice of the Cross!
All historical information taken from:
Rev. Joseph A. Jungmann, S.J. The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development. Volume
2. Part IV: Communicantes, 170-179.
Translated by Rev. Francis A. Brunner, C.SS.R. (Christian Classics:
Notre Dame, Indiana, 1951).
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