Faith

Even with this brief bit of history, we can see that even the venerable Roman Canon has changed during its 1,600 years of use in the Latin West.

Father Robert M.
O'Grady

In the coming weeks, we'll be looking at the Eucharistic Prayers most encountered on Sunday at a parish Mass. For each, we'll have a bit more history, a look at its contents, and answer a few questions that have come in.
For a long time, there was only one Eucharistic Prayer. And it was the Roman Canon. However, while it was the prayer of the Diocese of Rome from the time of Pope St. Gregory the Great in its (almost) present form, he tells us that it was already being prayed and formed probably 200 years prior.
Before then, it was most common for the composition of the Prayers of the Mass to be "ad libitum" or extemporaneously -- at the behest of the celebrant, who was almost exclusively the bishop. Once there was the need for prayers to be more unified across at least the diocese, texts began to appear -- no printing press, no word processor, no PDF, and no AI -- all done by monks' hands.
By the seventh century, then, this prayer had the shape it now has. However, it was still used mostly in and around Rome until the intervention of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne (768-814), who wanted Roman liturgy to be the imperial gold standard.

It was the emperor, a layman, and not a pope, who began this centralizing and consolidating of the liturgy. This was accomplished by obtaining copies of Roman liturgical books, which were then copied in European monasteries. The monks were careful to preserve some of the monastic liturgy and incorporate it, and they were encouraged by local bishops to keep diocesan traditions alive. So, there was a basic unity for the Mass, but it was not anything like what was legislated at Trent some 800 years later.
This Roman Canon in our Roman Missal has had some tweaking done to it. The most recent and astonishing one was the dust-up caused by the change made by Pope St. John XXIII when, in 1962, he had the name of St. Joseph inserted into the canon. Believe it or not, this raised eyebrows, but not so many voices. First, because it's hard to say no to St. Joseph, who played such an essential role in the life of Jesus; but I suspect more because it was one of Pope St. John's (Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli) baptismal patrons.
It is not widely known that even after Trent, there were some limited permissions granted for certain vernaculars to be used in certain parts of the Mass; e.g., Chinese, in 1615, by Pope Paul V; Arabic, 1624, Pope Urban VIII; and, in 1958, for Hindi! For a detailed look at this vernacular language variety affecting the Mass and the Roman Canon: www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=2786.
The historians of liturgy also tell us that this canon seems to be a compilation of as many as 15 different short prayers. Remember the ad lib? Bishops and priests would hear "good prayers," memorize them and use them in their own Masses. They were brought together and adjusted to fit together, not always smoothly.
There is an obvious hint to this in our present Roman Canon. In four places, there is an option for the principal celebrant to end each of the four sections of the canon with the "Through Christ our Lord. Amen."
What is interesting and perhaps why this is not often heard is that this continues to be a prayer of the principal celebrant, including the Amen. However, the rest of the assembly is so formed that whenever we hear "Through Christ our Lord," we almost naturally respond "Amen." To add even more to the confusion, there is a fifth, but not optional, "Through Christ our Lord," but without an "Amen" by the principal celebrant or the assembly.
Even with this brief bit of history, we can see that even the venerable Roman Canon has changed during its 1,600 years of use in the Latin West. Recall that during these years, there were other Eucharistic Prayers being prayed in other parts of the Catholic Church and in languages other than Latin.
Among some characteristics of this prayer that we'll see in coming articles are the two lists of saints; the sometimes imperial Roman court language employed to address God and to refer to the priests and people; and the different postures and actions specific to this prayer.
When the liturgical reform was underway, and those entrusted with the reform of the Mass addressed the Eucharistic Prayer, there was a stated desire to keep the Roman Canon but to make it easier to follow, especially in the vernacular. When the proposal was brought to Pope St. Paul VI, he thought it too much for the Church to digest such a change. So, he said, "Leave it the way it is and bring me a couple of other options for other Eucharistic Prayers."

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