The Post-Communion Prayers of the Roman Missal : An Exhaustive Comparative Study Now Available Online

It has been a great week for the discovery of online resources for liturgical study. Peter Kwasniewski has brought to my attention a site run by Mr Matthew Hazell, called Lectionary Study Aids. Mr Hazell’s interests lie principally with the lectionary, as may be seen in the various tables and charts he has assembled and posted on the site. He has also produced an exhaustive study of the Post-Communion prayers from the 2002 edition of the Missale Romanum, giving the Latin text and its original source, and indicating where else the prayer may be used within the Missal. Each prayer is then given according to four different English translations: the interim translation permitted for use by the bishops of England and Wales in 1972; the 1973 ICEL translation (colloquially known as “the old translation”); the rejected 1998 ICEL translation; and the new version approved by the Holy See in 2010. Those which are also found in the traditional Missal are also given in a variety of English translations from different pre-Conciliar hand-missals, and their original location in the Missal noted as well. At the end, there is a group of statistical charts, noting the sources of each prayer, how often each particular source is used, what portion of the prayer are compiled from bits of other prayers, etc., Finally, there are a number of documents referring to the revision of the Missal and its prayers, such as various address of Pope Paul VI to the Consilium ad exsquendam that produced the revised Missal, and various instructions of the Congregation for Divine Worship etc.

You can see the post to which the documented is attached by clicking here, and then download it. Mr Hazell is much to be congratulated for the remarkable diligence of his work, and thanked for his incredible generosity in making such a useful resource available for free. Ad multos annos!