Hail Mary after Prayer of the Faithful

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I went to Vigil Mass on Saturday in a different diocese than mine. After The Prayer of the Faithful the priest led the congregation in saying a Hail Mary. I’ve never experienced this before. How common or uncommon is this? Thanks
 
A few places do it, most probably don’t. Around here, I’d say that would be more common at a daily Mass rather than Sunday. The St. Michael prayer is also more common, in my estimation.
 
In my diocese many parishes say the St Michael Prayer after Mass. This parish I went to Saturday did not.
 
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In the parish I attended growing up, one of the priests would sometimes say a Hail Mary after prayers of the faithful. He probably shouldn’t have done that since it isn’t in the GIRM, but I believe his heart was in the right place.
 
regression said:
He probably shouldn’t have done that since it isn’t in the GIRM
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There’s leeway for this kind of thing built in… the preferable placement would be at the very beginning of Mass after the greeting, somewhere during the homily time, or after the final blessing, but as part of/immediately after the prayer of the faithful is ok, too, since the intercessions are not rigidly scripted and can take just about any form. That, and we’re moving between Liturgy of the Word and Liturgy of the Eucharist at that point — liturgical halftime, as a previous pastor used to say.
 
Cor_ad_Cor said:
after the final blessing,
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As one priest did at vigil Masses in the OF -“let’s honor the mother of God … Hail Mary”. He would then process out. As this was a “quiet” Mass - no music or hymns, I thought it was a lovely way to ‘end’ Mass.
 
Say the black, do what’s in red.
We have the right to a liturgy without priests adding stuff on their own accord. That is also prohibited in the GIRM you know.
 
The only time the Prayer of the Faithful is scripted to a point where “Say the black, do the red” would be appropriate is on Good Friday. Otherwise, I can’t see how saying the Hail Mary as one of the prayers violates the GIRM.
 
It’s not like the Novus Ordo is particularly strict about rubrics for the bidding prayers.

The way they’re done in most locales, it’s clear enough why organically they fell into disuse and were retained only vestigially in the classical Roman Rite.
 
The practice you describe is quite common in the UK, although not universal. It happens at maybe half of the parishes I have been to.
It is quite an English thing, as far as I can see. I haven’t encountered it in Wales for example. I believe that it stems from the strong devotion to Our Lady in England before the Reformation.
Some bishops have asked for it not to be done in their diocese, I think that Bishop Egan of Portsmouth diocese did so, but others are OK with it.
The intention is to ask Mary to intercede for the intentions that has been offered.
 
andy4d said:
The practice you describe is quite common in the UK
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Interesting. The priest who said it at the parish I grew up in was Irish, so perhaps the practice bled over from the UK to Ireland?
 
The Prayer of the Faithful seems repetitive at times to begin with I feel like.
One of my priests I speak to a lot said the same thing to me once , that he really could do without the prayer of the faithful and the sign of peace.
 
The priest saying the Mass is permitted to omit the sign of peace (although not the prayer of the faithful).

I have been to a number of OF Masses where there is no sign of peace.
 
My church only does the prayer of the faithful on Sundays and Holy Days. Weekday masses we don’t do them.
 
They can be omitted if the priest does “another rite”.

I’ve not seen them omitted at normal weekday Mass, although they’re shorter. For one thing, the priest generally mentions at that time the name of the person for whom the Mass is being offered. Omitting that name would likely cause people who arranged to have the Mass said for their loved one, and went to the Mass planning to hear the name of the person announced, to become upset.

 
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Yah they do the gospel reading and a short homily and then say who the mass is for but there is no further prayer of the faithful like where anyone stands up or anything like that. We only do that on Sundays.
 
Yes, but it’s a very touchy subject. I personally find the prayers of the faithful in some places to be very, um, wordy, with a lot of emphasis on secular/political/environmental subjects, so ending with a nice gentle Hail Mary I’d find soothing.

And of course in the OF there are many places in Mass where the priest can choose one of (several) options. There are even still a couple of places (but only a couple, as opposed to prior to 2011 where there were several) where the priest can use “these or similar words”. I guess it isn’t surprising even 7-1/2 years after the change for some priests to still do things the ‘old way’ at times (like the ones who always say ‘for all’ instead of ‘for many’). It must be hard for them if they have had years or decades of being taught, or encouraged, to ‘make the liturgy your own, be open, be spontaneous’, to hear from some nobody in the pew, "But Father, I read in the GIRM’, especially in the cases either where the priest basically does everything he should, but gets ‘called on the carpet’ by officious ‘holier than the pope’ types who actually themselves are WRONG in trying to correct him! or else the cases where Father has been running his own personal ‘show’ for decades and is absolutely convinced (in the nicest possible way) that anything he does is divinely sanctioned and those who are trying to make him ‘conform’ to some ‘rubrics’ are just totally rigid, poor fools, and should be either assimilated or ignored. . .nicely, of course.

God bless our priests. God bless our lay men, women, and children.
 
John Huels wrote about the Hail Mary at the end of the Prayer of the Faithful in More Disputed Questions in the Liturgy (1996, published by Liturgy Training Publications, ISBN 1568541716 page 24).

To summarise his “weighty and convincing reasons against concluding the general intercessions at Mass with a Hail Mary”:

– The Roman Missal’s model general intercessions have the Priest concluding the Prayer of the Faithful. This prayer is always addressed to God and concludes by invoking the intercession of Christ.

– “no official liturgical prayers are addressed to Mary and the other saints”.

– the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 13 has that liturgy is superior to popular piety.

– the 1994 Instruction on the Roman Liturgy and Inculturation has “The introduction of devotional practices into liturgical celebrations under the pretext of inculturation cannot be allowed.”

– in Marilas cultus, 48, Saint Paul VI wrote “it is a mistake to recite the rosary during the celebration of the liturgy, though unfortunately this practice still persists here and there.” Similarly the Hail Mary does not belong in the liturgy.

Since John Huels wrote this the Hail Mary has been added to The Roman Missal. It is now the last prayer in that book. But it is not a prayer for during the Mass. It is in an appendix under the heading “Thanksgiving After Mass”.

Regarding whether the Prayer of the Faithful may be omitted, the General Instruction of the Roman Missal has in n. 69: “It is desirable that there usually be such a form of prayer in Masses celebrated with the people,”.

The Order of Mass of The Roman Missal has: “20. Then follows the Universal Prayer, that is, the Prayer of the Faithful or Bidding Prayers.”

So in one part of The Roman Missal it seems compulsory. In another part it seems optional. My view is that it should always be included, following the higher standard, to be more sure that a liturgical law is not being broken.

For a Confirmation Mass the rubric is: “30. The Universal Prayer follows in this or a similar form determined by the competent authority.”

[Excerpt from the English translation of The Roman Missal © 2010, International Commission on English in the Liturgy Corporation. Excerpt from the English translation of The Order of Confirmation © 2013, International Commission on English in the Liturgy Corporation. All rights reserved.]
 
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