Question on Penitential rite forms

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Whenever I hear the penitential rite at Mass, it tends to be the Penitential form C (You were sent to heal the contrite of heart…Lord have mercy.) I have NEVER heard Penitential form B said (Have mercy on us O Lord…For we have sinned against you. Show us O Lord your mercy. And grant us your salvation).

Has anyone else noticed this as well? Do you know why Form B isn’t said as much?
 
I have never heard Form B, either. Maybe it’s a regional thing? I’ve been to churches primarily on the west coast and in the Rocky Mountain states. My parish actually uses Form A the most often (Confiteor followed by Kyrie), but we do C occasionally as well.
 
I think I’ve heard B once or twice in the last 20 years here in “Illiana”. It’s pretty evenly A or C.
 
Personally I don’t like these different forms. Just say the Confiteor and the Kyrie Elieson. I have no idea why that is considered to much or something these days.
But yes the one you said, option C is said the most. I have heard the option B before though. Depends on the priest really.
 
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B is used at our abbey every Sunday and most days of the week. Occasionally the confiteor is used during the week. It’s used rarely because the monks say it every evening at Compline. Form C is only occasionally used on weekdays sung in French. Otherwise it is form B. With forms A and B, the Greek Kyrie is always sung.
 
I’ve never heard form B at any parish I’ve been a member of in the last 20 years.
 
In our hymnbook Cecilia, there are at least three for ordinary time, one for Advent, one for Christmas season, one for Lent, one for Easter season, one for Pentecost and then one for Mary/angel and saint days. And then the Confiteor.

I think it depends upon the priest which he prefers to use. Some priests always have the Confiteor and some change depending upon the liturgical season and also if there are feasts and solemnities celebrated.
 
So he used a short penitential act. Why not just say the Confiteor? Seriously. One should also remember these are not the only “penitential acts”. There’s actually a whole bunch of them in the appendix of the Missal as well.
I will never understand why the Confiteor is not the standard. My God, it was even shortened in the Novus Ordo.
 
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This used to be the case with out old pastor. And it kind of fit his personality.
The new pastor uses B commonly.

I don’t personally like C because it doesn’t seem penitential to me at all.

It goes like this.
God, you are a pretty good God. Show us mercy
God you came to heal. Show us healing
God you are a swell God, keep being swell to us.

I know there is more to it than that, but I prefer a more “take responsibility for our own sins” type of penitential rite.
 
Prodigal1984 said:
So he used a short penitential act. Why not just say the Confiteor?
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At the abbey, there are probably a couple of reasons. The first, is as I mentioned the confiteor used daily at Compline. So it avoids repetition. Remember, a conventual Mass is for the community, not the laity. However that does not mean that the laity isn’t taken into consideration. The abbey is also a well-known local tourist attraction. On Sundays, and summer weekdays, there are many visitors who may, to be charitable, not know the confiteor by heart.

Lastly, option B is easily chanted on plainchant tones that add beauty and fluidity to an all-sung Mass, and this even untrained laity can respond to. The confiteor can only be recited or sung recto-tono.

I’m surmising those are the main reasons. There may be others.

However here is the prime reason. In the reform of the liturgy, our Holy Mother Church decreed all options as licit and permissible.

The celebrant is thus free to use any one of them.
 
I am glad the Confiteor is almost never used at my parish. If it did not have grievous in it, I might like to use it. But there is no hint of grievous in the Latin and it was put in by people who insisted on changing the translation to make it closer to the Latin! It is just infuriating to hear it, let alone say it.
 
The previous translation simply skipped “maxima” How is that better?
 
drforjc said:
The previous translation simply skipped “maxima” How is that better?
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There was precedent, versions that used a triple mea culpa. Leaving maxima out does not really change the meaning; a triple repetition makes the same point as maxima.

OTOH translating maxima as most grievous changes the emotional tone from a sober Roman prayer to an unctuous English one. There is nothing that supports this injection of grief into this prayer.
 
Dovekin said:
There was precedent, versions that used a triple mea culpa . Leaving maxima out does not really change the meaning; a triple repetition makes the same point as maxima .
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Yet they included it in the latin.
 
Several years ago we started using B exclusively. Our deacon said it. He passed away about a year and a half ago and we have used C since then.
 
Elf01 said:
Yet they included it in the latin.
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I was answering the question of why leaving maxima out was better than mistranslating it.

I do not think maxima should be left out. That was a given in the question. If you want to ask why that question was asked that way, please do.
 
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