Second Confiteor Before Communion?

[bben15]

Hello. In the TLM, a confiteor is permitted to be said before reception by the laity. However, the altar servers say a confiteor during the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar. Since the altar servers represent the people, then why is the confiteor said again? What is the point of it? Why doesn’t the priest say a confiteor before communion?

God bless you for answering my question.

 

[AlexV]

Traditionally the Missale Romanum said nothing about the reception of communion by the faithful. Communion was often distributed outside Mass, and the rite for this was contained in the Rituale Romanum (and contained a Confiteor of the laity). This rite was eventually in practice more or less inserted in the Missale, hence the rise of the so-called “Second Confiteor.”

Rather oddly (since there are so many other things one could get worked up about, I suppose), this has occasionally surfaced as a virtual litmus test of adherence to the so-called 1962 rubrics (so-called because they actually date in large part to 1960 and 1961), where the practice is not mentioned and can reasonably be assumed to have been suppressed, just as it can reasonably be assumed to be perfectly fine in those places where it has been maintained (at least by those whose sense of liturgy depends on more than the quoting of a particular numbered item in a rubricarium).

 

[Rin]

As Alex says, the second Confiteor isn’t mentioned in the 1962 missal, but neither is the Ecce Agnus Dei. So if the second Confiteor is suppressed due to not being specified in the missal, so is the Ecce. The ritual for distribution of Communion is found in the Rituale, which (of course) has both.

Additionally, in a Missa Cantata or Solemnis, the faithful can’t even hear the initial Confiteors. Originally, they (and the whole introductory rite) were seen as ministerial prayers - they were preparations for the ministers. Dialog Masses sadly made away with that distinction. Originally, the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar were even said in the sacristy, if you go far enough back. So in many ways, the second Confiteor is really the people’s Confiteor. Removing it (especially in a Sung or High Mass) hence takes something away from the people. In my less humble than it should be opinion

 

[corsair]

Sorry, RIN, but I disagree with you about the Ecce Agnus Dei not being in the 1962 missal. I have a 1996 Missale Romanum and an Angelus Press 1962 Daily missal. The Ecce is in both. And the priest says it at every Mass that I attend.

 

[Chatter163]

Sorry, RIN, but I disagree with you about the Ecce Agnus Dei not being in the 1962 missal. I have a 1996 Missale Romanum and an Angelus Press 1962 Daily missal. The Ecce is in both. And the priest says it at every Mass that I attend.

Alas, RIN is right. The official 1962 typical edition of the Missale Romanum, of which the altar edition is the official text, does not have the rite for the distribution of communion in it. This includes the* Ecce Agnus Dei *and Domine non sum dignus. But then again, none of the typical editions before it contained the rite, either, because it was not viewed as integral to the Mass itself, and was contained in the Rituale Romanum. It was not until the 1965 interim Ordo Missae that the communion rite was included as a part of the Order of Mass. It does not matter what people’s hand missals such as Angelus Press did, as they are not official liturgical texts; they are merely privately created publications, including their translations and other instructional information.

I don’t know what you mean by “1996* Missale Romanum*,” as there is no such thing. Perhaps you mean the reprint of the 1960 edition of the* Missale Romanum* that was sponsored by RC Books in Colorado in the mid-nineties. (BTW, that altar missal incorrectly titles itself as a 1962 Missale Romanum on the cover, but it is not. Check out the absence of St. Joseph in the Canon of the Mass. This was a major embarrassment at the time, because they did not bother to ask the FSSP, Ecclesia Dei or anyone knowledgeable who could have informed them, to look at the book before they printed it.) No matter, as the communion rite is not in that missal, either.

 

[Rin]

But then again, none of the typical editions before it contained the rite, either

I should of course have mentioned that - my former parish priest often used an older Missal with inserts for the changes introduced in 1962. He did omit the people’s Confiteor, by the way, and I sadly never managed to make him budge He was aware that it was not suppressed as such, but at the same time afraid people who were used to the OF would feel unfamiliar saying the Confiteor separately, right before Communion.

Which (the fact about earlier missals, not the following digression) brings me to wonder; why did people get the idea that it was suppressed? Nothing really changed in the Editio Typica, and the Rituale didn’t, either. So what happened to make people think it was suppressed?

 

[Chatter163]

I should of course have mentioned that - my former parish priest often used an older Missal with inserts for the changes introduced in 1962. He did omit the people’s Confiteor, by the way, and I sadly never managed to make him budge He was aware that it was not suppressed as such, but at the same time afraid people who were used to the OF would feel unfamiliar saying the Confiteor separately, right before Communion.

Which (the fact about earlier missals, not the following digression) brings me to wonder; why did people get the idea that it was suppressed? Nothing really changed in the Editio Typica, and the Rituale didn’t, either. So what happened to make people think it was suppressed?

It was suppressed. Blessed John XXIII’s new rubrics in 1960 included number 503 :

1. Whenever holy communion is distributed within the Mass, when the celebrant has consumed the most sacred Blood, the Confiteor and the absolution are omitted, but the celebrant says the Ecce Agnus Dei and says the Domine, non sum dignus three times, and then proceeds immediately to the distribution of the holy Eucharist.

 

[drafdog]

You all seem to think that quoting from or referencing various missals answers the question of bben15. I would like to start over.
I frequently served the earliest daily mass at my home parish. A handful of people could not stay for the entire mass and still arrive at their jobs in good time. We prayed the confiteor as Father opened the tabernacle and took out the ciborium. Persons wishing to receive communion came up to the altar rail and knelt. Father distributed communion and the communicants returned to their pews. After returning the ciborium to the tabernacle Father returned to the foot of the altar and began to pray the mass which included the prayers at the foot of the altar. The confiteor is part of those prayers: a penitential rite.
Technically there was never a second confiteor since the prayer was first recited outside the mass as preparation for the reception of the sacrament.
The custom was instituted for the benefit of persons who were compelled by the economics of the industrial revolution (making it a “modern innovation”) to work set hours in the day without regard for the spiritual needs of the workers.

Reb Levi