The Last Gospel

[CyrilSebastian]

Why does the priest read the beginning of the Gospel of Saint John (John Chapter 1 Verses 1-14) at the end of the Tridentine Mass?

 

[bardegaulois]

From what I understand, this was a custom among priests, praying the Gospel in thanksgiving publicly after Mass as thanksgiving. It came to be made universal and was added to the Missal at the time of the Council of Trent. Why the beginning of St John’s Gospel? Its pious recitation was an object of particular devotion at that time.

God bless.

 

[otjm]

The practice of saying the first 14 verses of John’s Gospel started somewhere in the middle ages, and was a private, not public practice. It gradually spread, and by the time of Pius V, it was widespread, and he put it into the Mass. I leared it orignially in English, and then, in koinae Greek. John was the theologian, and it is a theological statement.

 

[ProVobis]

Why the beginning of St John’s Gospel?

Possibly to combat some heresies is what I understand. But I haven’t done much research on this.

 

[CyrilSebastian]

The beginning of St. John’s Gospel is sometimes called the “Second Gospel”.

 

[Br_Mark]

And sometimes it is also known as the “secret gospel”.

 

[ProVobis]

I understand this has been restored in the Ordinariate Mass as well.

 

[patrick457]

Possibly to combat some heresies is what I understand. But I haven’t done much research on this.

The Last Gospel was, as mentioned, originally a private devotion. It was just one of the post-Mass devotions that was common in the Middle Ages. Other areas have different devotions: for example the recitation of the Benedicite (The Song of the Three Youths). (The Dominican Rite didn’t have it originally; it only adopted the Last Gospel under pressure after it became standard in the EF, and even then there was a sort of silent protest to it in the form of extinguishing the candles immediately after the blessing.)

John’s gospel was the most popular gospel among Christians since antiquity (right up there with Matthew). The prologue in particular was given special importance to the point that people wrote it on amulets (copies of John’s gospel were actually at times used as protective charms) and recited it over the newly baptized and the sick. There were stories of people driving away demons by reciting the prologue. St. Augustine in this time reports Christians placing or binding a copy of John’s gospel over people suffering from headaches, fever or other diseases (he didn’t personally approve of the practice).

 

[AngelusDomini]

I understand this has been restored in the Ordinariate Mass as well.

The Last Gospel is an option in the Ordinariate Use. Many features of the Ordinariate Use will be familiar to those who know the Extraordinary form of mass.

 

[AngelusDomini]

Possibly to combat some heresies is what I understand. But I haven’t done much research on this.

I think it was to combat heresy, in particular heresies denying the divinty of Jesus. Presumably if celebrants did not believe in those heresies against the divinty of Christ they would have no objection to saying the Last Gospel.