TRADITIONAL LITURGY IN ITS POST-VATICAN II FORM - II: EUCHARISTIC PRAYER II by Father Louis Bouyer Cong. Orat

Father Louis Bouyer and Dom Bernard Botte OSB composed this prayer, and so the author of this commentary knows what he is talking about.   As with the first post, I shall write in white and Louis Bouyer’s contribution will be in yellow.

It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Father most holy, through your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, your Word through whom you made all things, whom you sent as our Saviour and Redeemer, incarnate by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin.
Fulfilling your will and gaining for you a holy people, he stretched out his hands as he endured his Passion, so as to break the bonds of death and manifest the resurrection.
And so, with the Angels and all the Saints we declare your glory, as with one voice we acclaim:   Holy, Holy, Holy…

You are indeed holy, [vere sanctus], O Lord, the fount of all holiness.Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall, so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.At the time he was betrayed and entered willingly into his Passion, he took bread and, giving thanks, broke it, and gave it to his disciples sayingTAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND EAT OF IT, FOR THIS IS MY BODY, WHICH WILL BE GIVEN UP FOR YOU.In a similar way, when supper was ended, he took the chalice and, once more giving thanks, he gave it to his disciples, sayingTAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND DRINK FROM IT, FOR THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD, THE BLOOD OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL COVENANT, WHICH WILL BE POURED OUT FOR YOU AND FOR MANY FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME

At this point an acclamation on the part of the people has been introduced, as in many Eastern liturgies, in the same terms, inspired by the Pauline narrative, as those found in the Anaphora of St James.   As we saw, from there it passed to the Ambrosian canon:

We proclaim your death, O Lord, until you come again.

Therefore, as we celebrate the memorial of his Death and Resurrection, we offer you, Lord, the Bread of life and theChalice of salvation, giving thanks that you have held us worthy to be in your presence and minister to you.Humbly we pray that, partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, we may be gathered into one by the Holy Spirit.

The intercession for the whole Church follows naturally, and is based upon the final allusion to the Church in the text of Hippolytus.

Remember, Lord, your Church, spread throughout the world, and bring her to the fullness of charity, together with N. our Pope and N. our Bishop and all the clergy.

After a short silent prayer for all the living, there is the commemoration of the dead:

Remember also our brothers and sisters who have fallen asleep in the hope of the resurrection, and all who have died in your mercy: welcome them into the light of your face.

After a second pause, the evocation of the saints is directly connected to the intercessions and brings us back to the eschatological perspective of the final doxology.

Have mercy on us all, we pray, that with the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, with the blessed Apostles and all the saints who have pleased you throughout the centuries, we may have part in eternal life and may glorify you through your Son Jesus Christ.Through him, and with him, and in him, O God almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honour is yours, for ever and ever. Amen.

The clarity and biblical simplicity of the wording in this prayer make it a genuine eucharistic catechesis, appropriate for every day celebrations as well as for masses directed toward children and neophytes.

I want to draw your attention to Louis Bouyer’s introduction to the second epiclesis in which he says that “it preserves the terms which seem best attested in the text of St Hippolytus and which are at the same time powerfully expressive in the most simple language of the work of the Spirit in the Church, the fruit of the eucharistic celebration of the holy sacrifice.”  The work of the Holy Spirit in the Church is the fruit of the eucharistic celebration.  The work of the Holy Spirit in the confection of the sacrifices is fruit of the eucharistic celebration. The work of the Holy Spirit making us the body of Christ is fruit of eucharistic celebration. The work of the Holy Spirit in making Scripture the Word of God is fruit of the eucharistic celebration.   The work of the Holy Spirit in turning traditions into Tradition is fruitm of the eucharistic celebration.   All infallibility in the Church is fruit of eucharistic celebation: “The Eucharist makes the Church.”