Explanation of the Prayers and Ceremonies of Holy Mass, Dom Prosper Guéranger - Canon of the Mass

The Preface being finished, the Sanctus is sounded, and the Priest then enters within the cloud.  His voice will not be heard again, until the Great Prayer is concluded.  This Prayer has received the name of Canon Missae, that is to say, Rule of the Mass, because it is this portion which essentially constitutes the Mass: it may be well termed the Mass by excellence.  It finishes at the Pater, and then, as previously at the conclusion of the Offertory prayers, the termination will be signalised by the Priest himself, who will utter the concluding words in a loud voice: Per omnia saecula saeculorum; to which the Faithful will add their Amen, we approve of all that has been said and done by thee, because our intention was one and the same with thine, to bring down the Lord into our midst; and therefore are we participators in all thine acts.  So then, it is to be observed that the Priest says the whole of this Great Prayer, the Canon, in an under-tone, not excepting even the various Amen which conclude the separate Prayers of which the Canon is composed.  Once only, does he raise his voice a little, and then only whilst uttering two or three words, whereby he declares himself to be a sinner, as well as those who are around him: Nobis quoque peccatoribus.

In the Seventeenth Century the Jansenist heretics tried to introduce the abuse of reciting the Canon of the Mass aloud.  Deceived by their tricks, Cardinal de Bissy, one of the successors of Bossuet, countenanced the admission of R. in red type, into the Missal which he had composed for his Church, as the French Bishops of that day imagined they had a right to do.  These R. in red would naturally convey the idea that the people were supposed to respond the Amen thus marked.  Now they can only respond to Prayers that can be heard.  Hence would necessarily follow, at last, the recitation of the Canon aloud, by the Priest, which was the very thing aimed at by these Jansenists.  But happily public attention was quickly drawn to this dangerous innovation, loud complaints were raised against it, and Cardinal de Bissy himself withdrew the unfortunate step he had taken.

The various Prayers of which the Canon is composed are of the highest antiquity; nevertheless, they cannot be traced to the very first days of Holy Church; this is proved by the fact that the Divine Service was at first performed in the Greek tongue, a language in much more general use, at that epoch, than the Latin.  It is probable, therefore, to suppose that the Prayers, such as we have them, were drawn up verging on the Second Century, or possibly as late as the first years of the Third.  Every Church has its Canon; but if these differ a little as to form, the substance is always the very same, and the doctrine expressed in their various rites, agrees often identically with that expressed in our Latin Rite.  We have in this fact, an admirable proof of the unity of belief, be the Rite what it may.

The initial letter of the first Prayer of the Canon is T, which is equivalent to the Hebrew Tau, and which, by its very shape, represents a Cross.  No other sign could better be placed as a heading to this Great Prayer, in the course of which the Sacrifice of Calvary is renewed.  Thus it was, that when those magnificent Sacramentaries were first of all written, ornamented with vignettes and rich designs of every kind, this Tau was lavishly treated in decoration, and at length came the happy idea of painting a figure of Christ on this Cross, supplied by the Text itself.  By degrees the design got enlarged, until it ended in becoming a representation of the entire scene of the Crucifixion; still, large as it was, it continued to be merely an adjunct to the initial letter only of the Prayer Te igitur.  But at length, a subject of so great importance, was deemed worthy of being treated quite independently of this, and the result was a separate picture.  So that now, there is no complete Missal without an engraving of Christ on the Cross, placed on the leaf facing that on which the Canon begins.  And this can be traced to the simple fact of this little vignette which ornamented the Ancient Sacramentaries.

As to the importance of the Tau itself, we hear mention of it even in the Old Testament; for Ezechiel says, speaking of the elect, that the blood of the Victim being taken, all those whom God had reserved to Himself should be marked therewith on the forehead with the sign of the Tau, and that the Lord had promised to spare all those thus marked (Ezechiel, ix. 46.).  This is explained by the great fact that we are all saved by the Cross of Jesus Christ, which was made in the form of the Tau.  In confirmation also the Bishop marks the Tau with Holy Oil, on the forehead of those whom he confirms.  Our Lord’s Cross was in the shape of a Tau, thus: T.  Above it a piece of wood was placed as a support to the Title affixed, and thus is completed the shape of the cross such as we now have it; for we learn, in St. John, that the cause of Our Lord’s death was placed above the cross: Scripsit autem et titulum Pilatus, et posuit super crucem (S. John, xix. 19).

Notice of what high importance is this one letter which commences the Great Prayer of the Canon.