Friday, October 21, 2005
Liturgical Dear Abby
The Liturgy Q&A section at Zenit is worth checking weekly. I get the impression most questioners have a bone to pick with someone, so they submit to this "Dear Abby of Liturgy" (Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University) for justification.
This week: "I was under the impression that the priest 'may' add a prayer at the conclusion of the Prayers of the Faithful, but was not required to do so by the rubrics. In my parish, after the deacon concludes the prayers, the parish priest simply enunciates, 'Oremus.'"
McNamara quotes GIRM 71:
"It is for the priest celebrant to direct this prayer from the chair. He himself begins it with a brief introduction, by which he invites the faithful to pray, and likewise he concludes it with a prayer."
He concludes, "it is clear that the priest should conclude the Prayer of the Faithful with a prayer. This prayer is said with hands extended as for the other presidential prayers."
On first reading, I thought this treated with the practice of the presider adding prayers to the already-composed offerings. I've never known the general intercessions to be concluded by anything but a prayer. Sometimes, I stumble across a "communal" prayer like the Hail Mary or the diocesan vocations prayer. Those would be no-no's too, I guess.
