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 MISSION

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MISSION

bus in Anglia, Scotia, et Ibernia itinerantibus " was printed two or three times tow-ards the beginning of the seventeenth century for the use of missionary priests. Its size allowed it to be carried about easily without attracting observation, and as it contained relatively few Masses, only those for the Sundays and the principal feasts, it recalled in a measure the " libelli Missae " of the Anglo-Saxon and Irish mission- aries nine centuries earlier. Even at this date the peculiarities of the Sarum Rite were not retained and the Canon and Masses of this "Missale parvum" were all Roman with the exception of one special Mass of the Holy Name of Jesus which is described in the 1616 edition as " talven from the Missal accord- ing to the Use of Sarum". Moreover, just as the Roman liturgy came in this way to prevail in England, so in France and throughout the rest of Europe the local uses have for the most part been surrendered by degrees, two of the principal influences at work being no doubt the advantage of uniformity and the author- ity and relative purity of the Roman Missal, as author- itatively revised and improved after the Council of Trent.

The first printed edition of the " Missale Romanum " lately republished Ijy the Henry Bradshaw Society in two volumes (1899 and 1907), was produced at Milan in 1474. Numerous editions followed, but nothing authoritative appeared until the Council of Trent left in the hands of the pope the charge of seeing to the revision of a Catechism, Breviary, and Missal. This last, committed to the care of Cardinals Scotti and Sirlet with Tliomas Goklwell (an Englishman, Bishop of St. Asaph, deprived of liis see upon the accession of Elizabeth), and Julius Poggio, was published in 1570. St. Pius V published a Bull on the occasion, still printed at the beginning of the Missal, in which he enjoined that all dioceses and religious orders of the Latin Rite should use the new revision and no other, excepting only such bodies as could prove a prescrip- tion of two hundred years. In this way the older orders like the Carthusians and the Dominicans were enabled to retain their ancient liturgical usages, but the new book was accepted throughout the greater part of Europe. A revised edition of the "Missale Romanum" appeared in 1604 accompanied by a brief of Clement VIII in which the pontiff complained among other tilings that the i>ebis Itala version of the Scripture which had been retained in the antiphonal passages of the Pian Missal had been replaced, through the unauthorized action of certain printers, by the text of the newly edited Vulgate. Another revision bearing more especially upon the rubrics followed under Urban VIII in 1634. In the early part of the nineteenth century, owing largely to the exertions of Uom Gu^ranger, the Benedictine liturgist, a number of the dioceses of France which had up to this per- sistently adhered to their own distinctive uses upon a more or less valid plea of immemorial antiquity, made a sacrifice to uniformity and accepted the ' Missale Romanum". The last authoritative revision of the Missal took place in 1SS4 under Leo XIII. It should be noticed finally that the term Missal has been ap- plied by a loose popular usage to a number of books which, strictly speaking, have no right to the name. The "Missale Francorum", the "Missale Gothicum", the_ "Missal of Robert of Jumieges ", etc., are all, properly speaking, Sacramentaries.

The most important contribution to the subject is Ebner, Quellen und Forschungen zut Gesch. und Kunstgesch. des Missale Romanum in Millelaller (Freiburg, 1896), a monograpli in which special attention is paid to the peculiarities of the pictorial decoration of ancient Missals. Another valuable work which h.is at leaat an indirect ijearing on early missals Is Delisle, Mhmoire sur les ancicns Sacramentaires (Paris, 1886); Schrod in Kirchenlex., a. v. Missale; Kleinschmidt in Theohgisch- praktische Quartalschr. (Linz, 1907); Lippe and Legg, The Missale Romanum of li7i. III (2 vols., Henry Bradshaw Society, 1907). To give a list of the more famous published Missals such as the Missale ad usum ecclesice Sarum (London, 1861, etc.), the Yorh Missal, th^ Ambrosian Missal, the Mozarabic Missal,

etc., would be superfluous. On the rubrics of the Missal the reader may be referred, besides such Catholic works as Mercati, Gavanti and V.\N der Stappen, to Wickham Legg, Tracts on the Mass (Henry Bradshaw Society. 1904).

Herbekt Thurston.

Mission, Congregation OF Priests OFTHE. — A con- gregation of secular priests with religious vows founded by St. Vincent de Paul. The members add the let>- ters CM. to their name. As with many other com- munities, an appellation from the founder or the place they dwell in has superseded the original title. Thus in France and in almost all countries they are called Lazarists, because it was in the Priory of St. Lazare in Paris that St. Vincent de Paul dwelt and that he established his principal works. In the Irish prov- ince, which includes practically all English speaking countries except the United States, they are called Vincentians, and this name is gradually replacing that of Lazarists in the United States. In countries whose language is Spanish they are called Paules. This appellation, like the preceding, is obviously de- rived from the name of the founder. The name Con- gregation of the Mission indicates their first and chief object.

I. Origin of the Congregation. — In the beginning of the year 1617, Vincent de Paul was at the Chateau de FoUeville in Picardy with the family of M. de Gondy, Count de Joigny, General of the Cialleys of France, and had charge of the education of M. de Gondy's sons, one of whom became the celebrated Cardinal de Retz, Coadjutor of Paris. Vincent had opportunities of observing the ignorance of religion of the peasants of the neighbourhood. As the result of a sermon which he preached on the 25 Jan., 1617, in the church of FoUeville, Vincent, with two Jesuit Fathers, began, at Mme de Gondy's request, to preach to and instruct the people of the neighbouring vil- lages on her estates. Thus began the work which was to become eight years later, in lG2.i, the Congregation of the Mission. Mine de Gondy wished to make a foundation that would secure a mission every five years for (he rural population of her extensive estates. The Oratorians and Jesuits being unable to under- take this work, she urged Vincent to gather together some zealous priests and organize missions for the poor country people at that time so little in touch with the clergy. Ecclesiastical authorization was easily obtained from JoUn Francis de Gondy, then Archbishop of Paris, brother of the General of the Galleys. He also handed over to Vincent the owner- ship and all the rights of an old college in Paris, called "des Bons Enfants". Vincent de Paul took posses- sion through his first disciple and co-labourer Anthony PortaU, 6 March, 1624. The next year a contract confirming the previous promises was signed by the de Gondy family in favour of Vincent and his com- panions united "under the name of Company, Con- gregation or Confraternity of leathers or Priests of the Mission". This took place on 17 April, 1625.

Edified by the success of their labours, the Arch- bishop of Paris gave his official approval a year later, 24 April, 1626, to the contract of foundation, and on 4 Sept., 1626, before two notaries of C^hatelet in Paris, Vincent and his first companions declared that they had joined together "to live in a community or confra- ternity and to devote themselves to the salvation of the poor country people ". Only three priests signed this declaration with Vincent de Paul: Du Coudray, Portail, and de la Salle. Very soon afterwards four other priests joined the little company: John B(5cu, of the Dioce-se of Amiens; Anthony Lucas, of Paris; John Brunet, of the Diocese of Clennont; and John d'Hor- gny, of the Diocese of Noyon. The King of France, Louis XIII, added the seal of his royal authoritjr to the act of foundnliun:ilrc;i(Iy approvcil by ecclesias- tical authority Ihc |irccciling year. In May, 1627, he issued letters patent, allowing the missionaries tofprrn