Soul, Recommendation of the

SOUL, RECOMMENDATION OF THE. - The Roman Ritual, tit. V, ch. VII, contains certain liturgical prayers with which the Church accompanies the souls of the faithful to the threshold of eternity: it is the Ordo commendationis animae, which is followed by ch. VIII, entitled De exspiratione. In ancient times the terminology was not uniform, and the two parts were almost always combined into one. Often the name commendatio was given to the whole set of prayers recited not for one particular deceased person, but for all the departed, so much so that sometimes the name commendationes animarum or defunctorum is found. A twelfth-century author enumerated the rites of the final passage thus: negere, communicare, commendare, sepelire (Gilbert de Limmerick, De statu Ecclesiae: PL 159, 1002).

The most ancient texts have no particular liturgical name for the ritual ceremonies performed at the sick person's bedside, but speak only of a psalmody and of the litanies of the saints. One reads indeed in the life of St. Austraberta, abbess of Pavilly (d. 704): «Interim cunctis qui adstabant psallentibus et sanctorum nomina seriatim subnectentibus, illa virtute qua valuit voces psallentium interruptit», (in Acta SS. Februarii, II, Paris 1865, p. 423). The psalms and the litanies are therefore among the most ancient elements of the Ordo commendationis animae, so much so that, around 1145, Bernard, prior of the Lateran, wrote: «Cum letanis morientium animas commendamus in sanctorum felici societate » (Ordo officiorum Ecclesiae Interanensis, ed. Fischer, Historische Forschungen und Quellen, Munich 1916, p. 67). Their use goes back to the eighth century. The most ancient texts tell us that in the monasteries the monks gathered around the dying person, recited the Creed and sang the psalms and the litanies. The names of St. Joseph, St. Camillus de Lellis and St. John of God were added in times close to our own. Also from the eighth century is the moving: » Proficiscere, anima christiana... The » Libera, Domine, animam servi... » we find for the first time in the Sacramentary of Reichenau, also from the eighth century. The other prayers that make up the present Ordo commendationis animae go back more or less to the aforementioned period and come from different sources. All this testifies, from the most remote antiquity, to the Church's concern to give the soul all the helps for the supreme journey.

Anselmo Tappi Cesarini