ANIMA, RACCOMANDAZIONE DELL'. — The Roman Ritual, tit. V, chap. VII, contains several liturgical prayers with which the Church accompanies the souls of the faithful to the threshold of eternity: this is the Ordo commendationis animae, followed by chap. VIII, entitled De exspiratione. In ancient times, the terminology was not uniform, and the two parts were almost always joined together. The name commendatio was often given to the collection of prayers recited not for one particular deceased person, but for all the departed, so much so that the terms commendationes animarum or defunctorum are sometimes found. An author of the twelfth century thus enumerated the rites of the final passage: negere, communicare, commendare, sepelire (Gilbert de Limmerick, De statu Ecclesiae: PL 159, 1002).
The oldest texts do not have a particular liturgical name for the ritual ceremonies performed at the sick person’s bedside, but speak only of psalmody and the litanies of the saints. Indeed, we read in the life of St. Austraberta, abbess of Pavilly (d. 704): «Interim cunctis qui adsta-bant 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 litanies are therefore among the oldest 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 dates back to the eighth century. The oldest texts tell us that in monasteries the monks gathered around the dying person, recited the Creed, and sang the psalms and litanies. The names of St. Joseph, St. Camillus de Lellis, and St. John of God were added in comparatively recent times. Also dating from the eighth century is the moving prayer: » Proficiscere, anima christiana... The » Libera, Domine, animam servi... » is found for the first time in the Reichenau Sacramentary, likewise from the eighth century. The other prayers that make up the present Ordo commendationis animae date, more or less, from the period mentioned above and derive from various sources. All this testifies, from the most remote antiquity onward, to the Church’s concern to provide the soul with every aid for the supreme journey.