BENEDICAMUS DOMINO. - Formula adopted at the end of Mass in place of the Ite missa est on Sundays and ferias of Lent and Advent, on vigils and on days when the Gloria is omitted, as well as at the end of the canonical hours after the Oremus.

Whereas the Ite missa est (v.), the solemn announcement of the dismissal of the people after Mass, is of Roman origin, the B. d. is probably of Gallican origin. In fact, the sources of the Roman liturgy do not know it before the year 1000. In the middle of the 12th century it appears in the Ordo eccl. Lateranensis, both in the office and in the Mass. But already during the 11th century a middle solution between the two formulas came about, and the b. d. entered only into Masses without the Gloria. Medieval liturgists soon found symbolic and mystical reasons for it as well. The Requiescant in pace of the Mass for the dead appears only in the 12th century.

Bibliography

BIBL.: J. A. Jungmann, Missarum sollemnia, II, Vienna 1948, pp. 523-29.

Silverio Mattei

@incollection{ec2_benedicamus_domino, author = {Mattei, Silverio}, title = {Benedicamus Domino}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {II}, pages = {1299}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/benedicamus-domino} }

One of some 20,000 entries brought back from the twelve printed volumes (1948–54). Spotted something? Help us improve it.

About this entry