SECRETA (Understood Prayer; Super Oblata; Sacred). - The prayer of the Mass that is recited over the offerings before the Preface, called Super oblata in books of the Gregorian type.
The title S. occurs in the ancient Gelasian (cod. Vat. Reg. lat. 316, from the middle of the 8th century), and already half a century earlier in the so-called Missal of Bobbio (Paris, Bibl. nat., lat. 13246) there is collectio secreta, perhaps a sign of Gallican provenance. Jungmann explains the name from the Gallican custom of reciting this prayer in a low voice, whereas in the primitive Roman rite and still today in the Ambrosian rite the prayer is said aloud. The difference between the ancient Roman use and the new Gallican-Frankish one is seen in the notice of the Ordo XV, 35 (Andrieu, 102): "... dicit orationem super oblationes" (or oblatas secrete; cf. Ordo V, 58), "ita ut nullus praeter Deum et ipsum audiat"; similarly in the Ordo XVII, 46 (Andrieu, 181); this was done on account of a rigorous silence imposed at this point in the Gallican liturgy, under Eastern influence. Of the custom of reciting the S. in a low voice there is a testimony from the 7th-8th century in a graffito of the cemetery of Commodilla (v.). Righetti, on the other hand, explains it by means of two concomitant liturgical actions - also in the Eastern rite - one performed by the celebrant in secret, the other by the deacon aloud (the deacon recites the names of the offerers, while the priest says, to save time, the prayer over the offerings). Other derivations, e.g., from seccenere or secretio (the faithful from the catechumens, the offerings for consecration from those for blessing alone) or from an equivalent of benedictio or of consecratio (Batifol) or from a prayer preparatory to the Preface or to the action of consecration, called S. (Brinktrine), are less plausible.
The S. entered the ordinary of the Mass together with the Collecta, Postcommunio, Super populum. At the time of the letter of Innocent I to Decentius, in 416, they were not found there. Like the Collect, it usually addresses the Father and is a formula of oblation: « Accepta sint... »; « Offerimus »...; it asks for the consecration of the offerings and implores sacramental graces; often in relation to the relevant feast. The last part of the conclusion is sung aloud.
Bibliography4 works
Pietro Siffini