This is the first volume of Father Jungmann's classic study on the Mass of the Roman Rite, Missarum Sollemnia. Father Francis A. Brunner, C.SS.R., translated the work into English, from the 1949 second German edition. For all his modesty and humility, the author produced a historical work never matched before or since, on this specific topic. It is a masterpiece of scholarship, marked by exceedingly thorough research and reflection on the sources. The author's work was a vital foundation for the liturgical renewal of the last half of the twentieth century; it also provided a basis for the extensive reform of the Order of Mass, mandated by the Second Vatican Council, in the 1963 Constitution on the Liturgy.

This first volume reviews in part I the form of the Mass through the centuries, from the primitive Church to the Mass since Pope Pius X.

Part II of this volume treats the nature and forms of the Mass, including the names of the Mass, its meaning, and its relationship to the Church. This part also considers the development of the Solemn Mass, the Missa Cantata, and the private Mass. The author also studies forms of popular participation, the time of the celebration, and accommodations of space.

Part III of this volume considers the ceremonies of the Mass in detail, beginning with the entrance rite. The volume ends with the last elements of what today is called the Liturgy of the Word, namely, the General Intercessions and further adjuncts to the sermon.

An extensive bibliography is included at the beginning of the volume. As in customary in scholarly publications, the footnotes appear right on the bottom of the page to which they refer. This scholarly apparatus is exceptionally valuable and informative.

Publisher Comments

Father Joseph Andrew Jungmann, S.J., was a native of Austria and for many years a member of the theological faculty of the University of Innsbruck. In addition to his teaching and research, he was also editorial director of the Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie, one of the world's foremost theological journals. His 1925 classic, The Place of Christ in Liturgical Prayer, remains an important study of the role of Christ as our mediator in the Eucharist, in all the traditions of the Catholic Church, East and West; it was published in a revised edition in 1962 in German and in 1965 in English.

This book, the Mass of the Roman Rite, is the result of many years of research. The author's work came to a sudden halt in 1938, when Austria was annexed to Germany. At that time, the University of Innsbruck was taken over, and the theological faculty dissolved. Along with his confreres, Father Jungmann was forced to leave Innsbruck. He went to live in Vienna, where he began to collect the books he needed to continue his research on the Mass. In 1942, he went to the village of Hainstetten, where he lived and worked as a chaplain for a convent. He was blest with ample time alone for his work on the Mass of the Roman Rite, which was first published in 1948. In 1949, the year the second edition was published, he lectured at the University of Notre Dame; these lectures were later published in the book, The Early Liturgy, by the University of Notre Press.

He was eminently pastoral in his concerns, and our current liturgical renewal is greatly indebted to him. He was a herald of liturgical piety before the Second Vatican Council. In the early 1960s, he served as a member of the preparatory commission for the Constitution on the Liturgy, as an expert [peritus] at the Council itself, and afterwards as a member of the Consilium for the Implementation of the Constitution on the Liturgy. Towards the end of his life, he went blind. He said that while in earlier days he was involved in the via activa, now it was a question of the via contemplativa. In 1975, at the age of 87, Father Jungmann died, leaving behind a priceless legacy of wisdom, scholarship, and piety.

The second volume of this work is
ISBN #0915866455.

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