Saturday 9 June 2012

The Confiteor (E) Other Denominations

Armenian:
Under the influence of the Dominican missionaries, the Armenian Church adopted many liturgical practices of the Roman Church in the 13th century, among them the Confiteor. Thus, in the Holy Badarak of the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Armenian Catholic Church the Confiteor, Misereatur and Indulgentiam is found in the following form:

I confess before God and the Holy Mother of God, and before all Saints and before you, fathers and brethren, all the sins I have committed. For I have sinned in thought, word and deed, and with every sin that men commit. I have sinned, I have sinned, I pray you, entreat God for me to grant forgiveness.

May God Almighty have mercy upon thee, and grant the forgiveness of all thy transgressions, past and present; and may He deliver thee from sins to come, and may He confirm thee in every good work, and give thee rest in life to come, Amen.

May God, who loveth men, deliver you also, and may He remit all your sins. May He give you time for penitence and time to do good work. May He guide your future life, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, the mighty and merciful, and unto Him be glory forever.

Church of Sweden
In 1556, John III of Sweden issued a revised “Liturgy and Order of Ceremonies, Prayers and Readings in the celebration of the Mass” with a preface by the then Archbishop of Upsala Laurentius Petri. Though Lutheran, the order was greatly based on the Roman Catholic Mass: John III was, at the time, sympathetic to Catholicism. The Confiteor is similar to those of the time, differing only in omitting the mention of saints

Confíteor Deo omnipotént et vobis fratres quod peccáverim nimis in vita mea, cogitatióne, verbo et ópere: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa. Ideo precor vos, oráre pro me ad Dóminum Deum nostrum.

Misereatur tui omnipotens Deus, et remissis omnibus peccatis tuis, perducat te ad vitam aeternam.

Indulgentiam, absolutionem et remissionem omnium peccatorum nostrorum, tribuat nobis omnipotens et misericors Dominus.


I confess to Almighty God and to you, brethren to have sinned exceedingly in my life, thought, word, and deed, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. Therefore, I beseech you to pray for me to the Lord our God
May the Almighty God have mercy on you, and having remitted all your sins, and bring you to eternal life.

May the Almighty and merciful Lord grant us pardon, absolution and remission of our sins.

There was also provided a combined Confiteor and Misereatur for use before the Indulgentiam, if there was no one to respond to the priest.

Confíteor tibi Deo Patri omnipoténti me miserum peccatorum in peccatis conceptum et natum, nimis peccasse in vita mea, cogitatióne, verbo et ópere: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa. Ideo precor propter dilectissimum Filium tuum Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum, qui pro nobis victima factus est, miserearis mei, et remissis omnibus peccatis meis, perducas me ad vitam aeternam. Amen

I confess to you, Almighty God, I a miserable sinner, conceived and born in sin, have sinned exceedingly in my life, thought, word, and deed, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. Therefore, I beseech (you) on account of your dearly beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who for us was made Victim, have mercy on me and remit all my sins, and bring me to life eternal

Anglican:
Although the Confession of Sins in the Book of Common Prayer of 1549 (and subsequent book until 1662) does not greatly resemble the Roman Confiteor, the absolution does resemble a combination of the Sarum Misereatur and Indulgentiam

Almighty God, our heavenly father, who of his great mercy hath promised forgiveness of sins to all them, which with hearty repentance and true faith, turn unto him: have mercy upon you, pardon and deliver you from all your sins, confirm and strengthen you in all goodness, and bring you to everlasting life: through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

First published in October, 2007

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting that you are quoting the Swedish Mass of 1556 in Latin because the services hand book of 1529 of Olaus Petri (Een handbock på Swensko) and the mass book of 1531 were the first official texts of the Church of Sweden where the main change was the use of Swedish and not Latin. In fact by the time of the Swenska Kyrkeordningen of 1591 proposed to the Council of Uppsala by his brother Bishop Laurentius Petri the confession was placed before the mass service and not during. The work of these two brothers who were inspired by Luther to preserve as much medieval liturgy as possible is a very interesting fact in Swedish church life that has kept many Catholic elements including the exorcisms and external forms of worship for longer than was in the rest of Scandanavia and Germany.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for this. It's good to have an insight into the parts of the Mass. We recite the I Confess so many times but hardly ever stop to think. You've helped me with that and I'm sure that you've helped many others too.