United in Praise and in Penance: Prayers for the Unity of Christians in the Roman Missal

The 1970 Missale Romanum provides three liturgical formularies for the unity of Christians which are an important source for understanding Catholic attitudes to ecumenism after the Second Vatican Council and for considering the role of liturgical prayer in forming ecumenical perspectives. This article analyzes the orations of these masses, showing how the texts draw on ancient patterns of prayer as well as the constitutions and decrees of Vatican II. Of the nine orations for the unity of Christians studied here, two are lightly adapted from pre-existing prayers, while the remaining seven are new compositions which draw to varying degrees on the Latin euchological tradition. The new compositions have a variety of thematic and textual sources, notably including several documents of the Second Vatican Council: the Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis redintegratio , the Constitution on the Liturgy Sacrosanctum concilium , and the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen gentium .