ABSTRACT
This chapter explains all one can say with security about the Introit in the developed form of the Roman Mass is that the Mass strictly so-called. Claudel's poem on the Kyrie of the Mass, while much briefer than his Introt, is also more like the liturgical commentary this historical background would suggest. The prayer to implore divine mercy, Kyrie eleison, appears as the proper response of the people to petitions offered by the deacon at the Liturgy in the fourth-century text known as the Apostolic Constitutions. In his Gloria section, Claudel's ostensible subject a better term might be stimulus is the fine third-century hymn of that name which follows the Kyrie in the Roman rite. For Latin Christians using the Roman rite in its pre-1969 form, the Offertory was far more significant a feature of the Liturgy than is the Novus Ordos Preparation of the Gifts.
