What are the propers of the Mass?

The propers are the parts of the Mass that change with the day. The ordinary parts — Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei — stay the same week to week. The propers are the texts proper to that particular feast or Sunday: Introit, Collect, Epistle, Gradual, Alleluia (or Tract in penitential seasons), Gospel, Offertory, Secret, Communion, and Postcommunion.

Each Sunday and feast has its own set, drawn from Scripture and ancient liturgical sources. They are not pastoral selections by a committee; most have been fixed since at least the seventh century. The Introit for the First Sunday of Advent is the same Introit Pope St. Gregory the Great would have heard. The Collect for Christmas Midnight Mass is the same Collect prayed by St. Bernard of Clairvaux. To pray the propers is to pray with thirteen centuries of saints.

The propers also teach. Each set is curated to draw out the meaning of the day — a tapestry of Old and New Testament texts that interpret each other. The Gospel doesn’t arrive in isolation; the Introit prepares it, the Gradual responds to it, the Communion antiphon brings it home. The traditional propers form the soul over the course of a liturgical year in a way no preacher can replicate.

The 1969 reform replaced many of the traditional propers and introduced a three-year lectionary that expanded the readings while displacing the older texts. The TLM retained the propers as they were. They are sung or said in Latin; pew missals provide the English translation alongside.

Go deeper → Understanding the Parts of the Mass