Eucharistic Prayer III

In Brief

Eucharistic Prayer III is the new eucharistic prayer of 1968 that takes the preface of the day. Where EP II has its own preface and EP IV a fixed one, the Third Prayer opens the Missal's variable prefaces to the whole eucharistic action: the priest sings the day's preface, the people sing the Sanctus, and the prayer resumes after it with "Vere Sanctus es, Domine".¹ Promulgated with the other new prayers on 23 May 1968 and usable from 15 August 1968, it was commended for Sundays and feasts, like the Canon.²² It is substantially indebted to a draft by Cipriano Vagaggini, the liturgist whose critique of the Canon had supplied the reform's intellectual case; the entry calls it a new Consilium composition on that basis, not a reproduction.³

The Shape of the Liturgy

Part by Part

Authorship & Date

The prayer's principal author, in the drafting sense, was Cipriano Vagaggini. His draft "Canon B" survives, and a comparative study prints it in Latin alongside the promulgated EP III: the parallels run through the whole prayer, from the Vere Sanctus to the intercessions.⁴ Bugnini confirms the relationship at the level of the enterprise: Vagaggini's work on the Canon "was the basis for the new Eucharistic Prayers of the Missal".³ But a draft is not a promulgation. The Consilium's redaction reshaped Canon B into the Missal's text, and the 1968 presentation insists the new prayers "remain Roman in style".⁶ Authorship here means what it means for all three new prayers: a twentieth-century ecclesial composition, substantially Vagaggini's in its matter, the Consilium's in its final form.

Witnesses & Editions

The first witness is the decree: Notitiae 4 (1968), Prot. R. 26/967, with the norms commending EP III for Sundays and feasts.²² The 1970 typical edition gives the definitive text, Prex Eucharistica III, nn. 109–115: the rubric directing the prayer to take the preface of the day, the post-Sanctus "Vere Sanctus es, Domine, et merito te laudat omnis a te condita creatura", the epiclesis "Supplices ergo te, Domine… eodem Spiritu sanctificare digneris", the institution introduced by "Ipse enim in qua nocte tradebatur", the Memores igitur with its offering "hoc sacrificium vivum et sanctum", the post-anamnesis "Respice, quaesumus", the intercessions "Ipse nos tibi perficiat" and "Fratres nostros defunctos", the saints, and the Per ipsum introduced by "per quem mundo bona cuncta largiris".¹

The 1970 saints' list reads "cum beatissima Virgine, Dei Genetrice, Maria, cum beatis Apostolis tuis et gloriosis Martyribus et omnibus Sanctis": no St Joseph. His name entered all three new prayers by the decree of 1 May 2013.⁸ The finer source-dependence of EP III beyond the Vagaggini draft, including Jounel's reported tracings to Gallican and sacramentary texts, remains a research gap; the entry does not retail it.

Theology & Spirit

EP III is the Antiochene shape with a Roman preface. The day's thanksgiving opens the prayer, the Sanctus closes it, and from the Vere Sanctus the order runs: consecratory epiclesis, institution, anamnesis and offering, communion epiclesis, intercessions, saints, doxology.⁷ The variable preface is the theological point. Because the prayer takes the preface of the season or feast, the whole eucharistic action is coloured by the day: Christmas, Easter, the saints each lend the prayer their thanksgiving, and the unchanging Canon of the prayer that follows carries it to the altar.

The prayer's own petitions are expansive. The post-anamnesis epiclesis asks the Father to look on the Church's offering and grant that those refreshed by the Body and Blood, "filled with his Holy Spirit, may become one body and one spirit in Christ".¹ The intercessions then widen beyond the Church on pilgrimage to "all the scattered children" gathered to the Father and to "the whole world", for whose peace and salvation the Victim of reconciliation is offered. The saints' commemoration names Mary, the apostles, the martyrs and all the saints, "by whose intercession we trust to be perpetually helped". The tone is the reform's confident universalism, prayed in the Roman order.

Relations

EP III stands third among four. The Roman Canon, which "may always be used", is its fellow Sunday prayer; the 1968 norms commend both for Sundays and feasts.² EP II is its shorter companion, for weekdays and special occasions; EP IV its fellow new composition, with a fixed preface, for Masses with no proper preface. Behind EP III stands Vagaggini's draft Canon B, the prayer's principal literary source.⁴

• Roman CanoncompanionThe ancient Canon, recommended for Sundays and feasts like EP III; the Canon may always be used instead.²
• Eucharistic Prayer IIcompanionThe first new prayer of 1968, shorter, recommended for weekdays and special occasions.²
• Eucharistic Prayer IVcompanionThe third new prayer of 1968, built on an Eastern model with a fixed preface.²

Go Deeper

The prayer's interest is architectural: it solves the problem of the variable preface inside a fixed eucharistic prayer. The Missal prints no preface of its own for EP III; the prayer begins, liturgically, with whatever preface the day appoints, and its own text starts only after the Sanctus. The result is the most flexible of the four: the day's thanksgiving above, the unchanging action below, joined at the Sanctus. For the text, the 1970 Missal; for the draft behind it, the Hazell comparison; for the enterprise, Bugnini.¹⁴³

On Domus Dei

• The Roman Rite

Recommended reading

• Consilium ad exsequendam Constitutionem de sacra Liturgia, Notitiae 4 (1968), no. 40: the new Eucharistic Prayers, 1968.The decree of 23 May 1968 (p. 156); the norms on use: Sundays and feasts, with the proper preface (pp. 157–159) (pp. 156–160). Read online
• Bugnini, Annibale, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948-1975, tr. Matthew J. O'Connell, Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1990.Vagaggini's work 'was the basis for the new Eucharistic Prayers of the Missal' (p. 450 n. 4). Read online
• Hazell, Matthew, “Vagaggini's 'Canon B' and Eucharistic Prayer III: a comparative study”, Lectionary Study Aids (matthew-hazell blog), 2024.Prints Vagaggini's draft Canon B in Latin beside the promulgated EP III: the textual basis of the indebtedness.
• Missale Romanum ex decreto Sacrosancti Oecumenici Concilii Vaticani II instauratum, auctoritate Pauli PP. VI promulgatum (editio typica 1970), Vatican City: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1970.The editio typica text of the prayer (nn. 109–115). Read online

Sources

1. Primary textMissale Romanum ex decreto Sacrosancti Oecumenici Concilii Vaticani II instauratum, auctoritate Pauli PP. VI promulgatum (editio typica 1970), Vatican City: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1970, Prex Eucharistica III (nn. 109–115). LinkVerified 2026-09-15 · archive.org scan, djvu OCR with page images checked: the SCDW decree of 26 Mar 1970 as the Missal prints it, carrying 'Prot. n. 166/70' (the AAS printing at 62 (1970) 554 carries no protocol number); the Normae universales de anno liturgico et de calendario; the Ordo Missae cum populo, whose text begins at p. 385 (p. 383 is the section title page and p. 384 is blank) and ends with n. 145 at p. 476, with Eucharistic Prayer IV's 'Confitémur tibi, Pater sancte' at n. 118, p. 467; the Appendix's alternative penitential acts at pp. 487-489; the Ordo Missae sine populo, pp. 479-486, with the Confiteor at p. 479; the sprinkling rite at p. 889
2. Primary textConsilium ad exsequendam Constitutionem de sacra Liturgia, Notitiae 4 (1968), no. 40: the new Eucharistic Prayers, 1968, p. 156; pp. 157–159. LinkVerified 2026-09-15 · cultodivino.va PDF: the presentation of the prayers ('elle s'inspire de l'anaphore d'Hippolyte'), p. 153; the decree, Prot. R. 26/967, 23 May 1968, p. 156; the norms ('Canon Romanus, qui semper adhiberi potest'), pp. 157-159
3. ScholarshipBugnini, Annibale, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948-1975, tr. Matthew J. O'Connell, Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1990, p. 450 n. 4. LinkVerified 2026-09-15 · archive.org lending copy, search inside (editor): p. 450 n. 4, study group 10 (the Ordinary of the Mass) enlarged, its members including J. Gelineau; pp. 8-9, Pius XII's commission for the general reform appointed 'May 28, 1948', Micara presiding, its meetings held 'in absolute secrecy'
4. ScholarshipHazell, Matthew, “Vagaggini's 'Canon B' and Eucharistic Prayer III: a comparative study”, Lectionary Study Aids (matthew-hazell blog), 2024.Verified 2026-09-20 · Seen (FT) 2026-09-20: prints Vagaggini's draft 'Canon B' in Latin alongside the promulgated Eucharistic Prayer III with English, citing Bugnini 1990 pp. 448–465 and Vagaggini 1967 pp. 124–152; presents Canon B as a major basis of what became EP III
5. Magisterial / canonicalPaul VI, Missale Romanum: Apostolic Constitution on the New Roman Missal, 1969. LinkVerified 2026-09-14 · read on vatican.va (given at Rome, Holy Thursday, 3 April 1969): promulgation of the new Missal, effective the First Sunday of Advent (30 Nov 1969); SC as the basis of the revision. Re-read 14 Sep 2026 in English and Latin for the Eucharistic Prayer: 'The major innovation concerns the Eucharistic Prayer … we have decided to add three new Canons to this Prayer' ('tres novi Canones adderentur statuimus'; vatican.va's Latin prints the typo 'stauiimus')
6. Magisterial / canonicalConsilium ad exsequendam Constitutionem de sacra Liturgia, “Catechesis on the new Eucharistic Prayers”, Notitiae 4 (1968), 1968, pp. 148-155, p. 152; p. 153. LinkVerified 2026-09-15 · French text read: Eucharistic Prayer II 's'inspire de l'anaphore d'Hippolyte'; Prayer IV follows 'la tradition antiochienne', and the regrouped intercessions 'suit l'exemple de la tradition antiochienne' while the epiclesis stays Roman, before the institution narrative. Alexandria is named twice (p. 150, on where the epiclesis and intercessions fall); Basil is never named anywhere in the fascicle, so the Basil-Alexandria genealogy of Prayer IV is scholarly, not the Holy See's. p. 151: 'une seule anaphore ne peut contenir toute la richesse pastorale, spirituelle et théologique souhaitable', and every Church but Rome's has always had several; p. 150, the supplication that the Father make the bread and wine the Body and Blood of Christ, and p. 152, 'l'épiclèse consécratoire, c'est-à-dire … la supplication adressée au Père'; p. 153, 'Elles restent néanmoins de style romain'
7. Magisterial / canonicalCongregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, General Instruction of the Roman Missal (third typical edition; English translation), United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, §79. LinkVerified 2026-09-15 · read on usccb.org: §41 ('Gregorian chant holds pride of place because it is proper to the Roman Liturgy'); §69; §119; §§281-283; §295; §299 ('desirable wherever possible'); §357 ('three readings'); 2026-09-15: §6 ('separated by four centuries, embrace one and the same tradition'), §7 ('only very slight changes'), §157 ('With the people he adds'); 2026-09-16: §§2, 32, 43, 45, 70, 73, 82, 112–113, 160–161, 199, 252–254, 284, 320, 322, 357 and 390 read in the vatican.va English (the same translation), among them §2 ('The sacrificial nature of the Mass, solemnly asserted by the Council of Trent'), §43 ('The faithful should stand from the beginning of the Entrance chant'), §357 ('For Sundays and solemnities, three readings are assigned') and §390 ('It is up to the Conferences of Bishops to decide on the adaptations')
8. Magisterial / canonicalCongregatio de Cultu Divino et Disciplina Sacramentorum, “Decretum 'Paternas vices' (Prot. N. 215/11/L)”, Notitiae 49 (2013) 217–218, 2013. LinkVerified 2026-09-20 · Catalogued 2026-09-20 from the canon (latin-roman.md §1.1): the Latin on vatican.va; protocol number in Notitiae 49 (2013) 217; signed Card. Cañizares Llovera and Abp Roche, acting 'vigore facultatum a Summo Pontifice Francisco tributarum' — a Congregation decree by papal faculty, not a papal act. Inserts St Joseph into Eucharistic Prayers II, III and IV (EP II: 'beato Ioseph, eius Sponso'), 1 May 2013