O God, by whom we are redeemed and receive adoption,
look graciously upon your beloved sons and daughters,
that those who believe in Christ
may receive true freedom
and an everlasting inheritance.
This prayer did not occur in the Roman Mass before the Second Vatican Council. It has come down to us in some thirty manuscripts, which show minor differences among themselves. Those who were entrusted with the revision of the Missal chose to follow most closely a manuscript that was copied in the eighth century and used in Eastern France, perhaps in the cathedral city of Autun. The rubrics in this and many other manuscripts of this prayer specify that it is to be used in Easter Week. It clearly refers to Baptism and its effects,
The prayer follows Saint Paul (Rom 8, 15. 23; Gal 4,5; Eph 1,5) in drawing a parallel between Baptism and the Roman practice of Adoption. A slave could achieve freedom by being purchased by another man, who thus became the former slave’s legal adoptive parent. The freed man could hope to receive s legacy from his legal father after the father’s death.
The four elements of this process are mentioned in this prayer: Redemption, Adoption, Freedom and Inheritance.
We owe gratitude to the Christians of eighth-century France for giving us this luminous prayer, and to the post-conciliar revisers of the Roman Missal for bringing it into the Roman Rite.
