The Order of Mass, or the Ordinary of the Mass

The Order of Mass, also called the Ordinary of the Mass, is the set of texts of the Roman Rite Mass that are generally invariable. This contrasts with the proper, which are items of the Mass that change with the feast or following the Liturgical Year. The Order of Mass is printed in the Roman Missal as a distinct section placed in the middle of the book, between the Mass of the Easter Vigil and that of Easter Sunday in pre-1970 editions, and between the Proper of the Seasons and the Proper of the Saints thereafter. It includes traditional choral texts sung among the different branches, including Orthodox Christians, such as Kyrie eleison ("Lord, have mercy"), Gloria ("Glory to God in the highest"), Credo ("I believe in one God"), the Nicene Creed, Sanctus ("Holy, Holy, Holy"), and Agnus Dei ("Lamb of God"). The Kyrie eleison is traditionally sung in Greek, the others in Latin. But the use of other languages, once a rare privilege only given to the Slavs of Dalmatia (in present day Croatia) who used Old Church Slavonic written in Glagolitic characters, is now more common than the use of Latin and Greek. This edition of the Order of Mass is specially formatted with a Table of Contents.