To see the rites joined together as such challenges their understanding of these rites.
How the comparative method and/or other methodologies of liturgical inquiry are employed to address the problem;
Taft compares the function of the "Angel of Peace Biddings" to the "Inclination Prayer of CHR" as a prayer of conclusion sometimes added to the beginning of communion rites.
Taft has limited primary accounts of the precommunion rites and has to rely on inference from historical trends. He notes that the Inclination Prayer was added to communion rites at roughly the period when some of the faithful who felt unfit to receive the sacrament started leaving at the start of the communion period.
Taft observes that the Inclination Prayer of CHR, as a prayer of conclusion, also functions as a prayer of dismissal. He proposes that the Inclination Prayer of CHR, as a prayer of conclusion, was adapted for its dismissal functions to the standard communion...
Thus, giving the Inclination Prayer of CHR at the start of a larger litany of petition would allow some of the gather to formally exit while preserving the litany for the rest of the gathered.
Conclusion
Taft concludes that the Inclination Prayer of CHR and the Angel of Peace Biddings were added to the precommunion litany as a prayer of dismissal for the departing non-communicants, in order to give some ritual shape and liturgical control to the development of the faithful who felt unfit to receive the sacrament departing from the church during the rites.
Critical Evaluation of the Reading
Taft's conclusion, considering the available evidence, is very creative and very insightful. However, it will be difficult to determine the accuracy of his conclusions until more is uncovered about the development of precommunion rites, mainly whether they were often combined and improvised in the manner poposed by Taft.
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