' is a

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

phrase that means "my fault" or "my mistake" and is an acknowledgement of having done

wrong A wrong (from Old English – 'crooked') is an act that is illegal or immoral. Legal wrongs are usually quite clearly defined in the law of a state and/or jurisdiction. They can be divided into civil wrongs and crimes (or ''criminal offenses'') ...

. The expression is used also as an admission of having made a mistake that should have been avoided, and may be accompanied by beating the breast as in its use in a religious context. The phrase comes from a

Western Christian Western Christianity is one of two sub-divisions of Christianity (Eastern Christianity being the other). Western Christianity is composed of the Latin Church and Western Protestantism, together with their offshoots such as the Old Catholic C ...

prayer of confession of sinfulness, known as the ''

Confiteor The (; so named from its first word, Latin for 'I confess' or 'I acknowledge') is one of the prayers that can be said during the Penitential Act at the beginning of Mass of the Roman Rite in the Catholic Church. It is also said in the Lutheran ...

'', used in the

Roman Rite The Roman Rite ( la, Ritus Romanus) is the primary liturgical rite of the Latin Church, the largest of the ''sui iuris'' particular churches that comprise the Catholic Church. It developed in the Latin language in the city of Rome and, while dist ...

at the beginning of

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

or when receiving the

sacrament of Penance The Sacrament of Penance (also commonly called the Sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession) is one of the Sacraments of the Catholic Church, seven sacraments of the Catholic Church (known in Eastern Christianity as sacred mysteries), in which ...

. Grammatically, ' is in the

ablative case In grammar, the ablative case (pronounced ; sometimes abbreviated ) is a grammatical case for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives in the grammars of various languages; it is sometimes used to express motion away from something, among other uses. T ...

, with an

instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...

meaning.

Religious use

At the sight of the

crucifixion of Jesus The crucifixion and death of Jesus occurred in 1st-century Judea, most likely in AD 30 or AD 33. It is described in the four canonical gospels, referred to in the New Testament epistles, attested to by other ancient sources, and consid ...

in the

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

s, "the whole crowd who came together to that sight, seeing what had been done, beat their breasts and returned".'' In the present form of the

as used in the celebration of Mass, ''mea culpa'' is said three times, the third time with the addition of the adjective ''maxima'' ("very great", usually translated as "most grievous"), and is accompanied by the gesture of beating the breast. According to

Adrian Fortescue Adrian Henry Timothy Knottesford Fortescue (14 January 1874 – 11 February 1923) was an English Catholic priest and polymath. An influential liturgist, artist, calligrapher, composer, polyglot, amateur photographer, Byzantine scholar, and ...

, the inclusion in the ''Confiteor'' of the phrase ''mea culpa'' can be traced back only to the 16th century. However, the Latin phrase ''mea culpa'' was used, even in an English context, earlier than that.

Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He wa ...

's 14th-century ''

Troilus and Criseyde ''Troilus and Criseyde'' () is an epic poem by Geoffrey Chaucer which re-tells in Middle English the tragic story of the lovers Troilus and Criseyde set against a backdrop of war during the siege of Troy. It was written in '' rime royale'' an ...

'' uses it in a way that shows it was already a traditional religious phrase: "Now, ''mea culpa'', lord! I me repente." Although the ''Confiteor'' was not then part of the Mass, it was used in administering the sacrament of Penance. In some forms it already included the phrase ''mea culpa''. Thus the 9th-century ''Paenitentiale Vallicellanum II'' had a thrice-repeated ''mea culpa'' (without ''maxima'') in its elaborate form of the ''Confiteor''. In about 1220, the rite of public penance in

Siena Siena ( , ; lat, Sena Iulia) is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena. The city is historically linked to commercial and banking activities, having been a major banking center until the 13th and 14th centuri ...

for those who had committed murder required the penitent to throw himself on the ground three times, saying: ''Mea culpa; peccavi; Domine miserere mei'' ("Through my fault. I have sinned. Lord, have mercy on me").

References

External links

Sancta Missa – Prayers at the Foot of the Altar
, Latin and English, sanctamissa.org {{DEFAULTSORT:Mea Culpa Latin religious words and phrases

Religious use

See also

References

External links