Q: Thanks for your expertise on all things liturgical.
Can you explain the provenance of the propers for July 4th? They seem to be of a different character than what we see on most other days.
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A: Someone in the US composed those prayers for the NCCB, which the conference approved in November 1971, and which the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship also approved almost immediately. The texts were published in the BCL Newsletter in March-April, 1972, vol. 8, Nos. 3-4.
Both sets of prayers were reworked for the third edition of the missal in the US, to make them resemble other presidential prayers in the revised translation, and to correct their gender-exclusive language.
They don’t have the character of prayers we see on other days because most of those date to somewhere from the 6th to the 8th century.