What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 4th Sunday of Advent

Some feedback. MK of Lake View, NY writes concerning my claim in WDPTRS of 29 November last about the origin of the term “secret” which formerly identified the oratio super oblata (the so-called “prayer over the gifts”) in WDPTRS of 29 November last:

It is true that the in the traditional Mass the priest says the Secret quietly. However, the term Secret doesn’t refer to this. The word comes from the Latin secernere meaning to separate, set apart. It refers to the offerings which have been set apart for the celebration of the Mass.

I am always grateful to those who write with comments of any kind. Some folks have kindly written some excellent points and corrected my errors. This time, however, I beg to differ with MK. In Joseph A. Jungmann’s magisterial book The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development, the history and nature of the so-called “Secret” prayer is explored in depth. Jungmann writes (p. 90):

The first point to clear up is the puzzling problem of how the oratio super oblata came to be said silently. The earliest evidence of the quiet recitation of this prayer appears in the middle of the eighth century in Frankish territory, in the tradition of John the Arch-chanter. We are thus led to the opinion that the name secreta appeared in the North and that it was here created to indicate that the pertinent oration was to be spoken softly.

Jungmann here supplies an expository footnote (n. 6):

This is the explanation given by Fortescue…. Other explanations of the name are pure hypotheses. Ever since Bossuet it has come to be generally accepted – without historical evidence – that secreta = oratio ad secretionem, that is, either at the “sorting out” of the sacrificial gifts (an action which as such had no religious signification beyond this, but only a purely practical one; thus the secret is equivalently oratio super secreta [a merely conjectural form]; or else at the “sorting out”, that is, the dismissal of the catechumens (there is nothing in the contents to show any connection with this act). – Batifol…proposed a derivation of secreta from secernere in the sense of benedicere, a meaning which is nowhere to be traced.

Given Jungmann’s comments, I thank MK but I must decline to agree.

The station church in Rome for today’s Mass is the Basilica of the Twelve Apostles. During this last week, in the older, traditional Roman calendar, the Ember Days were observed on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. From the 17th onward we hear the great “O Antiphons” before the singing of the Magnificat during Vespers. Normally this week is cut short by the celebration of Christmas, for which we have been preparing during Advent.

SUPER OBLATA - PRAYER OVER THE GIFTS:

LATIN (1970 Missale Romanum):
Altari tuo, Domine, superposita munera
Spiritus ille sanctificet,
qui beatae Mariae viscera sua virtute replevit.

Whereas for the last three weeks our super oblata was virtually identical to the secret of the older, traditional, form of Mass, now we seem to have a new prayer.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O Lord, may Spirit Himself,
who by His power made full the womb of blessed Mary,
sanctify the gifts placed upon thy altar.

This presents no real grammatical mysteries. The vocabulary is straightforward. We might examine briefly two words. Your trusty Lewis & Short Dictionary says that viscera means “the inner parts of the animal body, the internal organs, the inwards, viscera (the nobler parts, the heart, lungs, liver, as well as the ignobler, the stomach, entrails.” It also means even in classical usage “the fruit of the womb, offspring, child.” I think I will “womb” rather than “innards.” Repleo is “to fill again, refill; to fill up, replenish, complete” and thus also, “to fill up, make full, to fill.” The historian Justinus (fl. c. 150) uses this verb with virginem for “to get with child” (13, 7, 7). In our prayer today, when considering replevit I think we must say “filled up” or “made full” the viscera, womb of Mary. But if possible, when we hear the prayer we should try to hold in our minds also the “made complete.” We are not only referring to Mary’s miraculous conception of the “Word made flesh” by the power of the Holy Spirit, but also the very last days of her carrying the Lord and bringing Him to light. On this Sunday we hear the prayer just a few short days before Christmas. Mary was great with child, truly repleta...filled up… made complete.

ICEL:
Lord,
may the power of the Spirit,
which sanctified Mary the mother of your Son,
make holy the gifts we place upon this altar.

ICEL sterilizes the Latin prayer when rendering it into English. The Latin is earthier, more “real” in a sense. Here we have “sanctified Mary” rather than “filled the womb” or somewhat more crudely “innards” of “blessed Mary.” Furthermore, I am not sure why we (or God) need to be told that Mary is the mother of Jesus. We ought to know that. However, given the state of catechesis…. but I digress.

At this point in the Mass we behold the presentation and disposition by the sacred ministers of the gifts of bread and wine on the altar. According to what the rubrics say in Latin (maybe we should have a series of articles called “What Do The Rubrics Really Say?”) the priest turns around from the altar to face the congregation and says (in Latin) “Pray brethren that my sacrifice and yours may be made acceptable in the sight of God, the Almighty Father.” A distinction is made between the sacrifice the priest offers and the sacrifice offered by the people present at the Mass. The Church calls all, however, to active participation in the Mass.

True active participation is to be understood first and foremost as interiorly active participation rather than the shallower understanding of the phrase as exterior or physically active participation (i.e., carrying things, singing, clapping, etc.). While it is true that interior active participation must at times find outward and physical expression, our primary understanding of active participation as Catholics is an interiorly active receptivity. During any liturgy a person can sing, jump around and carry stuff all over the church. That is nothing if there is no interior receptivity. It is possible to be doing all sorts of things and have your mind a thousand miles away. For example, we can be singing something (maybe even in church) and suddenly realize that all the while we have been thinking about what groceries we need or having forgotten to feed the dog. We are outwardly and physically getting all the words and notes right. Interiorly we are not participating in the sacred action of the liturgy.

Human beings are distinguished from brute beasts by an intellect and a free will. We can make a distinction between human actions and acts of humans. The later are things we do without thinking, such as digestion, breathing, and (to a certain extent) other automatic or habitual activities. Human actions, on the other hand, are distinguished from actions of humans by what sets us apart from critters that also do things automatically, by instinct, habit or simple bodily operation. Human actions are shaped more by knowledge and choice. The more we engage our intellect and will in doing something, the more that action is characterized as a human act rather than just the act of a human, hardly to be distinguished from something critters do.

At Mass we must be involved and actively participative as humans – knowing, willing and loving. It is far more challenging to be actively receptive by listening to the Gospel with intense attention than by reading it (aloud or silently via the missalette). If you query many people after Mass about what the Gospel or sermon was about, not very many will be able to tell you with certainty. We need to learn engage our full attention and really participate. It is harder to fix attention, listen, and actively participate in prayer sung by a good choir than it is to sing the hymn with the congregation. Of course there are moments when we are called to both interior and exterior active participation. The congregation has specific responses to make. They should be made with intense focus. That does not mean intense volume, necessarily. It also does not mean the sort of embarrassed mumbling we hear in most parish churches when only a few bother to open their mouths and do something other than stare at the priest like deer looking at the headlights of an oncoming semi. Responses need not be loud but they must be made with at least some desire, intensity and confidence. The “silent spectator” brought on the abuse of the concept of active participation in the first place.

During most of the Mass the faithful are called and challenged to participate actively through willed and active receptivity. We receive the Gospel proclaimed rather than reading it aloud ourselves. We receive forgiveness for venial sins in the penitential rite. We receive Holy Communion and should new take it ourselves. At this point in the Mass, the offertory, we participate actively by giving, by uniting our sacrifices to those of the priest at the altar, alter Christus. We pour forth our sacrifices so that we, like our model Mary, can be “refilled, made complete” by what they are transformed into…the Body and Blood of the living and true God.

I wish you and yours a Blessed and Merry Christmas.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? Holy Family – Sunday in the Octave of Christmas

Originally our Feast today was celebrated on the first Sunday after Epiphany but after the post-Conciliar reform of the calendar it was moved forward, probably so that it could be situated nearer to the feasts of the Nativity and of Mary, Mother of God. This day’s prayer is also said on the Sunday during the Octave of Christmas. Since the implementation of the so-called Novus Ordo, we now have only two octaves: Christmas and Easter. An “octave” is a period of eight days following a feast day, including the feast itself, as well as the eighth day after a feast. Liturgically speaking, time is suspended during an octave and the feast continues uninterrupted. This imitates the creation and (one day) the final summation of the universe. God created the world in six days and on the seventh He rested. The eighth day is then a day beyond the cycle of seven. It is beyond time. It is a glimpse of the perfect eternal sabbath day of heaven. The great feasts we observe in the Church’s year of grace are far too deep to be fathomed completely, yet alone even shallowly if we allot them one day alone. The celebration of an octave allows us to consider a great feast different angles by means of our sacred liturgy. Today we focus on the Holy Family within the context of the feast of Christmas, the our God in His divinity came to light as our brother in our humanity. He came to save us from our sins and reveal us more fully to ourselves (cf. Gaudium et spes 22). When He came in His first coming, He came to be a part of a human family. In the infant Christ, with Mary and Joseph humbly and protectively bent over Him, we see who we really are more fully than ever we could before His birth. The presence of Christ in the midst of His Holy Family is an icon of how He should be present in the midst of every family. That is how important a family is. That is also why the powers of hell will attack the very concept of the family at its roots. Christ must be extracted from the family and its members cut off from Him for hell to work its gruesome purpose in society. When we see the fruits of hell in society, we can surmise that the family is on its heals. Today’s prayer, in the context of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that puts Satan and the fallen hordes to flight, grounds the family in Christ’s self-oblation on the Cross.

SUPER OBLATA:

LATIN (1970 Missale Romanum):
Hostiam tibi placationis offerimus, Domine,
suppliciter deprecantes,
ut, Deiparae virginis beatique Ioseph interveniente suffragio,
familias nostras in tua gratia firmiter et pace constituas.

This super oblata is essentially the same as the secret of the Mass of the Holy Family found in the older form of the Missale Romanum still happily in use in some places where the local bishops have opened their hearts to those who have the legitimate aspiration to make good spiritual use of it. Notice that the word order has been changed a bit since 1962: Placationis hostiam offerimus tibi, Dominie, suppliciter deprecantes: ut, per intercessionem Deiparae Virginis cum beato Ioseph, familias nostras in pace et gratia tua firmiter constituas. The variations are slight: interveniens suffragium in place of intercessio, Joseph in the genitive case along with Mary rather than with the cum of accompaniment in the previous form. One might at this point ask, “Why change it around like that?” Two reason comes to mind. First and foremost, the newer version has more of a “classical” ring to it. It is a bit more “elegant” and less “linear.” Also, bringing St. Joseph into the same case as Mary (genitive) may suggest a greater role for the earthly father of Jesus. This is not to say that in the older form of the prayer he was an after thought. As WDTPRS has mentioned before, the way the words fit together in Latin in a large part depends on their endings. The word order is not always critical. This allows great flexibility in the way the words are arranged and therefore the rhythms and sounds of sentences and paragraphs. This can subtly affect the emphasis that one concept might receive also.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
We offer Thee this sacrifice of appeasement, O Lord,
humbly bent down in earnest prayer,
so that, by the intervening recommendation of the virgin Mother of God and of blessed Joseph,
you may establish our families powerfully in grace and peace.

The fine Lewis & Short Dictionary lets us know that placatio means “a pacifying, appeasing, propitiating” especially of the immortal gods. In our prayer today we might choose a word like “atonement” or even “reconciliation.” I think I will use “appeasement.” I take a cue from the description of way the priest is praying on behalf of the people – suppliciter the adverb of supplex from a conflation of sup- or sup-plico (plico = to fold), and is thus “bending the knees, kneeling down.” Hence, it means “humbly begging or entreating, beseeching.” It is very submissive. Deprecor is another clue. It is not just “to pray”, but “to pray earnestly.” Interventio replaced the older intercessio. They mean pretty much the same thing, interventio being post-classical and intercessio having a legal/political overtone. They both have the dimension of coming between two parties in an act of giving security or surety for one of them. The marvelous word suffragium we worked with on the 2nd Sunday of Advent’s WDPTRS. Firmiter is the adverb of firmus and can be “firmly, steadily, lastingly, powerfully.” Because of the beseeching tone of the prayer and the concept of intervention, I will use the word “powerfully.” When you, gentle reader, go through this vocabulary you might try substituting some of the alternative meanings to see how that will affect the prayer. You will see why translating the liturgy is not an easy task and why we must pray for all involved.

ICEL:
Lord, accept this sacrifice
and through the prayers of Mary, the virgin Mother of God,
and of her husband, Joseph,
unite our families in peace and love.

I suspect that the differences in the tone of the ICEL version and the Latin original are clear enough that they need not be spelled out.

We hear this prayer spoken by the priest, the our mediator with God and alter Christus, at the time when our offerings (spiritual and material) have been placed on the altar in anticipation of the divine act of transubstantiation during the consecration. All that we are and our hopes and desires should be united with the frail hosts and still wine. What we receive in return, particularly through our good Holy Communions, allows us to fulfil our vocations in the world and transform it around us. Thus it is fitting that we should use the language and even the physical posture of bowing down, folding ourselves face down before God and begging Him to form and shape our families. As the family in general goes, so goes society. But what do we find across this threshold of the 21st century? Legal abortion, growing legalization of euthanasia, same-sex marriages, high divorce rates, young women disposing of newborn infants in garbage cans, scientific experimentation on living human beings, the dreadful prospect of cloning. The concept of the family is breaking to pieces. It is good to pray that God might be appeased.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2203 In creating man and woman, god instituted the human family and endowed it with its fundamental constitution. Its members are personas equal in dignity. For the common good of its members and of society, the family necessarily has manifold responsibilities, rights, and duties. ...

2207 The family is the original cell of social life. It is the natural society in which husband and wife are called to give themselves in love and in the gift of life. Authority, stability, and a life of relationships within the family constitute the foundations for freedom, security, and fraternity within society. The family is the community in which, from childhood, one can learn moral values, begin to honor God, and make good use of freedom. Family life is an initiation into life in society.

2208 The family should live in such a way that its members learn to care and take responsibility for the young, the old, the sick, the handicapped, and the poor. There are many families who are at times incapable of providing this help. It devolves then on other persons, other families, and, in a subsidiary way, society to provide for their needs: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” ....

2210 The importance of the family for the life and well being of society entails a particular responsibility for society to support and strengthen marriage and the family. Civil authority should consider it a grave duty “to acknowledge the true nature of marriage and the family, to protect and foster them, to safeguard public morality, and promote domestic prosperity.” ....

2212 The fourth commandment illuminates other relationships in society. In our brothers and sisters we see the children of our parents; in our cousins, the descendants of our ancestors; in our fellow citizens, the children of our country; in the baptized, the children of our mother the Church; in every human person, a son or daughter of the One who wants to be called “our Father.” In this way our relationships with our neighbors are recognized as personal in character. The neighbor is not a “unit” in the human collective; he is “someone” who by his known origins deserves particular attention and respect.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? Epiphany

The cycle of Christmas was traditionally a magnificent drama in three acts. These different stages of the cycle reveal different aspects of the Incarnation of the Word. During Advent we are taught by Holy Mother Church about the prophecies of the one who was to come. During Christmastide, we see the Word made flesh finally come to light in His birth at Bethlehem. During the time following Epiphany, which before the post-Conciliar changes to the Church’s calendar was its own liturgical season, we were given affirmations of the divinity of Christ. We would move from prophecies and stars and magi to the person of the Lord Himself, revealing who He was in all that He said and did. The Gospels for the Sundays after Epiphany always recounted the miracles that the Lord worked. At Cana, for example, Jesus worked His first public miracle by changing water into wine as those using the older Roman Missal hear in the Gospel for the Second Sunday after Epiphany. The Gospel uses the word ephanerosen “manifest” to describe this in John 2:11. The antiphon for second vespers, as a matter of fact, recalled three manifestations of Christ’s divinity as occurring on this day: “Tribus miraculis ornatum diem sanctum colimus: hodie stella magos duxit ad praesepium; hodie vinum ex aqua factum est ad nuptias; hodie in Iordane a Ioanne Christus baptizari voluit, ut salvaret nos, alleluia....We solemnly observe this day ornamented with three miracles: today the star led the magi to the manger; today wine was changed to water at the wedding; today Christ desired to be baptized by John in the river Jordan so that He might save us, alleluia.” This is why the Baptism of the Lord is celebrated in such close proximity to Epiphany.

Epiphany, with its attendant octave, was once very important in the Church’s liturgical calendar. On the Sunday during the octave the Feast of the Holy Family was celebrated. In many places Epiphany was a Holy Day of Obligation. There was a season of Epiphany, following the Christmas Season, and the Sundays with their green vestments were reckoned “after Epiphany.” Epiphany technically falls on the twelfth day after Christmas and thus it is called also “Twelfth Night.” It can now be transferred in most places to a Sunday. As a result, the ancient and mysterious Epiphany feast is receives more attention than it did during the time when it was observed more strictly on the sixth day of January. The octave is no longer observed now since the reform of the calendar. It departed by another road. In some ways the importance of the feast is greatly reduced as a result, in my opinion.

This feast was extremely important in the ancient Church, far more so than the relative late-comer Christmas. The word “Epiphany” comes from the Greek for “manifestation.” Traditionally the Church marked by this day the different times when the divinity of Christ was revealed. Also, if at Christmas Christ was revealed to the Jews especially in the persons of the shepherds who received the angels message, at Epiphany He is revealed to the Gentiles who are personified by the magi. One recalls Isaiah 60: 1-6 which gave a prophecy that the kings of the earth would adore God and all the nations would serve Him. “O Jerusalem…the strength of the Gentiles shall come to Thee. The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Madian and Epha: all they from Saba shall come, bringing gold and frankincense and showing forth praise to the Lord.”

Many customs are associated with this solemn feast. In the Greek Church there was a special blessing of holy water which involved a procession to a lake or stream. In the older form of the Roman Ritual there is a blessing for gold, frankincense and myrrh. If you happen to have some myrrh around the house, you could take them to the parish and ask your priest to bless it. There is also a special blessing for chalk to be used on Epiphany. Homes were blessed and the lintels of the doors were inscribed with the year and initial letters of the traditional names of the three magi in the format: 20 + C + M + B + 02 In many places gifts are exchanged on Epiphany rahter than Christmas. Among the different foods for this holy day is the well-known King Cake and Lamb’s Wool from roasted apples and cider. The magi themselves are rather obscure figures. We are accustomed now to think of them as three in number bearing the names Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. Custom even has the relics of the Three Kings situated in the cathedral of Cologne which might raise the questioning eyebrow even of the most pious. There is a magnificent shrine to them in that cathedral, repleat with inlaid silver and champleve enamel panels by Nicholas of Verdun (1190-1205) In the ancient Church there was no agreement on the number of the magi and some sources posit there were as many as twenty-four.

Now for our…

SUPER OBLATA:

LATIN (1970 Missale Romanum):
Ecclesiae tuae, quaesumus, Domine, dona propitius intuere,
quibus non iam aurum, thus et myrrha profertur,
sed quod eisdem muneribus declaratur, immolatur et sumitur,
Iesus Christus.

This prayer happily remained the same as the secret for Epiphany as found in the 1962 editio typica of the Roman Missal. Notice all the passive forms (-tur). They provide an excellent internal cohesion as well as an effective climax at the end when we hear the Holy Name.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Graciously gaze down, we beseech Thee, O Lord, upon the gifts of Thy Church,
in which gold, frankincense, and myrrh are no longer laid before Thee,
but rather that which is revealed, sacrificed and received by means of those same gifts,
Jesus Christ.

You will right away notice that we have two different Latin words for “gift” herein: donum and munus. The fine Lewis & Short Dictionary lets us know that donum is associated in classical Latin literature with gifts of incense in a passage from the Aeneid of Virgil: dona turea (6, 225). The verb sumo is basically “to take, take up, lay hold of, assume.” In some contexts it can be “consume” and a raft of other meanings as well. Intueor is a deponent verb, meaning “to look upon” as well as “to give attention to.” Given the humble tone of the prayer and the gestures of offering gifts upward to God, I choose to render intueor here as “gaze down upon.” The essential meaning of declaro is “to make clear, plain, evident (by disclosing, uncovering), to show, manifest, declare.” I think “reveal” is appropriate.

ICEL:
Lord,
accept the offerings of your Church,
not gold, frankincense and myrrh,
but the sacrifice and food they symbolize:
Jesus Christ, who is Lord for ever and ever.

In our prayer today we find the deepest meaning of the gifts we offer at the Lord’s altar, which is Calvary in our midst. The tokens brought by the magi, representing all the hopes of the nations of the earth, were merely types, foreshadowing the one who was to offer Himself on the Cross. What we give is far more precious than gold, frankincense and myrrh. Yet those symbols still can give us an orientation when we see the priest, alter Christus, raising our offerings to God in preparation for their consecration and transubstantiation. Gold, may symbolize for us at this Mass of the Epiphany the kingship of God, which must be mirrored in the purity our hearts, so precious to Christ, where He and He alone must have His throne as King. Frankincense, symbolizes His divinity. Only God should receive sacrifices of the sweet-smelling and precious burnt offering, reminds us of the utter immolation He submitted Himself to on our behalf. Its destruction produces smoke, which rises like our prayers upward to God. Myrrh, the balm used to prepare the bodies of the dead for the tomb, reminds us of Christ’s perfect humanity which endured suffering and the grave for our salvation. The offertory time of the Mass, with its super oblata, helps the attentive Christian dispose himself properly for the sacred action to follow. The offerings on the altar become Christ, truly present. But they are also ourselves. We are to identify ourselves with Christ’s sacrifice. What we give him should be at least as valuable as the gold, frankincense and myrrh spoken of in the prayer.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 4th Sunday of Advent – Station: Twelve Apostles

Once in a while I get some feedback that makes my day, nay rather, my year. EM writes via e-mail: “I want to thank you for your weekly column in The Wanderer. I’ve read it faithfully for these two years and you are one of the reasons I keep renewing my subscription (it tends to be a bit depressing). You are also one of the reasons I finally decided to fish or cut bait and leave almost 20 years of evangelicalism for the Catholic Church. Thank you!! Not only that, but you directly inspired me to begin teaching our 6th grader Latin (so I could learn it too) and to LISTEN during the Mass prayers. No one has brought this up yet, but the way the priest says the prayers (emphasis) makes a big difference. We are mightily blessed with a wonderful priest who really does his best to make sometimes banal prayers meaningful simply by emphasizing words (like “sacrifice”, etc.). Yet he is very “by the book”. He tells people who want more innovation, the Lord wants a priest after HIS own heart, not the priest’s own heart (or anyone elses)…. Keep up the good work!” This, dear readers, is precisely why these weekly columns are being offered. Thank The Wanderer too for printing them. And share the wealth. Maybe others you know are just waiting to find what you are already enjoying.

As a follow up to last week’s rant on blue vestments, JC in Singapore via the internet Forum I moderate asked the question, “Just exactly what is the colour blue supposed to symbolize?” One wag, BC in the USA suggested, “Disobedience?” Enough said.

Some news about liturgical matters. The ubiquitous correspondent of the less than conservative National Catholic Reporter, Mr. John L. Allen, Jr., opines (6 December 2002 – The Word From Rome) about the new Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship: “In the liturgical world, people have been trying to discern the impact of the Oct. 2 appointment of Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze…. The last man to hold that job, Chilean Cardinal Jorge Medina Estévez, strongly asserted the “uniformity of the Roman Rite” over flexibility for local adaptations and flavorings. Would Arinze, observers have been wanting to know, bring change? The short answer, reflected in a late October letter from Arinze regarding the statutes for the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), appears to be “no.”” His Eminence Cardinal Arinze has lately strongly asserted the necessity that the norms governing ICEL actually reflect what Liturgiam authenticam really says and what the Holy See has been indicating for some time. Among the things that Card. Arinze insists on is that ICEL recognize that Rome has the ability to veto and approve ICEL personnel, that ICEL staff have term limits, and that the Holy See erects ICEL, not the conferences of bishops. Mr. Allen goes on to say, “I spoke to several people on both sides of the ICEL debate. Both concur that the fight is largely over…. Among liturgical progressives, the analysis seems to be that continuing to fight the battle at the level of structures is pointless. Instead, the goals in coming months will be to protect existing practice as best they can, so that individual dioceses or parishes can preserve models of a renewed liturgy, and to keep doing the scholarly reflection that will build the record for a time when the debate can be reopened.” (emphasis added by me). In other words, the “progressives” probably will keep violating the rubrics in a holding action until they can find another place to breakout through the recent envelopment of the laws and get them changed through disobedience. Also, I take it from the phrase “the coming months” is that they are waiting for a new (hopefully progressive) Pope who might roll back the repressive norms imposed by the rigid conservative retrogrades. As the Poles say, stolat… may he live, God willing, one hundred years!

Speaking of ICEL, JS of WI brought to my attention an article in the publication Catholic Family News (December, vol. 9, no. 12 – where else but here can you find quotes from both the NCR and CFN?) by Fr. Stephen Somerville, a priest of the Archdiocese of Toronto, who was once a member of the Advisory Board of ICEL from 1964. He regrets his involvement with ICEL and the damage the committee did over time. “There are certainly THOUSANDS OF MISTRANSLATIONS in the accumulated work of I.C.E.L. As the work progressed I became more and more an articulate critic. My term of office on the Advisory Board ended voluntarily in 1973, and I was named Member Emeritus and Consultant. As of this writing I renounce any lingering reality of this status. … I renounce my I.C.E.L. …for the corrosion of Catholic faith and reverence to which I.C.E.L.’s work has contributed. And for this corrosion, however slight my personal part in it, I humbly and sincerely apologize to God and to Holy Church.” I am sure that he, like we, are optimistic about the appointments of Card. Arinze at the CDW and of Fr. Harbert at ICEL. We have some good things to look forward to. Clearly there is going to be a real war along the way, however. So, ready yourselves.

POST COMMUNIONEM
LATIN (2002 Missale Romanum):
Sumpto pignore redemptionis aeternae,
quaesumus, omnipotens Deus,
ut quanto magis dies salutiferae festivitatis accedit,
tanto devotius proficiamus
ad Filii tui digne nativitatis mysterium celebrandum.

As you might have guessed, this rather chatty Post communionem is of more recent composition. It has ancient precedent in old collections such as the Gelasian Sacramentary, but it appears for the first time in the 1970 Missale Romanum and its subsequent editions. We have a nice paring of festivitatis and nativitatis. The quanto magis… tanto devotius is a standard construction which rings well. We have verbs of contrasting but related basic meanings: accedo and proficio. We even have an ad… nd construction. We lack the kitchen sink here, but that is about all. This prayer smacks of being very consciously worked over as a set piece. It is trying to be elegant.

What can the unparalleled Lewis & Short Dictionary tell us about the vocabulary of this prayer? Leading off is an ablative absolute construction including the noun pignus, “a pledge, gage, pawn, security, mortgage (of persons as well as things).” The root of this word is pac-, as in the verb pango, panxi, panctum, and pegi or pepigi, pactum “to fasten, make fast, fix; to drive in, sink in” and thus “to fix, settle, determine, agree upon, agree, covenant, conclude, stipulate, contract” and also paciscor, pactus,”make a bargain, contract, or agreement with any one; to covenant, agree, stipulate, bargain, contract respecting any thing” whence comes the English word “pact”. Under pignus in the L&S we find reference to such things as “tokens” or “rings” given as a sign of a pledge or commitment. The adjective salutifer is from salus + fero (“salvation/heath + to bring”). Also, please take note of that quanto…tanto construction. This is the ablative. Thus, it means something like… “by however so much… by that same measure.” In this case we have comparative adverbs magis… devotius. Accedo is “to go or come to or near, to approach”. Proficio is, of course, “to go forward, advance, gain ground, make progress.”

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Now that the pledge of eternal redemption has been consumed,
we beg, almighty God,
that by however so much more the day of the saving festivity is approaching,
by that same degree we may more devoutly make progress
toward celebrating worthily the mystery of the nativity of your Son.

Yes, I know this is awkward. But I am not trying to produce smooth translations for use in church here (though we could, and have for a long time, done worse, methinks). We could be tempted to smooth that quanto magis…tanto devotius into “the nearer the saving feast day approaches, the more devoutly we may make progress….” I want to resist the temptation to do that for the reason that there is a proportional relationship indicated in the Latin which gets lost in that simpler but smoother phrase. Think about this. We are asking to make progress in an increasing degree each day as Christmas draws closer. If today we are making progress by a factor of 1, then tomorrow, which is closer to Christmas, we want to make progress by an additional fact of 2 on top of the 1, then an additional factor of 3 over the 1+2, and then 4 above the 1+2+3 and so on. Think of this acceleration in terms of compounded interest. Built into the language of the prayer is a powerful concept of acceleration.

You will recall that in the other prayers of Advent Masses we had language and imagery of rushing and eager hurrying toward the Lord who Himself is coming. In our prayer today we spy a pair of verbs that show this acceleration in both directions accedo (“approach”) and proficio (“make progress towards”). Imagine two trains heading toward each other. They are each moving at 30 km/hour and are closing the gap between them at a relative speed of 60 km/hr. In our Post communionem we are rushing faster and faster toward each other: the vast mass of the People of God, the whole Church, yearning and eager for the Lord, and the Lord Himself, eager and yearning for His People. Unlike the aforementioned trains, whose speed does not vary, we want to go faster and faster with every passing moment. We want to make ever and ever more progress in the right direction, toward being devout (in the sense of devotio – the virtue whereby we live our vocations with single-hearted focus). We are begging God the Father to make us able to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of Christ ever more “worthily”, which means increasing in grace as we deepen our commitment to live as we ought.

For the sake of our salvation, made possible by the First Coming, we have a vested interest in growing each and every day in grace. We might even say we have a “compounded” interest. And Advent is about more than just the First Coming. It is also about the Second Coming of Christ as Judge. It is no less about how He comes in other ways, including in the person of your neighbor, in the Words of Scripture, and especially in every Holy Communion at Mass. This prayer is said directly after the Lord has come in Communion.

The First Coming, Christmas, and the Second Coming, are both fast approaching. There is a Latin adage of unknown provenance which means that things go faster the closer they get to the end: in finem citius. Are you ready?

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord,
in this sacrament
we receive the promise of salvation;
as Christmas draws near
make us grow in faith and love
to celebrate the coming of Christ our Savior.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? Christmas Day – Roman Station: 1st and 3rd Masses – Basilica of St. Mary Major, 2nd Mass – St. Anastasia

We have a new Secretary for the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments: Sri Lanka born Archbishop Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don. His Excellency is a scholar of Sacred Scripture, and was well known to Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. As Nuncio in Indonesia he had to defend the Church and her message in the very difficult religious landscape of Asia where even some Catholic theologians indulge in syncretism. Some think this appointment will help the return of the Society of St. Pius X to fuller communion with Rome. Archbishop Ranjith (say: RAN-jit) is admired by many traditionalists. In April 2004 he authored one of the first commentaries published in L’Osservatore Romano on the CDWDS Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum. He said that in some cases the Conciliar reforms didn’t produce the hoped for results and he denounced the many irregularities in celebration of Mass. NB: His Holiness chose another English speaker for a key position.

The Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord, Christmas, has a Vigil and Masses on the day itself: in nocte or"during night" (the legendary"Midnight Mass"), in aurora or"during daybreak, and in die or"during daylight. WDTPRS examined already the Christmas Day prayers for the"Midnight Mass but never have we looked at Mass"during the day. Ad ramos!

COLLECT"in die" (2002MR)
Deus, qui humanae substantiae dignitatem
et mirabiliter condidisti, et mirabilius reformasti,
da, quaesumus, nobis eius divinitatis esse consortes,
qui humanitatis nostrae fieri dignatus est particeps.

Our prayer was in the Veronese and Gelasian, ancient sacramentaries both, and the pre-Conciliar Missale Romanum. That source of precious Latin knowledge, the Lewis & Short Dictionary, reveals that reformo is"to shape again, remould, transform, metamorphose, change. The theological baggage borne by substantia is complex far beyond the scope of this column, but the helpful dictionary of liturgical Latin by Blaise cuts to the chase with"nature, which works for me. The adjective consors , sortis, is"sharing property with one (as brother, sister, relative), living in community of goods, partaking of in common, or a noun meaning"a sharer, partner. The Latin word is formed from con and sors ("fate). When you are a consors you have a common fate or destiny. The word dignitas,"dignity, adds to the prayer a strong moral content.

LITERAL TRANSLATION
O God, who in a wondrous way created the dignity of human nature,
and yet more wondrously shaped it anew,
grant us, we beg, to be partakers of the Godhead of Him
who deigned to become a participant of our humanity.

St. Pope Leo I"the Great (+441) said in his Christmas sermon of 440:

   "O Christian, recognize your dignity (dignitatem), and made a partaker (consors) of the divine nature, do not dare by degenerate conduct to return to former baseness. Remember of whose Head and whose body you are a member. Call to mind that you were snatched from the power of the shadows and borne over into the light and kingdom of God. By means of the sacrament of baptism you were made a temple of the Holy Spirit: do not by evil actions drive away from you such a great indweller and to subject yourself once again to the devil’s thralldom: for the blood of Christ is your ransom because he will judge you in truth who has redeemed you in mercy, Christ our Lord."(s. 1 in Nativitate, 3 my trans.).

We were made for God and for His glory. In creating us God intended to share with us something of His transforming glory. Our Collect makes a reference to the"divinization of man by God. There is a twofold way we can see this. First, from the point of view of Christ, is the mystery of the Second Person’s self-emptying: He stooped infinitely below Himself to take up flesh and human soul and become a man, like us in all ways but sin. Next, from our point of view, our human nature created in God’s image, which had a dignity we wounded, is now by the indestructible bond with Christ’s divinity, by the"wondrous exchange, elevated to an even greater dignity. In Christ our humanity has been taken up already to the right hand of the Father. The Eucharist is our"pledge of future glory.

The mystery of the Incarnation which we celebrate at Christmas points to the kenosis or self-emptying of the Second Person. We embrace now the humble servitude of Jesus, and look to the magnificent destiny that awaits us won by the wood of Crib and Cross. In every Mass this mystery of the Incarnation must be held closely to our hearts and minds. The Christmas Collect was adapted for the preparation of the chalice by the priest during every Mass. Before the priest raises the chalice upwards in offering, he mingles with the wine a very small quantity of water, just drops. The mingling of water and wine underscores three things. First, it reveals how the Divine Son humbly accepted human nature. Second, it shows how we will be transformed by Him in the life to come. Indeed, we who are baptized into Christ and who receive the Eucharist are alreadybeing transformed, like drops of water in His wine. In the mingling of the water and wine, the water loses itself, becoming what the wine is (though in God’s transforming embrace we do not"lose” ourselves, but rather find ourselves more perfectly!)."O admirabile commercium! O marvelous exchange!, as the Church sings at Vespers and Lauds on Christmas Octave. As Fathers of the Church expressed it the Son of God became the Son of Man so that we might become the sons of God. This"holy exchange is the heart of Holy Mass. Bread and wine are given to us by God and we, in turn, collect them, work them, give them back to God who transforms them through the power of the Holy Spirit into the Real Presence of Christ (Body, Blood, soul and divinity). In turn the species of the Eucharist transform us, making us also into acceptable offerings to God. In this marvelous exchange earthly and temporal things mysteriously, sacramentally, become vehicles of the eternal. Third, the mixing of those few (human) drops into the (divine) wine in the chalice (an image of sacrifice and oblation) reveals how lay people must unite their prayers and sacrifices to what the priest offers at the altar:"Pray brethren that my sacrifice and yours be acceptable to God the almighty Father. There is a distinction made regarding the way in which the priest and the people offer their sacrifices. The people offer good and acceptable sacrifice to God from their"baptismal priesthood, as members of Christ, who is High Priest. But the priest makes a very different kind of sacrifice, as alter Christus… another Christ. So, the people at Mass must unite their good offerings to those of the priest. The mingling of the water and wine is a good moment to make a conscious effort to do precisely that.

We all have difficulties and sufferings. Like you I have burdens, for myself and for others. If Christ can transform our human nature through a touch of His divinity, He can transform our sorrows and cares. In the confessional I often suggest to people that when the chalice is being prepared, they should pour their troubles into that chalice with the little bit of water which will be taken in by the wine and then be transformed with the wine in the consecration. Give it all back to God through the Sacrifice of the Cross, through Holy Mass.

The core of today’s Collect prayer leads us seamlessly into the

SUPER OBLATA"in die- (2002MR)
Oblatio tibi sit, Domine, hodiernae sollemnitatis accepta,
qua et nostrae reconciliationis processit perfecta placatio,
et divini cultus nobis est indita plenitudo.

Remember that in these "Prayers over the gifts of bread and wine God will transubstantiate through the priest are couched in the language of propitiation: we must placate the God against whom we have so grievously sinned in both the Original Sin of our first parents and in our own actual sins.

That qua is really an adverb meaning, "on which side, at or in which place, in what direction, where, by what way. Both Blaise and Souter are without comment about indo but dependable L&S says it is, "to put, set, or place into or upon and also"to impart or give to, apply to, impose on, attach to. Cultus(from colo) refers to the worship and honor due to divinity. My sense of perfecta, from perficio, is "having been brought to completion, rather than simply "perfect. This super elegant prayer, filled with rhetorical flourishes, was in both the Veronese and Gelasian Sacramentary among the Christmas texts, but absent from the Missale Romanum until the Novus Ordo.

LITERAL TRANSLATION
O Lord, let the sacrificial offering of today’s solemnity be acceptable to You,
from whence issued forth the completed appeasing of our reconciliation,
and also was imparted to us the fullness of divine worship.

This prayer is quoted in the Council’s document Sacrosanctum Concilium 5, in the section examining "The Nature of the Sacred Liturgy and Its Importance in the Church’s Life. Read this aloud and hear how Christmassy it is:

   "5. God who wills that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth’ (1 Tim. 2:4), who in many and various ways spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets’ (Heb. 1:1), when the fullness of time had come sent His Son, the Word made flesh, anointed by the Holy Spirit, to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the contrite of heart, to be a bodily and spiritual medicine’, the Mediator between God and man. For His humanity, united with the person of the Word, was the instrument of our salvation. Therefore in Christ the perfect achievement of our reconciliation came forth, and the fullness of divine worship was given to us’.

Our "Prayer after Communion, from the Gelasian and Veronese, was in the pre-Conciliar Missale Romanum. As is the case of the Collect and Super oblata, there is a deep stylistic elegance which delights the ear.

POST COMMUNION" in die – (2002MR)
Praesta, misericors Deus, ut natus hodie Salvator mundi,
sicut divinae nobis generationis est auctor,
ita et immortalitatis sit ipse largitor.

The first prayer of the Mass set the stage for our active participation in Communion. Though expressed in exalted language, it conveyed an attitude of humility before the creation of man in God’s image, the Eternal Word’s self-emptying in the Incarnation, and the possibility of our transformation both in the Eucharist to be received in the course of the sacred mysteries this day and in the happiness of heaven to come. In the second prayer, before the Eucharistic Prayer and consecration, we recognized how we sinners have need to appease God and how the God made Man, Jesus Christ was the source both of reconciliation and also of the very Mass we are participating in, the perfect form of worship renewing our completed reconciliation. In this final prayer we put book ends around our grasp of today’s meaning. We were able to partake of Communion and actively participate in Mass first and foremost because of our divine regeneration in baptism, deepened in a good reception of the Blessed Sacrament in Mass. At the same time, we see how our rebirth in the life of the Trinity in baptism aims ultimately at eternal life and our ongoing transformation in heaven. The "just so too" structure of the prayer shows us how the "Savior of the world born today is the fulcrum both of all the ages of the world, born as He was in the"fullness of time, but also of our own lives as individuals. All of the prayers today are connected by the theme of the transformation of man’s human nature from his sinful state to a state of glory in the transforming assumption of our human nature by Second Person of the Trinity who, once born, is Jesus Christ" our brother in our humanity while remaining our God in His divinity.

LITERAL TRANSLATION
Grant, O merciful God, that just as the Savior of the world born today
is for us the author of divine generation,
so too may He be the bestower of immortality.

With Leo the Great, I extend to you and yours for a Merry and Holy Christmas: "Peace was the first thing proclaimed by the angelic choir and the Lord’s Nativity. It is peace which gives birth to children of God. Peace nurses love, engenders unity, gives repose to the blessed, and provides a home to eternity. (s. 26.3)

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 4th Sunday of Advent

Some feedback. MK of Lake View, NY writes concerning my claim in WDPTRS of 29 November last about the origin of the term “secret” which formerly identified the oratio super oblata (the so-called “prayer over the gifts”) in WDPTRS of 29 November last:

It is true that the in the traditional Mass the priest says the Secret quietly. However, the term Secret doesn’t refer to this. The word comes from the Latin secernere meaning to separate, set apart. It refers to the offerings which have been set apart for the celebration of the Mass.

I am always grateful to those who write with comments of any kind. Some folks have kindly written some excellent points and corrected my errors. This time, however, I beg to differ with MK. In Joseph A. Jungmann’s magisterial book The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development, the history and nature of the so-called “Secret” prayer is explored in depth. Jungmann writes (p. 90… emphasis added):

The first point to clear up is the puzzling problem of how the oratio super oblata came to be said silently. The earliest evidence of the quiet recitation of this prayer appears in the middle of the eighth century in Frankish territory, in the tradition of John the Arch-chanter. We are thus led to the opinion that the name secreta appeared in the North and that it was here created to indicate that the pertinent oration was to be spoken softly.

Jungmann here supplies an expository footnote (n. 6… emphasis added):

This is the explanation given by Fortescue…. Other explanations of the name are pure hypotheses. Ever since Bossuet it has come to be generally accepted – without historical evidence - that secreta = oratio ad secretionem, that is, either at the “sorting out” of the sacrificial gifts (an action which as such had no religious signification beyond this, but only a purely practical one; thus the secret is equivalently oratio super secreta [a merely conjectural form]; or else at the “sorting out”, that is, the dismissal of the catechumens (there is nothing in the contents to show any connection with this act). – Batifol…proposed a derivation of secreta from secernere in the sense of benedicere, a meaning which is nowhere to be traced.

Given Jungmann’s comments, I thank MK but I must decline to agree.

The station church in Rome for today’s Mass is the Basilica of the Twelve Apostles. During this last week, in the older, traditional Roman calendar, the Ember Days were observed on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. From the 17th onward we hear the great “O Antiphons” before the singing of the Magnificat during Vespers. Normally this week is cut short by the celebration of Christmas, for which we have been preparing during Advent.

SUPER OBLATA - PRAYER OVER THE GIFTS:

LATIN (1970 Missale Romanum):
Altari tuo, Domine, superposita munera
Spiritus ille sanctificet,
qui beatae Mariae viscera sua virtute replevit.

Whereas for the last three weeks our super oblata was virtually identical to the secret of the older, traditional, form of Mass, now we seem to have a new prayer.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O Lord, may Spirit Himself,
who by His power made full the womb of blessed Mary,
sanctify the gifts placed upon thy altar.

This presents no real grammatical mysteries. The vocabulary is straightforward. We might examine briefly two words. Your trusty Lewis & Short Dictionary says that viscera means “the inner parts of the animal body, the internal organs, the inwards, viscera (the nobler parts, the heart, lungs, liver, as well as the ignobler, the stomach, entrails.” It also means even in classical usage “the fruit of the womb, offspring, child.” I think I will “womb” rather than “innards.” Repleo is “to fill again, refill; to fill up, replenish, complete” and thus also, “to fill up, make full, to fill.” The historian Justinus (fl. c. 150) uses this verb with virginem for “to get with child” (13, 7, 7). In our prayer today, when considering replevit I think we must say “filled up” or “made full” the viscera, womb of Mary. But if possible, when we hear the prayer we should try to hold in our minds also the “made complete.” We are not only referring to Mary’s miraculous conception of the “Word made flesh” by the power of the Holy Spirit, but also the very last days of her carrying the Lord and bringing Him to light. On this Sunday we hear the prayer just a few short days before Christmas. Mary was great with child, truly repleta...filled up… made complete.

ICEL:
Lord,
may the power of the Spirit,
which sanctified Mary the mother of your Son,
make holy the gifts we place upon this altar.

ICEL sterilizes the Latin prayer when rendering it into English. The Latin is earthier, more “real” in a sense. Here we have “sanctified Mary” rather than “filled the womb” or somewhat more crudely “innards” of “blessed Mary.” Furthermore, I am not sure why we (or God) need to be told that Mary is the mother of Jesus. We ought to know that. However, given the state of catechesis…. but I digress.

At this point in the Mass we behold the presentation and disposition by the sacred ministers of the gifts of bread and wine on the altar. According to what the rubrics say in Latin (maybe we should have a series of articles called “What Do The Rubrics Really Say?”) the priest turns around from the altar to face the congregation and says (in Latin) “Pray brethren that my sacrifice and yours may be made acceptable in the sight of God, the Almighty Father.” A distinction is made between the sacrifice the priest offers and the sacrifice offered by the people present at the Mass. The Church calls all, however, to active participation in the Mass.

True active participation is to be understood first and foremost as interiorly active participation rather than the shallower understanding of the phrase as exterior or physically active participation (i.e., carrying things, singing, clapping, etc.). While it is true that interior active participation must at times find outward and physical expression, our primary understanding of active participation as Catholics is an interiorly active receptivity. During any liturgy a person can sing, jump around and carry stuff all over the church. That is nothing if there is no interior receptivity. It is possible to be doing all sorts of things and have your mind a thousand miles away. For example, we can be singing something (maybe even in church) and suddenly realize that all the while we have been thinking about what groceries we need or having forgotten to feed the dog. We are outwardly and physically getting all the words and notes right. Interiorly we are not participating in the sacred action of the liturgy.

Human beings are distinguished from brute beasts by an intellect and a free will. We can make a distinction between human actions and acts of humans. The later are things we do without thinking, such as digestion, breathing, and (to a certain extent) other automatic or habitual activities. Human actions, on the other hand, are distinguished from actions of humans by what sets us apart from critters that also do things automatically, by instinct, habit or simple bodily operation. Human actions are shaped more by knowledge and choice. The more we engage our intellect and will in doing something, the more that action is characterized as a human act rather than just the act of a human, hardly to be distinguished from something critters do.

At Mass we must be involved and actively participative as humans – knowing, willing and loving. It is far more challenging to be actively receptive by listening to the Gospel with intense attention than by reading it (aloud or silently via the missalette). If you query many people after Mass about what the Gospel or sermon was about, not very many will be able to tell you with certainty. We need to learn engage our full attention and really participate. It is harder to fix attention, listen, and actively participate in prayer sung by a good choir than it is to sing the hymn with the congregation. Of course there are moments when we are called to both interior and exterior active participation. The congregation has specific responses to make. They should be made with intense focus. That does not mean intense volume, necessarily. It also does not mean the sort of embarrassed mumbling we hear in most parish churches when only a few bother to open their mouths and do something other than stare at the priest like deer looking at the headlights of an oncoming semi. Responses need not be loud but they must be made with at least some desire, intensity and confidence. The “silent spectator” brought on the abuse of the concept of active participation in the first place.

During most of the Mass the faithful are called and challenged to participate actively through willed and active receptivity. We receive the Gospel proclaimed rather than reading it aloud ourselves. We receive forgiveness for venial sins in the penitential rite. We receive Holy Communion and should new take it ourselves. At this point in the Mass, the offertory, we participate actively by giving, by uniting our sacrifices to those of the priest at the altar, alter Christus. We pour forth our sacrifices so that we, like our model Mary, can be “refilled, made complete” by what they are transformed into…the Body and Blood of the living and true God.

I wish you and yours a Blessed and Merry Christmas.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 3rd Sunday of Advent – Gaudete – Roman Station: Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican

His Eminence Francis Card. Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments (CDWDS) was interviewed recently by Inside the Vatican. He said: “If at Mass, we are self-controlled, we are disciplined, we don’t talk in the Church and don’t converse as if we were in a football stadium, it is because of what we believe. Therefore, the most important area is faith and fidelity to that faith, and a faithful reading of the original texts, and their faithful translations, so that people celebrate knowing that the liturgy is the public prayer of the Church.” WDTPRS is always delighted to read news of Cardinal Arinze, who is also the titular Cardinal Bishop of the Suburbicarian Diocese of Velletri-Segni.

Today’s celebration is what I call a “nick-name Sunday”: Gaudete or “Rejoice!” Gaudete is first word of the entrance chant (Introit) of today’s Mass. As on the 4th Sunday of Lent (Laetare Sunday – another imperative verb meaning “Rejoice!”), instrumental music may be played in churches: traditionally during Advent and Lent as a mark of the season’s penitential character instrumental music is not permitted. Flowers can also be seen on the altar today, though traditionally only sparse decorations should be used during Advent. This is one of only two Sundays in year when in the Roman Church the priest traditionally may wear rose colored vestments rather than Advent purple. This use of rose on Gaudete Sunday in Advent is really an imitation of Lent’s Laetare Sunday. If you have forgotten the reason for this, you’ll have to wait until Lent for an explanation. Meanwhile, consider this: the candles on your Advent wreaths are purple and rose because those are the colors the Roman Catholic priest wears for Holy Mass on Sunday. I am always a little amused when I see properly accoutred Advent wreaths in non-Catholic homes or in public places.

Long time readers of WDTPRS have no doubt been waiting for my annual Advent rant about blue vestments. Beyond question, during this Advent some priests will afflict many of you with the liturgical abuse of blue vestments. Every year I affirm my deep affection for the lovely, but liturgically illegal, color blue. If and when blue is approved for use in the Latin Church I will commission a set of blue vestments complete with maniple, chalice veil and burse. However, at the same time I will probably resent the fact that widespread abuse led to a Vatican okeydokey, much as it did in the cases of Communion in the hand and altar girls. Think about it. Aging-hippie pastors and chancery barnacles often rain a firestorm of wrath upon those who want “traditional” things like Latin, or saying Mass ad orientem – all of which are perfectly licit. They require tacit or even open approval if the violation is deemed “pastoral”, and then look askance at or demand rejection of properly imposed discipline or legitimate traditions. The abovementioned officials freak out if a priest decides to do something so outrageous as, perhaps, use a biretta during a Novus Ordo celebration of Mass or, forfend! a maniple. That is, … a priest without position or power. With due respect to George Orwell, some priests are more equal than others. Folks, you would not believe how coarsely I was once dressed down by a pastor for using a perfectly legitimate Roman-style vestment instead of the post-modern horse blanket he idealized. I guess liberal flexibility extends to “your freedom to agree with me” but not the obverse. This same fellow consistently used a vulgarity when the topic of rubrics was mentioned. “I can violate the law, but you better conform to my will.” What rankles the most is that those who commit liturgical abuses are often rewarded. In any event, until blue is approved I will use only purple and rosacea during Advent. Thus endeth my annual rant.

Advent is a time of celebratory penance, or penitential celebration, in preparation for the Lord’s Coming. We celebrate the Lord’s first Coming at Bethlehem, but always with a view to the completion of Bethlehem’s meaning in the Second when the world will be finally judged, unmade in fire, and renewed. Of Advent, the holy bishop of Milan St. Charles Borromeo (+1584) said: “Like a devoted mother, keenly concerned for our salvation, the Church uses the rites of this season, its hymns, songs and other utterances of the Holy Spirit to teach us a lesson. She shows us how to receive this great gift of God with thankfulness and how to be enriched by its possession. She teaches us that our hearts should be as prepared now for the coming of Christ our Lord as if he were still to come into the world.” Echoing this idea of continuation, the theologian Karl Rahner (+1984, 400 years after Charles Borromeo – Yes, O you of traditional mind, not everything Rahner did was automatically wrong) had an interesting insight about Advent: “What is afoot in a small beginning is best recognized by the magnitude of its end. What was really meant and actually happened by the coming, the ‘advent’, of the redeemer is best gathered from that completion of his coming which we rather misleadingly call the ‘second coming’. For in reality it is the fulfillment of his one coming which is still in progress at the present time” (emphasis mine). Interesting perspective, no? Bring it to your meditation on today’s prayer.

SUPER OBLATA - (2002MR):
Devotionis nostrae tibi, Domine, quaesumus,
hostia iugiter immoletur,
quae et sacri peragat instituta mysterii,
et salutare tuum nobis potenter operetur.

An ancient predecessor of today’s “prayer over the gifts” (as ICEL calls it) is in the Gelasian Sacramentary among the Advent prayers and also in the Veronese Sacramentary during the month of September amidst prayers for the fast of the seventh month (Latin septem “seven”). It survived the centuries and was in the 1962 Missale Romanum as the Secret for this same Sunday. The version in the Novus Ordo is slightly altered, substituting potenter for the older mirabiliter.

Let’s see some vocabulary. Iugiter, devotio and hostia we have examined in other articles. From your ever-handy Lewis & Short Dictionary you will be thrilled to learn that immolo means, first and foremost, “to sprinkle a victim with sacrificial meal” (as in grain or cereal) and also “to bring as an offering, to offer, sacrifice, immolate.” Perago means essentially, “to pass through” and is construed as “to thrust through, pierce through, transfix” and hence “to slay.” Also it means “to carry through, go through with, execute, finish, accomplish, complete.” The Latin liturgical dictionary by Blaise says perago can suggest continuous action. The deponent verb operor is basically “to work, labor, toil” but it also has the specific religious connotation of “to serve the gods, perform sacred rites, to honor or celebrate by sacrifices.” Here, operor is “to work, have effect, be effectual, to be active, to operate.”

All Catholics need to know about mysterium. Early Christian writers lacked vocabulary to express the new spiritual realities they were pondering. As they struggled to explain to others what they believed both the Greeks and Latins recycled existing words giving them new meanings. The Greeks (who had a longer philosophical traditional and therefore a ready mine of good vocabulary) came up with some theological terms which early Latin writers later simply borrowed, transliterating them into Latin. Such is the case with Latin mysterium, which reduplicates Greek mysterion. Tertullian (+ second quarter of the 3rd century) translated Greek mysterion by means of the Latin sacramentum. Sacramentum has its root in sacer, which has a religious overtone (like sacerdos “priest” and English “sacred”, etc.). Sacramentum, in juridical language, was a bond or initiation confirmed by an oath. That kind of sacramentum referred to initiation into military service and the oath taken by the soldier. Sacramentum came to have two streams of connotation. First, it had baptismal overtones as the pledge and profession of faith made by catechumens when they were baptized and initiated in the Church. Second, it referred to the content of the faith that had been pledged in regard to the “mysteries” of our salvation, the meaning of the words and deeds of Christ explained in a liturgical context, the liturgical feasts themselves, and the rites of initiation (baptism, confirmation, Eucharist). St. Augustine (+430) used sacramentum also for marriage, the laying on of hands at ordination, anointing of the sick and reconciliation of penitent sinners. In ancient liturgical prayer, sacramentum refers not only to the sacrament of the Eucharist, but also to penitential seasons like Lent with their disciplines of penance and fasting. Penitential practices, when performed by a believer with the proper attitude, are a mysterious affirmation of the sacred bond between us and Christ.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
We now beg, O Lord, let there be offered up to You continuously
the sacrificial victim of our devotion,
which may both carry through the actions of the sacred mystery that was instituted,
and mightily effect for us Your salvation.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord,
may the gift we offer in faith and love
be a continual sacrifice in your honor
and truly become our eucharist and our salvation.

I guess, you can’t object to what the ICEL prayer says all in all, except for the fact that it doesn’t translate what the Latin really says. Notice that ICEL made Latin devotion, that single-minded dedication, into “faith and love.” They ought to have simply said “devotion”, but that probably sounded too pious and old-fashioned at the time. It might be that “in your honor” was an attempt to pick up on some aspect of “devotion”. In the Latin we see nothing resembling in or pro tuo honore. I could go on, but why bother. This ICEL prayer is a good example of why we need new liturgical translations prepared according to the mind of the Church as expressed in the guidelines found in the CDWDS’ document Liturgiam authenticam.

We need to know and hear what the Church wants us to pray and meditate on just like we need air to breathe and food to eat. Support our bishops in prayer and positive expressions of confidence and thanks when they do something good and constructive. In regard to the translations, write to them or encourage them when you see them to follow carefully the guidelines and provide us with accurate translations expressing what the prayers really say.

Today’s prayer was, as we read above, among those used to admonish people to fast during the seventh month. We have ancient sermons about this September fast time as well as the Advent fast of the “tenth month” (time was calculated a little differently then because the calendar had little by little drifted). For example, we have the wisdom of Pope St. Leo I (+461), nicknamed “the Great”, about the Advent fast: “What can be more salutary for us than fasting, by the practice of which we draw nearer to God, and, standing fast against the devil, defeat the vices that lead us astray. For fasting was ever the food of virtue. From abstinence there arise chaste thoughts, just decisions, salutary counsels. And through voluntary suffering the flesh dies to the concupiscences, and the spirit waxes strong in virtue. But as the salvation of our souls is not gained solely by fasting, let us fill up what is wanting in our fasting with almsgiving to the poor. Let us give to virtue what we take from pleasure. Let abstinence of those who fast be the dinner of the poor.” Another great saint with the nickname “the Great”, St. Basil of Caesarea (+379) hammered home the urgency of Advent almsgiving: “The command is clear: the hungry person is dying now, the naked person is freezing now, the person in debt is beaten now – and you want to wait until tomorrow?” In the ancient Church fasting from good things was closely connected to good works of mercy for the poor, especially almsgiving. Do not forget this, O Catholic reader.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 2nd Sunday of Advent – Roman Station: Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem

Last week I wrote: “WDTPRS thinks there will soon be a significant change at the (Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments – CDWDS) to facilitate their harmonious collaboration with the Holy Father. Stay tuned.” Here is the disadvantage of writing for a weekly publication. It turns out the day after that issue went to press His Excellency Domenico Sorrentino, now former secretary (#2) of the CDWDS, was moved (keeping his title of Archbishop) to the Italian Diocese of Assisi-Nocera Umbra-Gualdo Tadino. There will soon be a new secretary. That will be a telling appointment. So why was this change made? Backed up by Pope Benedict’s second motu proprio document, Sorrentino will ostensibly have the privilege of locking down the zany socio-political hijinx of the Assisi Franciscans who until now have been fairly independent of the local bishop. We wish him well.

However, according to the well-informed here in Rome, Archbishop Sorrentino was moved also because of a divergence of opinions with the former head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith who is now named Benedict. The catalyst was partly the infamous pro multis issue. His Excellency apparently was partly responsible for the insertion of an embarrassing line into the ailing John Paul II’s final Holy Thursday Letter to Priests (no. 4) that seemed to some to bolster support for retaining the translation “for all” and its equivalents in vernacular translations. At the time, I was unsure what John Paul was saying and I even raised the question of whether or not WDTPRSers had received a response to the letters that had been written far and wide. Clearly there was something odd about that paragraph. It was a stretch to find a good way to read it. I think we got someone’s response, but not the Pope’s! I wrote about this at length in last year’s article for the 2nd Sunday of Easter (31 March 2005 issue). In light of the personnel shift, we can now read that paragraph a different way: I didn’t dare write it at the time but it was a salvo in the ongoing war over pro multis. In this light it is useful to repeat what Pope Benedict wrote some time ago: “The fact that in Hebrew the expression ‘many’ would mean the same thing as ‘all’ is not relevant to the question under consideration inasmuch as it is a question of translating, not a Hebrew text here, but a Latin text (from the Roman Liturgy), which is directly related to a Greek text (the New Testament). The institution narratives in the New Testament are by no means simply a translation (still less, a mistaken translation) of Isaiah; rather, they constitute an independent source” (emphasis added – in Joseph Ratzinger, God Is Near Us: The Eucharist, The Heart of Life (Ignatius Press, 2003), pp. 37-8, n. 10).

SUPER OBLATA - (2002MR):
Placare, Domine, quaesumus,
nostrae precibus humilitatis et hostiis,
et, ubi nulla suppetunt suffragia meritorum
tuae nobis indulgentiae succurre praesidiis.

This was the Secret for this same Sunday in 1962 editio typica of the last Missale Romanum before the Second Vatican Council. If the ancient and elegant sound of this prayer made you think that it was in Gelasian Sacramentary you were right on target.

For you Latin students, placare looks like an infinitive but it is actually the passive imperative of placo, “to reconcile” and also “to soothe, assuage, appease”. Think of English “placate.” Hostia, in your dog-eared copy of the Lewis & Short Dictionary, is “a victim, a sacrifice.” The complicated suppeto means essentially, “to be at hand or in store, to be present” and then by extension, “to be equal to or sufficient for; to suffice, to agree with, correspond to any thing.” A suffragium is “a voting tablet” and therefore “a vote, voice, suffrage” (as in “suffragettes”, who wanted voting rights for women) and also “a favorable decision, assent, approbation, applause.” In ecclesiastical lingo a “suffrage” is a recommendation or intercessory prayer as, for example, when pray for the Poor Souls in Purgatory. The plural suffragia means something like “points in our favor.” In other words, we have no good marks of our own merits (nulla meritorum suffragia) on our side of the column by which we can expect anything favorable from God. Succurro means “to run or hasten to the aid or assistance of one; to help, aid, assist, succor”. It can also be “to be useful for, good against”. Its root curro, “to run”, lends succurro an element of haste.

Our Super oblata today simply screams for the “thees” and “thous” of older liturgical language.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Be Thou appeased, O Lord, we beseech Thee,
by the prayers of our humility and by our sacrificial offerings,
and, where no favorable points of merits suffice for us,
succor us by the helps of Thy indulgence.

This Sunday’s “prayer over the gifts” must be kept in context. This is a season of preparation for the Lord’s Coming. The Baptist warns us from the wilderness that we ought to “make straight His path” for someday we will face Him. If ahead of time we have not taken the proper steps, He will straighten us out Himself. This is a fearful thing to ponder. Indeed, were it not for the First Coming of the Lord and the Sacrifice He made for us, our impending judgment would reduce the thoughtful soul to abject terror. During the offertory of Mass the priest, on our behalf, raises to God the elements to be consecrated together with all our gifts of praise and prayers of need. We seek to please and appease God, whom we distance from us by our sins.

A note about my choice this week to use “thee” forms. “Thee” forms of address were actually the familiar forms, while “you” was formal. This distinction of formal and informal died out in English, but here in Europe we pay attention to formal “Lei” in Italian and the familiar “tu”, German “Sie” and “du”, French “Vous” and “tu”. The proper or improper use of these forms can establish, support or damage a social situation. Today, unless you are a Quaker, “thee”, “thy” and “thine” sound formal or courtly probably because they are archaic. Precisely for this reason, I think, “thee” forms work well for liturgical prayer. Why?

Today’s egalitarianism, laxity and lack of respect for other people’s dignity together with a dominant “me-my-mine” mentality have leached formality both from our language and also our treatment of each other. Latin prayers of Mass retain a courteous style lost on most English speakers today. This is a real loss, too! When we lose language we lose concepts. The philosopher of language Ludwig Wittgenstein (+1951) said, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world” and “What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.” We have lost so very much in the present ICEL translations. Are the powers-that-be who are preparing the new translations going to give us something substandard again? Versions leached of the original content?

Moreover, the CDWDS document Liturgiam authenticam states that we need accurate translations but also a sacral style for our liturgical prayers. Let us recover the spirituality communicated by the style of the prayers! Latin prayers of the Mass give us a model of “formal intimacy” with God, a “daring familiarity”, opposed to the raw familiarity conveyed in the present ICEL translations and street speech. Of course, it is unrealistic to think that the American and other Anglophone bishops are going to adopt “thee” and “thou”, which is sad. As a matter of fact, I picture a few of them now chuckling over this quaint suggestion with knowing wags of their purple-beanied heads. Fine! So far, Reverend sirs, and with due respect, your translation balance sheet isn’t exactly bleeding lots of black ink, is it? Check out our most beloved Catholic prayers which we learned at mother’s knee: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by Thy name…”; “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…”; “…and do thou, O prince of the heavenly host…”; “Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts…”; “…never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession…”. What do people remember? What prayers do they love? What style sounds like “church” and like “prayer”? In lieu of old fashioned English, I suppose we could have more Novus Ordo Masses in Latin. Imagine… Latin Masses for Catholics of the Latin Church! People could bring whichever “hand missal” with whichever translation they preferred, one with daringly familiar older language or else …

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord,
we are nothing without you.
As you sustain us with your mercy,
receive our prayers and offerings.

Hmmm … Maybe not so much the ICEL version.

Is something missing? A constant feature of Latin “prayers over the gifts” is the desire to appease God. People today often assume God is automatically pleased with them all the time. Many of us assume our relationship with God is just fine or that we are robotically forgiven the peccadilloes we “struggled with” without further consequences. Being sorry for a sin, even confessing it and receiving sacramental absolution, isn’t all there is to being forgiven. We ask for and obtain God’s mercy but we also must pay attention to justice. We must make restitution. We must do penance. If we don’t do penance in this life we will do it in Purgatory – if we die in God’s friendship. When we consider our past sins we truly have a lot of work to do. Furthermore, nothing we do on our own merits the great gift of redemption: we are saved by the merits of Christ who makes our good works His own.

Salvation is a gift freely given by God through the merits of Christ’s Sacrifice, but salvation is not a free gift in the sense that we don’t have to do anything to obtain it. We must cooperate. Christ died “for all”. “Many” will be saved, thanks be to God. We have through Christ the free opportunity of salvation. Good works cannot merit salvation in themselves, but we are required to perform good works to merit salvation. In today’s translation I used the phrase “favorable points of merits” but never imagine God as a celestial accountant “up there” keeping books on what we do or haven’t done. Salvation is not based on a ledger’s bottom line. How God disposes all things is mysterious, though He has revealed something of His plan through the Catholic Church. Until our final judgment God alone knows what our good works merit and how they balance against our sins. In fact, the Church hazards to offer indications of only “partial” or “plenary” indulgences for works we perform. The only thing we can be sure of is that we must not become lax or presumptuous. If we want salvation, God must be appeased by our prayers, sacrifices and works, which all must be joined to Christ’s Sacrifice. At Holy Mass we join all we do and are to the Sacrifice being renewed in God’s sight by the priest. The priest raises the paten with host and then the chalice with water tinged wine. He prays: “In a spirit of humility and with a contrite heart may we be accepted by Thee, O Lord; and may this sacrifice today be of such a kind in Thy sight as to please Thee.” Place yourselves and your needs in that chalice, on that paten, to be transformed.

We need to hear what the prayers really say. This is becoming more and more urgent. Holy Church must form and sanctify us so that we, in our turn, can shape the world around us. In order for the Church to have the impact Christ intended on all corners of the world, the liturgical translations must reflect faithfully and beautifully what the original texts really say.

Hey ICEL! Hey CDWDS! Hey BISHOPS! Give us sound and beautiful translations! Need some help? Drop me a line.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 1st Sunday of Advent – Roman Station: St. Mary Major

These WDTPRS articles carefully explore week by week what the Latin prayers of Holy Mass really say. The first year of this series examined the Collects (“Opening prayer”) of Mass, the second the Super oblata (“Prayer over the gifts”) and the third the Post Communion prayers. In the fourth year we studied together the four main Eucharistic Prayers and in the fifth we returned once again to look at the Collects. This permitted me to make many revisions and rethink what I had written before. There is an adage in Latin: repetita iuvant – repeated things help. This liturgical year let us revisit to the Super oblata, prayed after the offertory and immediately before the Preface.

Some news: From 7-10 November there was a meeting in Rome of members of the Vox Clara Committee established by the Holy See to ride shotgun on ICEL’s stagecoach. His Holiness Benedict XVI sent His Eminence Francis Card. Arinze, our favorite frank and forthright Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments (CDWDS), a special message to be conveyed to Vox Clara. The Pope wrote, “I add the hope that the translation into English … may soon be completed, so that the faithful throughout the English-speaking world may benefit from the use of the liturgical texts accurately rendered in accordance with the norms of the Instruction Liturgiam authenticam.” (Emphasis mine) Furthermore,

“I am confident that … the translation of the Missale Romanum into English will succeed in transmitting the treasures of the faith and the liturgical tradition in the specific context of a devout and reverent Eucharistic celebration.”

So, the Holy Father is pretty clear about what he wants. Don’t hold your breath but a press release from Vox Clara said that ICEL informed them about a projected schedule indicating completion of its translation over the next “23 months.” It would be good for everyone involved to get aboard. In fact, WDTPRS thinks there will soon be a significant change at the CDWDS to facilitate their harmonious collaboration with the Holy Father. Stay tuned.

In the meantime across the pond, at the time of this writing the American bishops are once again meeting in plenary session. The chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Liturgy (BCL), His Excellency Donald W. Trautman, the Erie bishop of Pennsylvania, held a Q&A session on what is going on with the new English translation. He presented a gloomy picture of how divided the bishops are about the draft prepared by ICEL. According to a CNS story of 15 November, Bishop Trautman said the results of two surveys on the new draft show that “53 percent of the bishops who responded thought the new translation was excellent or good, while 47 percent rated it fair or poor.” He said, moreover that “What one bishop regarded as elevated language that enhanced the liturgy another described as ‘turgid’ and another complained about as ‘not American English.’” Let’s let go of the fact that this translation isn’t only about “America”. Still, Bishop Trautman’s survey (to which so few bishops bothered to respond) said that 12 percent thought the draft was excellent, 40 percent good, 40 percent fair, and 7 percent poor. Hmmmm… Bishop Trautman reports that 53 percent of bishops say the draft is excellent or good while 47 said fair or poor. However, arranging the stats another way we see that 7 percent say the draft is poor while 92 percent say it is at least fair to excellent! Who are these 7 percent? I want names.

But wait, there’s more. His Excellency Blase Cupich of Rapid City (SD) says only 107 bishops responded to the survey! Bishop Cupich asked all the bishops to respond. So, who knows what the bishops really think? A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story of 15 November quotes His Eminence Francis Card. George as saying: “There are those who have been quite critical of the present translation, but who are now saying that we don’t want to disturb the people, especially in the situation of weakened episcopal authority we have now.” He was referring to distrust people might now have of bishops in the wake of the scandals sadly ripping at the Church in the United States. It will not surprise us much that Fr. Bruce Harbert, Executive Secretary of ICEL, defended the draft as being more faithful to biblical language. Trautman said, “We are a divided body on this translation issue. At this time we do not have a two-thirds vote necessary for canonical approval”. Apparently there was rather sharp debate on the floor. In an AP story Cardinal George said: “I’m not sure where this whole this is going to go”.
Folks, many who resist the reworking of the translation think we are too thick to grasp the more accurate language and that priests are too dense to explain what it means. In past articles I gave you evidence of this attitude taken from speeches and articles available on the internet. Also, WDTPRS thinks the second draft translation is not a great improvement over the first. Since many bishops didn’t respond to the survey, and are now being asked to, now is the time to write to your bishops and give them your thoughts. Do you want things to remain as they are or do you want improvements? Changes are going to be made without a doubt. What changes will they be?
Advent begins a new liturgical year. Each year through the liturgy Holy Church presents the history of our salvation and the mysteries of the life, death, resurrection and the return of the Lord. Each year we ourselves are a little different and so the unchanging mysteries of our faith touch us in a fresh way. Christ through His Church shapes us by means of the content of the prayers of Mass and we in turn shape the world around us. How important is it for us to know what the Church is really praying? We need to pray with her and through her and thus be formed by her. The Western Church’s liturgy is officially in the Latin language, though now the vernacular is nearly completely dominant wherever the post-Conciliar liturgy is in use. Barring some unfathomable event, the vernacular is here to stay. As a result, the translations we have been given bear the burden of what the Church, through divine inspiration and centuries of human wisdom, desires to convey to us. The translations had better be good. It is of critical importance that they reflect with both unswerving accuracy and memorable beauty what the Church’s Latin prayers really say. Few rational people dispute that the translations now in use are not up to the task I described. In recognition of this fact, the Holy See required that a new vernacular rendering of the 3rd edition of the Roman Missal be prepared and issued norms for the preparation of new translations. The work has been going on for some years now and at least two drafts have been presented. The newer draft of the Ordinary of Mass is, in my opinion, of uneven quality. We will continue to look at pieces of the draft in weeks to come.

We must place our Super oblata prayers in their context in the Mass. As each Mass begins we have an entrance procession followed by a prayer that is “proper” (that is, it changes with the day as opposed to “ordinary”, which is fixed). This is the pattern: procession – proper prayer. After the procession to Communion the priest says a proper prayer. So too there is a proper prayer after the procession that brings our sacrificial gifts to the priest at the altar. In the older, traditional or “Tridentine” form of the Mass this prayer was called the Secret because it was recited silently. In the ancient Church, and also today in more solemn liturgy, there was an elaborate procession whereby the subdeacons and deacons brought forward from the congregation many material sacrificial offerings such as bread, wine, money, other food and objects for the poor, etc. Already by the time the ancient Sacramentaries (e.g., “Veronese”, “Gelasian”) were put together the prayers following this offertory procession contained vocabulary for gifts and sacrifices (e.g., dona, munera, oblationem) and such is the case even now. The Super oblata follow the general structure of a prayer of petition: we offer things up so that God’s grace may come down on us. You will see that these prayers are normally in the first person plural: we. The whole congregation is speaking in the person of the mediator at the altar, the priest.

Today’s prayer is in the abovementioned ancient Veronese Sacramentary amidst prayers for the month of July. Note in the Latin the wonderful scrambling of word order for rhetorical effect. Words that go together are separated and concepts are embedded between them. This elegant rhetorical interlocking delights both ear and mind. It also reflects how the concepts are interconnected. Latin challenges us to hold different ideas in our minds as we wait for the final word and the sentence’s resolution, almost as a juggler foils the fall of many objects of differing shapes. This sometimes makes rendering Latin into smooth English very hard.

SUPER OBLATA - (2002MR):
Suscipe, quaesumus, Domine, munera
quae de tuis offerimus collata beneficiis,
et, quod nostrae devotioni concedis effici temporali,
tuae nobis fiat praemium redemptionis aeternae.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Take up, O Lord, we beg You, the gifts we are offering
which were gathered together from Your favors,
and let that which You grant to be accomplished by our temporal dedication
become for us the reward of Your eternal redemption.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Father, from all you give us
we present this bread and wine.
As we serve you now,
accept our offering
and sustain us with your promise of eternal life.

The now lame-duck ICEL version emphasizes the “meal” aspect of Mass rather than the transforming “sacrificial” dimension. The Latin says munera, “gifts”, but ICEL says “bread and wine”; panem et vinum are not in the Latin original. Of course at this point in Mass munera on the surface indicates the bread and wine. ICEL restricts us to the obvious elements of bread and wine, which are material. The Latin is less restrictive. It embraces all that we bring to the Lord at Mass, material and spiritual sacrifice. Furthermore, the Latin word collata brings to my mind an image of laborers in fields and vineyards, quarries, orchards and forests, reaping, gathering, mining, collecting what their own labor and God’s blessings produce. ICEL chose not to translate collata. Collata (means “gathered together” – like English “collate” cf. confero in the useful Lewis & Short Dictionary: “to collect, gather together” and thence “to bring together for comparison” which is where we get the abbreviation “cf.” meaning “compare with”). The Latin powerfully juxtaposes what we do and what God does. In the ICEL version we want God to “sustain” us with a “promise”. In the Latin we beg God to receive back from us what He already gave and subsequently cause those things to be entirely transformed (fiat) into the “reward of eternal salvation” – Himself. The structure of the prayer, by the complex way it weaves concepts between words that go together grammatically, hints at what the prayer really says: by our work and dedication we must give back to Him good things which were already His in anticipation of His transforming them as only He can. Christ makes Himself the reward of our efforts.

Keep in mind our context: this is the beginning of Advent, the season of preparation for the Coming of the Lord. Advent is back to back with the observance of the Lord’s final coming at the end of the world. Advent is a time of penance before the First Coming of the Infant King. Advent is liminal season, like a threshold, blending the end of the world with its rebirth in the new Adam. Advent is also about the how the Lord comes in actual graces, in the words of the priest…Hoc est enim corpus meum....This is my Body, in Holy Communion and in the person neighbor, especially the needy. St. John the Baptist admonishes us during Advent to make straight Christ’s path, for He truly is coming. Christ Himself will straighten our paths His own way if have not taken care to straighten them beforehand. It is a new liturgical year. Pray that this upcoming season of preparation for the coming of the Lord at Christmas will bring us and our loved one many material and spiritual blessings.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? Holy Family – Sunday in the Octave of Christmas

A liturgical “octave” is an eight day period following and including the feast. In a way, the Church suspends time so that we can “rest” within the mystery we have celebrated while contemplating it from different angles. Perhaps you have gone to a museum and seen a magnificent statue, such as Michelangelo’s David in Florence. Glancing at it for a moment is not enough; you want to spend some time. Looking at it from one direction is inadequate; you walk around it to see it from various points of view. Considering our human weakness, a single day per year does not suffice to gather in the different dimensions of the mystery of a great feast. An octave, however, allows us to reflect on a feast in different ways. For example, Pius Parsh, a prominent figure of the Liturgical Movement during the 20th c., wrote in The Church’s Year of Grace that the feasts of Sts. Stephen, John the Evangelist, and the Holy Innocents permit us to approach Christ, the new born King, first as martyrs, then as virgins, then as virgin-martyrs. Theologically speaking, an octave anticipates the eternal bliss of heaven in which we will consider God in His glory. Think of it this way. God created the world in six days and on the seventh, the Sabbath, He rested. This cycle of seven repeats itself while the world endures. The eighth day is therefore beyond the cycle of seven. It symbolizes an eternal state, the perfect unending Sabbath of heaven. As a Church, during the octave – perceived as a single continuous day – we imitate the hosts of heaven in their abiding contemplation. Advent prepared us for the coming of the Lamb, both at Bethlehem and the end of time. Christmas too marks both comings. After Christmas we gather around the manger of Bethlehem and contemplate Jesus who is also the Lamb of the book of Revelation. We are like the Magi who adore Him, but we are also like the heavenly multitude of 144,000 who “follow the Lamb wherever he goes” (Rev 14:4). In both ways we remain in the Lord’s presence.

On 1 January we celebrate the solemn feast of Mary, Mother of God, once called in the traditional Roman calendar (and still so by those using the MR1962) the Feast of the Circumcision, when Christ shed His Blood for us for the first time. Thus, at Christmas the wooden Crib already points to the wooden Cross, and beyond to the goal of heaven made possible now for the children of a common Father. Mary stood at the foot of both. Consequently, it is fitting to celebrate her with great solemnity in the Christmas octave. By her participation in the salvific shedding of her Son’s Blood Mary gives us an important example of sacrificial love.

The place God Incarnate chose to begin manifesting this sacrificial love, which reached its culmination on the Cross, was the family home. Together with Mary and His earthly father Joseph, Christ began to reveal something of the unity of love within the most perfect of communions, the Holy Trinity. It is fitting to celebrate the Holy Family within the Octave of Christmas when we contemplate the coming of the Lord in imitation of that final, perfect communion with God to be enjoyed only by the blessed in heaven. The family is a paradigm of all other human relationships. The Holy Family teaches us, who are still in this world but moving inexorably toward our judgment and final goal, how to live – together – in this present state of “already, but not yet”.

COLLECT - LATIN TEXT (2002MR):
Deus, qui praeclara nobis sanctae Familiae
dignatus es exempla praebere,
concede propitius,
ut domesticis virtutibus caritatisque vinculis illam sectantes,
in laetitia domus tuae praemiis fruamur aeternis.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Father, help us to live as the holy family,
united in respect and love.
Bring us to the joy and peace of your eternal home.

According to the fine Lewis & Short Dictionary the noun exemplum means, “a sample for imitation, instruction, proof, a pattern, model, original, example….” For the Fathers, exemplum could mean many things. including man as God’s image, Christ as a Teacher, and the content of prophecy. In Greek and Roman rhetoric and philosophy, which so deeply influenced the Fathers, exemplum could have auctoritas, “authority”, which means among other things the moral persuasive force of an argument. When we hear this prayer with Patristic ears, exemplum is not merely an “example” to be followed: it indicates a past event as a reason for hope and an incitement to the spiritual life that leads to being raised up after the perfect exemplum, the Risen Christ. The deponent verb sector (you know the word “sect”) is, “to follow continuously or eagerly… to strive after.” The playwright Publius Terentius Afer (Terence + 158 BC) uses it for followers of a philosopher (Eunuchus 2.2.31). These disciples would take their name from their philosophical master just as we ‘Christians have ours. In the ancient Church there was a gossamer thin distinction between religion and philosophy. In a sense, Christ, the teacher offering His disciples perfect exempla is the verus philosophus for He Himself is Wisdom and Truth, and our faith is vera philosophia. That illam (singular) goes back, necessarily to familia (singular feminine, not the neuter plural exempla). Exemplum is also laden with import in the writings of the Fathers of the Church. Praeclarus, -a, -um, the adjective paired with exempla, signifies basically, “very bright, very clear” and then by extension, “very beautiful (physically or morally), magnificent, honorable, splendid, noble, remarkable, distinguished, excellent, famous, celebrated.” Praeclara …exempla is so packed with information that it is really impossible to render it into English completely without a long excursus, like, “authoritative models for imitation very beautiful in instructive clarity”. Also, the combination of praebere exempla is very common in the writings of the Fathers often for “offering examples for imitation” of virtues or good works. This prayer is laden with philosophical vocabulary revolving around instruction of and conformity of life to wisdom through virtues. This prayer is a new composition for the Novus Ordo based somewhat on the Collect for the Feast of the Holy Family in the 1962MR. Whoever wrote this new more than his prayers, I can tell you.

The term domestica virtus, is used by ancient authors of philosophical works (e.g., Cicero (+43 BC) and Seneca (+AD 65)) and thereafter by the doctor of the Church St. Ambrose of Milan (+397) in his own works on virginity and on virtues and duties.

This word pairing brings to mind the Second Vatican Council’s description of the family as the “domestic Church”, reprised in the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1656 citing Lumen gentium 11:

In our own time, in a world often alien and even hostile to faith, believing families are of primary importance as centers of living radiant faith. For this reason the Second Vatican Council, using an ancient expression, calls the family the domestic Church (Ecclesia domestica). It is in the bosom of the family that parents are “by word and example…the first heralds of the faith with regard to their children. They should encourage them in the vocation which is proper to each child, fostering with special care any religious vocation.”

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O God, who deigned to provide us
with the very beautiful models of the Holy Family,
grant propitiously
that we who are eagerly imitating them in domestic virtues and the bonds of charity,
may enjoy eternal rewards in the joy of Your house.

We are asking God implicitly to enable us through grace, building in us the supernatural virtues of faith, hope and especially charity, to imitate the clear examples (praeclara exempla) of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in the communion of their earthly household. We are to build communion among ourselves, on their authoritative model, which in turn exemplifies the communion of the Church and of the Persons of the Trinity. Thereafter, our examples, our own families, serve as the building block of a society oriented to God, the “city of God”, not the “city of man”. The reward for doing this faithfully is participation in the heavenly household of God the Father in the new family of the Church triumphant.

What the Holy Family offers us is a real exemplum, authoritative model, of freedom. This is not the false freedom of self-interested satisfaction of appetites, or the freedom to “choose” divorced from consideration of objective truths. This is freedom within, not from the bonds of charity. The more we are implicated or “bound up” in the love of God, giving Him our freedom, the freer we truly are. Vinculum literally means “that with which any thing is bound”, a “fetter”, like a chain. Here it describes effect of real charity, vincula caritatis, the kind of sacrificial love based on obedience to God’s will that the Holy Family had for one another and Christ showed forth perfectly while fixed and bound to the Cross. The “bonds of charity” require sacrifices and the abandoning, or better, transformation of selfish desires. The bonds of the family, and any authentic relationship based on something other than mutual use of each other, seem to modern eyes often to restrict personal freedom. But this is not the case. God’s love and God-like love, charity, makes us freer than we could ever hope to be without it.

The bonds of love and virtues of the Holy Family are foreshadows of the harmony of heaven which we are eagerly striving after. The family, nourished in the faith and sacraments of the Church, is an image of the Holy Family, itself an image of the communion of persons of the Church in heaven and of the Persons of the Trinity. Today’s Collect points to the importance of the “domestic Church.” The family is the first “church” children know. Parents are the first examples of God children experience. Your children first learn who God is by experiencing you. Can anyone wonder why the forces of hell are bending relentless attacks upon the family and the virtues which must be practiced in the home? Through the media, especially cinema, TV, and the internet, there pour into our homes a constant assault on virtue. And it is precisely virtue (not diversity, not tolerance, not inclusivity, not politically correct sensitivity, not freedom of choice unfettered from charity) that makes possible a family and therefore a society. This prayer is a contradiction of worldly ways and an affirmation of the God’s true image in us.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? Fourth Sunday of Advent

This Sunday is both the Fourth Sunday of Advent and also Christmas Eve. Thus, in the morning we can have the Mass for the Fourth Sunday of Advent and in the late afternoon or evening the Vigil Mass of Christmas, and the next day the three Masses of Christmas. It will be a busy few days in parishes around the world.

COLLECT
Gratiam tuam, quaesumus Domine,
mentibus nostris infunde,
ut qui, Angelo nuntiante,
Christi Filii tui incarnationem cognovimus,
per passionem eius et crucem
ad resurrectionis gloriam perducamur.

I love the sound of that last phrase per passionem eius et crucem ad resurrectionis gloriam perducamur. It is beautifully alliterative and has a snappy cadence, particularly followed by the rhythmically gear changing conclusion, Per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum...

This is so familiar to everyone, that I am just going to reproduce here the good old-fashioned prayer that many (why not all?) Catholics know and use for daily recitation of the Angelus. It is also the prayer said with the antiphon of Our Lady, Alma Redemptoris Mater, sung after Compline during Advent.

The history of the development of the Angelus is very hard to pin down. It was a very old practice (at least by the fourteenth century) to say three Hail, Mary’s in the evening or at sundown when the bell rang. This was granted an indulgence by Pope John XXII in 1318 and 1327. The development of saying these prayers at morning and midday came later and not merely in imitation of the evening usage. There is still an indulgence for the use of this prayer under the proper conditions.

LITERAL:
Pour forth, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy grace into our hearts, that we, to whom the incarnation of Christ, Thy Son, was made known by the message of an angel, may by His passion and cross be brought to the glory of His resurrection, through the same Christ our Lord.

In our version of the prayer above, I would note that Angelo nuntiante is an ablative absolute. These can be hard to render in English, and we normally need some sort of paraphrase, as we find above.

Here I am including the nice old “Thees and Thous” which are the bane of some liturgists. This is how I learned the prayer at mealtimes in the rectory of my home parish. At noon and six, meal time, first the hour bell would toll in the great tower and then the Angelus would ring, finishing in a glorious peal of all four marvelous bells. Before blessing the food, the pastor would lead us all in the Angelus… complete with “Thees and Thous”.

A note about “thou”. This is an archaic form of the pronoun for second person singular. It is also the familiar form, used by a superior to an underling, or between equals or people who are intimate. The “you” form, from “ye” is the more formal. “Ye” is also the plural second person and the abbreviation for the country Yemen. Sometimes people today think wrongly that “thou” is more formal. It is not. It is technically a familiar way to address God, though in stylized liturgical language it strikes me that it has taken on the trappings of solemnity and formality. Either way, unless you are a Quaker (and they use it wrong, by the way) you aren’t saying “thou” to often around home or at the grocery store. Furthermore, ICEL gave us “Alternative Prayers” that have nothing to do with the Latin collects. Our Latin Missals do not have alternative opening prayers. Though we are using in our collect prayer the greatest respect, the three uses of a form of “thou” in this prayer provoke me to quote Shakespeare’s Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night: “if thou thou’st him some thrice, it shall not be amiss.” (“Twelfth Night” is, of course, an old name for the feast of Epiphany, relevant to the Christmas season for which we are preparing.) I think it would not be a mistake to reintroduce, perhaps as an option, a second version of the prayers translated into English for Mass with the “Thees and Thous”. I don’t think we will be mistaken for Quakers.

ICEL:
Lord,
fill our hearts with your love,
and as you revealed to us by an angel
the coming of your Son as man,
so lead us through his suffering and death
to the glory of his resurrection
for he lives and reigns…

Not bad, though I prefer “Passion and Cross” to “suffering and death”. The ICEL prayer, in my opinion, eliminates the poetry. Let us hope that the next round of translations will give more than a nod to the sonorous rhythms and dignified beauty of the Latin prayers.

Since this Sunday is so close to the great feast of Our Lord’s birth, please accept my cordial greetings and prayerful best wishes for you and yours together with a very Merry Christmas.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? Supplement

Because last week the regular WDTPRS column did not appear (e-mail difficulties, short week, the dog ate my homework), I am putting my regular ramblings in a separate article.

It’s Advent again, and time once more for my annual rant about vestments, indeed, BLUE vestments. If I have said it once…, as nice as blue is blue is not an approved liturgical color for Advent. Sorry, Fr. “Just Call Me Jack”, I am not making this up. Please understand: I like blue but it is illegal right now. This is a liturgical abuse. One day the Holy See might approve blue vestments for the Latin Church and then I will happily put them on, without breaking the law. I can see it now: a nice blue maniple, blue dalmatics for the deacons, chalice veils in blue surmounted by a blue burse. Each year in WDTPRS I have included the lyrics to a parody song we seminarians enjoyed years ago (if “enjoy” and “seminary” can easily fit in one sentence, given the state of things when I was studying). I am often asked for these lyrics, so here they are again. Please sing this to the tune of O Come, O Come Emmanuel:

O come, o come liturgical blue;
out with the old, and in with the new.
Let’s banish purple vestments from here,
the color blue is very hot this year.
REFRAIN: Gaudy! Gaudy! Gaudy chasubles,
in baby, navy, powder puff and teal.

Since Advent is the Blessed Virgin’s time,
we’ll wear blue, although it’s canonic crime,
and in the third week, we’ll wear white.
And though it’s wrong we’ll say that it’s alright.
REFRAIN.
Around the wreath we’ll place blue candlelight,
and in one corner, we will place one white.
We’ll drape blue over our communion rail,
and use blue burses with blue chalice veils.
REFRAIN.

Anyone who has sung this in the Latin version will recognize in “Gaudy!” the Refrain the echo of Gaude! Gaude! Rejoice! Rejoice! I must give credit to the author, TF, for his effort.

Speaking of vestments (as we were earlier), inevitably after the Third Sunday of Advent, called “Gaudete”, I get a stream of questions about the use (or non-use) of a differently colored vestment. I say “differently colored” as politically correct was of identifying both rose (rosacea) and black. Despite the fact that these are two legitimate and fully approved liturgical colors we are for some reason never supposed to wear, see, use, mention, or desire them. As I was saying, this time of year in the internet ASK FATHER Question Box I moderate many people ask, “Why did the priest wear pink last Sunday?” Biting my tongue, I explain that the answer to this question also solves the riddle of “Why are there three purple candles and one pink on an Advent wreath?” I am forever amused by claims by some Lutherans that, along with the Christmas tree and Advent calendar, they are also responsible for the Advent wreath. Friends, the colors of the candles of a traditional Advent wreath are colors of the vestments a Roman Catholic priest wears when saying Mass on those Sundays. So, why use rose? Well, rose is the color used on the fourth Sunday of Lent! You see, in Rome there were celebrations of Mass during the great seasons of Lent/Easter and Advent/Christmas at “station” churches. You see the names for these churches printed in older pre-Conciliar hand missals. The station for the Fourth Sunday of Lent (called “Laetare”, which means in Latin pretty much what “Gaudete” means…”Rejoice!”)is the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem near the St. John Lateran (the Pope’s cathedral). The custom on this day was for a long time for the Pope to bless special roses made of gold which were were then sent to Catholic kings, queens and notables. Thus, that Sunday was called Dominica de rosa... “Rose Sunday”. Rose vestments stem from this custom and, by analogy with Lent, they trickled over into Advent on “Gaudete” Sunday. Their use spread from that basilica to the rest of the City and then it became part and parcel of the Roman Missal promulgated by Pius V in 1570. The use of rose vestments on those two Sundays only is still perfectly legitimate (and so is using BLACK for funeral Masses, but I digress). It is slowly coming back into style, too. Rose vestments are again in church goods catalogues and shops. Feel free to get some for your parish, since long ago Father “Just Call Me Bob” may have dumpsterized them (along with the BLACK) in favor of his prized polyester threads or Sr. Go-Go Boot’s choice selection of Finger Painted -By -The -Third -Grade chasubles. But, in many places simply suggest the use of rose or even… gasp… the evil blaaaack once in a while, and you are instantly stared at with horror and labeled antiConciliar. I declare! Can’t we all just get along??

Moving along… when we approach difficult questions or topics, we must be humble before them, admitting the truth when made plain and ignorance when plainly we don’t have a clue. I have told you all more than once how baffled I was by something both readers and I received from the hand of the Executive Secretary of ICEL, Fr. Bruce Harbert. In responding to your (and my) kind letters about the thorny pro multis controversy (“for all” in the sacramental form for the consecration of the Precious Blood) Fr. Harbert systematically penned a puzzling claim without offering support or references, that is: the Holy Father reserves to himself personally the approval vernacular translations of the sacramental forms. This claim struck me as unlikely and I was not alone – in a copy of a response a WDTPRS reader shared with me I saw that His Eminence George Card. Pell, chairman of Vox Clara, was similarly surprised. With the help of others I have gotten to the bottom of Fr. Harbert’s contention, which originally sounded like a dodge.

What Fr. Harbert wrote is true. I verified it. Of course, he might have saved us some trouble and provided in his letters a reference to reduce our original level of wonder and confusion. In the Holy See’s official instrument of promulgation, Acta Apostolicae Sedis for 28 February 1974 (AAS 66 (1974) 98-99) we find a circular letter dated 25 October 1973 over the signature of then Secretary of State Jean Card. Villot, countersigned by Archbp. Annibale Bugnini, about this very matter (my translation from the Latin): “The Supreme Pontiff reserves to himself the power of approving directly all translations into vernacular languages of the formulas of sacraments.” 1973 was the year our present ICEL version was approved. There was a dust-up going on about whether the vernacular sacramental forms (i.e., “for all”) were heretical. The circular letter stated a translation (conversio) of sacramental forms was to be prepared (apparabitur – apparo: “prepare, make ready”) by the (then) Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship after consultation with the episcopal conferences; a translation must accurately reflect proper doctrine and be in harmony with the Latin text as much as possible. Nota bene: the Congregation (at present the CDWDS), not the conferences, not ICEL, furnishes the translation of the sacramental form to the Pope for approval. I therefore renew my plea to you, good readers, to write with cordial fervor to those in charge of these matters, if you need addresses and don’t have back issues of WDTPRS wherein they were provided, contact either The Wanderer or yours truly.

Why is this important? During the fall meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, His Excellency Most Rev. Donald W. Trautman, Bishop of Erie, was re-elected chairman of the Bishops’ Committee on Liturgy (BCL – a non-authoritative body). The BCL must soon review ICEL’s latest draft translation which the Vox Clara Committee recently reviewed in Rome. Bp. Trautman has been consistently and sharply critical of the Holy See’s norms for translation issued in the CDWDS’s Liturgiam authenticam (LA). This is rather dramatic, so keep reading. Enter from upstage: a regular WDTPRSer, JB via e-mail from Washington, D.C., where he attended a “Tridentine” Mass a couple weeks ago on a Sunday. “Ding” goes the sanctuary bell. Enter stage right: the priest celebrant in biretta and maniple, Fr. Bruce Harbert, the aforementioned Executive Secretary of ICEL. I ask you: can you wrap your mind around the image of a member of ICEL’s politburo of yore, say 10 years ago, celebrating a Tridentine Mass? I say “Kudos, Father.” No, “for all” during that Mass, I can tell you. Anyway, JB recounts that, in a conversation with Fr. Harbert after Mass, Father assured him that Bp. Trautman is a scholarly fellow who will not have a negative impact on the translation. Having confirmed what Fr. Harbert has asserted before, shall we give him the benefit of the doubt in this matter as well? Quoth Ronald Reagan, “Trust, but verify.”

In 2003 a group decidedly not friendly to the Holy See’s norms, the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Directors (I’ve mentioned them before) presented Bp. Trautman with their Frederick R. McManus Award. His Excellency spoke inter alia about the then forthcoming CDWDS document Redemptionis Sacramentum desired by the Pope against liturgical abuses. His Excellency’s anaphoric remarks in 2003 may reveal something of his approach to documents from the Holy See (slightly edited):

A recent draft of a forthcoming Vatican instruction included several problematic elements – elements which were neither pastorally sensitive nor liturgically correct. While we are thankfully reassured that more competent and more sensible judgments have prevailed, we need to ask how could such proposals be drafted and approved for submission in the first place? When such Roman liturgical drafts call us to return to a liturgical mentality prior to Vatican II, we need to say to one another: Keep up your courage. When liturgical expertise is not respected, … When fundamental principles of liturgical renewal are reversed, we must say to one another: Keep up your courage….

There is more of the same. Folks, do you see what is going on? I say keep up your courage, pick up your pens and ratchet up your efforts. The coming months are decisive!

On to other things. The November 2004 edition of the usually sound Adoremus Bulletin, which has studiously ignored WDTPRS for four years now, has a very good offering: His Eminence Joseph Card. Ratzinger’s essay review of a new book by Alcuin Reid, OSB, called The Organic Development of the Liturgy (St. Michael’s Abbey Press, 2004). If this review was an exclusive for Adoremus then it is a real feather in their cap. Reid’s writings are worth the read when read and I recommend the Cardinal’s comments. In addition to speaking about the book, Card. Ratzinger makes many additional observations, so much so, that His Eminence states at one point that he has ”gone beyond Dom Alcuin’s book”. So much the better! Inter alia the Prefect of the CDF writes:

“I should like to come back to the way that worship was presented, in a liturgical compendium, as a ‘project for reform”, and thus as a workshop in which people are always busy at something. Different again, and yet related to this, is the suggestion by some Catholic liturgists that we should finally adapt the liturgical reform to the ‘anthropological turn’ of modern times, and construct it in an anthropocentric style. If the liturgy appears first of all as the workshop for our activity, then what is essential is being forgotten: God. For the Liturgy is not about us, but about God.”

Essentially, many want to make liturgy a reflection of ourselves, in our own particular cultural milieu, which is ever changing. Therefore, nothing is fixed or stable and liturgy should be always changing. Of course this ignores the fact that many dimensions of man’s circumstances may be changing, but man himself does not really change. Does the Cardinal’s observation sound familiar? For years we have been saying in these WDTPRS columns that true actor in the sacred liturgy is the High Priest Jesus Christ. Mass is all about what He does for us. We must learn to be actively receptive to what He gives. Our outward responses are an expression of what is first and foremost an inward activity of reception, founded on our baptismal character, and manifested in singing responses, physical posture, and above all reception of Communion in the state of grace. I recommend Adoremus Bulletin, despite its quadrennial lacuna, and Dom Alcuin’s book as well.

The Roman news outlet Zenit had a story on 25 November by Catherine Smibert (who also works with Vatican Radio) about the Vox Clara Committee, set up in 2001 by the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments (CDWDS) to be a liaison and watchdog for ICEL as they prepare a new English translation for the episcopal conferences. The head of Vox Clara is His Eminence George Card. Pell, Archbishop of Sydney. His Eminence says that his work with Vox Clara “is the most ‘important and useful thing’ he does in recent visits to Rome.” In the Zenit article,

“There has been an attempt to improve the quality and accuracy of the English,” he explained. “We must consistently seek to translate the Latin accurately—not slavishly, but enough that it assists people in confronting the true, original message behind it.”

In these WDTPRS articles we are specifically trying to create a “slavish” and accurate translation, so that you may see in a form as close to the Latin as possible what the content is and what the challenges are. You have no doubt developed a real sympathy for those who must work on the new English version.

In the Zenit piece Cardinal Pell gave an example of what they are dealing with in the words from the Sanctus: “Dominus Deus Sabaoth”, saying, “What we say here now is ‘Lord, God of power and might,’ where the more correct translation for ‘Sabaoth’ is really ‘angels’ or ‘hosts’ ... as in ‘Lord, God of hosts’”.

Folks, when you write letters of encouragement to these people, members of Vox Clara and others, you make a difference. Many of you have described the nice letters you receive in return. I told you a couple weeks ago about the pleasure the Vice-Chairman of Vox Clara, Archbishop Gracias of Agra, India expressed personally to me while he was in Rome. These men are truly serious and dedicated, so your interest interests them. Cardinal Pell said, “We have a chance to put together an English translation that generations will be able to use.” Furthermore, as we have said time and again, the new version will affect countless people for generations. Here is Cardinal Pell again, “It’s exciting, because language when used accurately, can take us to God.”

One of the great strengths of the Church is that it is worldwide and English is basically the new Latin, though Spanish is widespread. It is a fact, for instance, that the English missal is often used as the de facto base-text for the Church in Asia and Africa.”

We must support this work by warm and kind letters. Please write to Cardinal Pell and also Cardinal Arinze, head of the CDWDS and tell them of your hopes, especially for a good translation of pro multis. If the Holy Father must decide personally about the form of consecration, then these are the men who will put the right material in his hands. Here are the addresses again:

His Eminence
George Card. Pell
Chairman – Vox Clara
Archbishop of Sydney
Level 16, Polding Centre
133 Liverpool Street
Sydney, N.S.W 2000
AUSTRALIA

His Eminence
Francis Card. Arinze
Prefect of the Congregation for
Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments
00120 VATICAN CITY

What Does the Prayer Really Say? The 2nd & 3rd Sundays of Advent

Due to technical difficulties and a short week, last week for the first time in four years WDTPRS did not appear. This week, we content ourselves with the nuts and bolts for two Sundays. News and comments for both weeks will be in a separate piece elsewhere in the paper. We are in the course our Advent season of preparation for the coming of the Christ child. The Lord has already come historically in His first coming at Bethlehem. As a consequence, there is a strong “eschatological” dimension to Advent. “Eschatology” concerns the last things (Greek ta eschata), death, judgment, heaven and hell. This season is more than a sentimental journey to the side of the manger with magi and oxen and asses and a little straw thrown around for ambience. The Baptist, the last Old Testament prophet, “the greatest man born of woman” (Matt 11:11; Luke 7:28) now shouts to us his admonition: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight!” (Mark 1:3). Draw inspiration from the Infant King as venerate Him in the wooden crib, but be aware that He came in order to pass through the torment of the wooden Cross. He is coming to us now, too, in actual graces, in Holy Communion, in the person of our neighbor. One day He will come definitively as King and Judge. Advent joy, is joyfully penitential.

Lest any “traditional” Catholics claim today’s Collect for the 2nd Sunday of Advent is less valuable because wasn’t in the 1570 Missale Romanum and is therefore not old enough, please know that it is from the so-called Rotulus (“scroll”) of Ravenna, dated by E.A. Lowe to the 8th c., but by others to as early as the 5th c. It is an ancient prayer restored for our benefit in the post-Conciliar reform.

COLLECT - LATIN TEXT (2002MR):
Omnipotens et misericors Deus,
in tui occursum Filii festinantes
nulla opera terreni actus impediant,
sed sapientiae caelestis eruditio
nos faciat eius esse consortes.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
God of power and mercy,
open our hearts in welcome.
Remove the things that hinder us

What does the Latin prayer really say? We now consult that sure stock of Latin lemmas the Lewis & Short Dictionary for actus which means, “an act or action” but also, “the moving or driving of an object, impulse.” Impedio (built from the word pes, pedis, “foot”) is “to snare or tangle the feet”. Sapientia means “wisdom”. In Christian contexts, especially of the Early Church, Wisdom is simply loaded with different overtones from theology and philosophy (philosophia, “love of wisdom”). The Bible has a group of writings called “Wisdom literature” which were, according to the Fathers of the Church, filled with foreshadowings of Christ who is identified with Wisdom. The phrase faciat eius esse consortes calls to mind both the Collect prayer in Mass for Christmas Day and also the priest’s prayer when preparing the chalice at the offertory. A consors is someone with (con-) whom you share your lot (sors). This is at the heart of today’s Collect prayer. Remember: Deus, “God”, is declined irregularly and in solemn discourse the nominative is used as the vocative form (e.g. cf. Livy 1, 24, 7). Do not, like ICEL did, fall into the trap of thinking that Deus is the subject of the verbs. The subjects are the plural opera and singular eruditio.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Almighty and merciful God,
let no works of worldly impulse impede
those hurrying to the meeting of Your Son,
but rather let the learning of heavenly wisdom
make us to be His partakers.

Last week we were rushing to meet the Lord who is coming while meriting our reward through good works, meritorious for heaven because they are made so in Christ. In Advent, as the Baptist warns us, we are to make smooth the path for the coming of the Lord. This week we are again rushing, but, perhaps we are wiser this week after the first rush of excitement: we are now also wary of obstacles which could impede us, snare our feet on the path. These would be our merely human, simply worldly, works. These “works of worldly impulse” are not meritorious since they are not performed in Christ. There is a sharp contrast between heavenly Wisdom which liberates and worldly “wisdom” which entangles. The Apostle St. Paul contrasts the wisdom of this world with the Wisdom of God (cf. 1 Cor 1:20; 3:19; 2 Cor 3:19). In Romans 12:2 Paul says, “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” This is not just a Pauline concept. Compare our Collect today also with 2 Peter 1:3-4 (RSV): “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge (cognitio: cf. eruditio) of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature (efficiamini divinae consortes).”

St. Augustine of Hippo (+430) beat up some Donatist heretics and dismantled their argument that all clerics ordained by a sinful bishop would be automatically stained in the same guilt. He used imagery like that of our prayer today (Ad Donatistas post collationem in CSEL 53:19.25, p. 123 my translation): “The sludge (lutum) their feet are stuck in is so thick and dense that, trying in vain to tear themselves out of it, they get their hands and head stuck in it too, and lingering in that sticky mess they get more tightly enveloped.” The Donatist argument was based in worldly, not heavenly, wisdom.

Sticky lutum is a metaphor of worldly life. Neglecting God, who speaks in the Church and our conscience, we weak sinners can convince ourselves of anything, over time: down becomes up, back is made front, black turns into white, and wrong is really right. We justify what we know, or knew, to be sinful. Once this becomes a habit, it is a vice in more than one sense of that word. Occasionally our consciences will struggle against the grip of self-deception, but quite often the proverbial “Struggle”, Novocain for the conscience, supplies permission: “I really ‘struggled’ with this, … before I did it!” If we go off the true path into the murky twisted woods, thoroughly mired in sticky error we will not escape the Enemy, the roaring lion seeking whom he might devour (1 Peter 5:8). Nor will we elude Christ the Judge, who will come through dark woods by straight paths. Advent reminds us to prepare for the coming of both the Enemy lion and the Lion of Judah who will open the seals and read forth the Book of Life (Rev 5:5).

Now for the 3rd Sunday of Advent, also nicknamed Gaudete.... the plural imperative of gaudeo, “Rejoice!”. Today, there is a relaxation of the penitential aspect of Advent. In the first week of Advent we begged God for the grace of the proper approach and will for our preparation. In the second week, we ask God for help and protection in facing the obstacles the world raises against us. This Sunday we have a glimpse of the joy that is coming in our rose colored (rosacea) vestments, some use of the organ, flowers. Christmas is near at hand.

COLLECT – LATIN TEX (2002MR)
Deus, qui conspicis populum tuum nativitatis dominicae festivitatem fideliter exspectare, praesta, quaesumus, ut valeamus ad tantae salutis gaudia pervenire,
et ea votis sollemnibus alacri laetitia celebrare.

The infinitives in our Collect (expectare… pervenire… celebrare) give it a grand sound and alo sum up what we are doing in Advent. L&S informs us that conspicio means, “to look at attentively, to get sight of, to descry, perceive, observe.” Alacer is, “lively, brisk, quick, eager, active; glad, happy, cheerful” and it is put in an unlikely combination with laetitia, “joy, especially unrestrained joyfulness”. At the same time we also have votis sollemnibus. Votum signifies first of all, “a solemn promise made to some deity” (we have all made baptismal vows!) and also “wish, desire, longing, prayer”. There is a powerful sentiment of longing in this prayer, God’s as well as ours. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that expecto is from ex- + pecto (pecto, “to comb”). You won’t find exspecto “look forward to”, in your L&S, but the etymological dictionary of Latin by Ernout and Meillet says it is from ex- + *specio, spexi, spectum or ex- + spicio. Therefore, it is a cousin of conspicio: God “watches” over us and we “look” back at… er um… forward to Him. This word play is quite clever, really.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O God, who attentively does watch Your people
look forward faithfully to the feast of the Lord’s birth,
grant, we entreat,
that we may be able to attain the to joys of so great a salvation
and celebrate them with eager jubilation in solemn festive rites.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR): Lord God,
may we, your people,
who look forward to the birthday of Christ
experience the joy of salvation
and celebrate that feast with love and thanksgiving.

This offertory embodies a word pair describing the attitude of Advent: joyful penance… penitential joy. With the last two week’s of “rushing” in our prayers and doing good works, we have now the added image of eager and unrestrained joy, an almost childlike dash towards a long-desired thing. Have earthly fathers watched this scene all of a Christmas morning? Even so should we be in our eager joy to perform good works under the gaze of a Father who watches us, a Father with a plan. This lame duck ICEL version captures little of the impact of the Latin prayer, that is, God the Father is patiently watching his people as we go about the Advent business of doing penance and just works in joyful anticipation Christ’s coming. But perhaps you will be good enough to respond with an eager and joyfully penitential “Amen” when you hear it pronounced even as you long for a better translation in the future.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? The 2nd & 3rd Sundays of Advent

Due to technical difficulties and a short week, last week for the first time in four years WDTPRS did not appear. This week, we content ourselves with the nuts and bolts for two Sundays. News and comments for both weeks will be in a separate piece elsewhere in the paper. We are in the course our Advent season of preparation for the coming of the Christ child. The Lord has already come historically in His first coming at Bethlehem. As a consequence, there is a strong “eschatological” dimension to Advent. “Eschatology” concerns the last things (Greek ta eschata), death, judgment, heaven and hell. This season is more than a sentimental journey to the side of the manger with magi and oxen and asses and a little straw thrown around for ambience. The Baptist, the last Old Testament prophet, “the greatest man born of woman” (Matt 11:11; Luke 7:28) now shouts to us his admonition: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight!” (Mark 1:3). Draw inspiration from the Infant King as venerate Him in the wooden crib, but be aware that He came in order to pass through the torment of the wooden Cross. He is coming to us now, too, in actual graces, in Holy Communion, in the person of our neighbor. One day He will come definitively as King and Judge. Advent joy, is joyfully penitential.

Lest any “traditional” Catholics claim today’s Collect for the 2nd Sunday of Advent is less valuable because wasn’t in the 1570 Missale Romanum and is therefore not old enough, please know that it is from the so-called Rotulus (“scroll”) of Ravenna, dated by E.A. Lowe to the 8th c., but by others to as early as the 5th c. It is an ancient prayer restored for our benefit in the post-Conciliar reform.

COLLECT - LATIN TEXT (2002MR):
Omnipotens et misericors Deus,
in tui occursum Filii festinantes
nulla opera terreni actus impediant,
sed sapientiae caelestis eruditio
nos faciat eius esse consortes.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
God of power and mercy,
open our hearts in welcome.
Remove the things that hinder us

What does the Latin prayer really say? We now consult that sure stock of Latin lemmas the Lewis & Short Dictionary for actus which means, “an act or action” but also, “the moving or driving of an object, impulse.” Impedio (built from the word pes, pedis, “foot”) is “to snare or tangle the feet”. Sapientia means “wisdom”. In Christian contexts, especially of the Early Church, Wisdom is simply loaded with different overtones from theology and philosophy (philosophia, “love of wisdom”). The Bible has a group of writings called “Wisdom literature” which were, according to the Fathers of the Church, filled with foreshadowings of Christ who is identified with Wisdom. The phrase faciat eius esse consortes calls to mind both the Collect prayer in Mass for Christmas Day and also the priest’s prayer when preparing the chalice at the offertory. A consors is someone with (con-) whom you share your lot (sors). This is at the heart of today’s Collect prayer. Remember: Deus, “God”, is declined irregularly and in solemn discourse the nominative is used as the vocative form (e.g. cf. Livy 1, 24, 7). Do not, like ICEL did, fall into the trap of thinking that Deus is the subject of the verbs. The subjects are the plural opera and singular eruditio.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Almighty and merciful God,
let no works of worldly impulse impede
those hurrying to the meeting of Your Son,
but rather let the learning of heavenly wisdom
make us to be His partakers.

Last week we were rushing to meet the Lord who is coming while meriting our reward through good works, meritorious for heaven because they are made so in Christ. In Advent, as the Baptist warns us, we are to make smooth the path for the coming of the Lord. This week we are again rushing, but, perhaps we are wiser this week after the first rush of excitement: we are now also wary of obstacles which could impede us, snare our feet on the path. These would be our merely human, simply worldly, works. These “works of worldly impulse” are not meritorious since they are not performed in Christ. There is a sharp contrast between heavenly Wisdom which liberates and worldly “wisdom” which entangles. The Apostle St. Paul contrasts the wisdom of this world with the Wisdom of God (cf. 1 Cor 1:20; 3:19; 2 Cor 3:19). In Romans 12:2 Paul says, “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” This is not just a Pauline concept. Compare our Collect today also with 2 Peter 1:3-4 (RSV): “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge (cognitio: cf. eruditio) of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature (efficiamini divinae consortes).”

St. Augustine of Hippo (+430) beat up some Donatist heretics and dismantled their argument that all clerics ordained by a sinful bishop would be automatically stained in the same guilt. He used imagery like that of our prayer today (Ad Donatistas post collationem in CSEL 53:19.25, p. 123 my translation): “The sludge (lutum) their feet are stuck in is so thick and dense that, trying in vain to tear themselves out of it, they get their hands and head stuck in it too, and lingering in that sticky mess they get more tightly enveloped.” The Donatist argument was based in worldly, not heavenly, wisdom.

Sticky lutum is a metaphor of worldly life. Neglecting God, who speaks in the Church and our conscience, we weak sinners can convince ourselves of anything, over time: down becomes up, back is made front, black turns into white, and wrong is really right. We justify what we know, or knew, to be sinful. Once this becomes a habit, it is a vice in more than one sense of that word. Occasionally our consciences will struggle against the grip of self-deception, but quite often the proverbial “Struggle”, Novocain for the conscience, supplies permission: “I really ‘struggled’ with this, … before I did it!” If we go off the true path into the murky twisted woods, thoroughly mired in sticky error we will not escape the Enemy, the roaring lion seeking whom he might devour (1 Peter 5:8). Nor will we elude Christ the Judge, who will come through dark woods by straight paths. Advent reminds us to prepare for the coming of both the Enemy lion and the Lion of Judah who will open the seals and read forth the Book of Life (Rev 5:5).

Now for the 3rd Sunday of Advent, also nicknamed Gaudete.... the plural imperative of gaudeo, “Rejoice!”. Today, there is a relaxation of the penitential aspect of Advent. In the first week of Advent we begged God for the grace of the proper approach and will for our preparation. In the second week, we ask God for help and protection in facing the obstacles the world raises against us. This Sunday we have a glimpse of the joy that is coming in our rose colored (rosacea) vestments, some use of the organ, flowers. Christmas is near at hand.

COLLECT – LATIN TEX (2002MR)
Deus, qui conspicis populum tuum nativitatis dominicae festivitatem fideliter exspectare, praesta, quaesumus, ut valeamus ad tantae salutis gaudia pervenire,
et ea votis sollemnibus alacri laetitia celebrare.

The infinitives in our Collect (expectare… pervenire… celebrare) give it a grand sound and alo sum up what we are doing in Advent. L&S informs us that conspicio means, “to look at attentively, to get sight of, to descry, perceive, observe.” Alacer is, “lively, brisk, quick, eager, active; glad, happy, cheerful” and it is put in an unlikely combination with laetitia, “joy, especially unrestrained joyfulness”. At the same time we also have votis sollemnibus. Votum signifies first of all, “a solemn promise made to some deity” (we have all made baptismal vows!) and also “wish, desire, longing, prayer”. There is a powerful sentiment of longing in this prayer, God’s as well as ours. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that expecto is from ex- + pecto (pecto, “to comb”). You won’t find exspecto “look forward to”, in your L&S, but the etymological dictionary of Latin by Ernout and Meillet says it is from ex- + *specio, spexi, spectum or ex- + spicio. Therefore, it is a cousin of conspicio: God “watches” over us and we “look” back at… er um… forward to Him. This word play is quite clever, really.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O God, who attentively does watch Your people
look forward faithfully to the feast of the Lord’s birth,
grant, we entreat,
that we may be able to attain the to joys of so great a salvation
and celebrate them with eager jubilation in solemn festive rites.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR): Lord God,
may we, your people,
who look forward to the birthday of Christ
experience the joy of salvation
and celebrate that feast with love and thanksgiving.

This offertory embodies a word pair describing the attitude of Advent: joyful penance… penitential joy. With the last two week’s of “rushing” in our prayers and doing good works, we have now the added image of eager and unrestrained joy, an almost childlike dash towards a long-desired thing. Have earthly fathers watched this scene all of a Christmas morning? Even so should we be in our eager joy to perform good works under the gaze of a Father who watches us, a Father with a plan. This lame duck ICEL version captures little of the impact of the Latin prayer, that is, God the Father is patiently watching his people as we go about the Advent business of doing penance and just works in joyful anticipation Christ’s coming. But perhaps you will be good enough to respond with an eager and joyfully penitential “Amen” when you hear it pronounced even as you long for a better translation in the future.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? The 2nd Sunday of Advent

When we approach difficult questions or topics, we must be humble before them, admitting the truth when made plain and ignorance when plainly we don’t have a clue. I have told you all more than once how baffled I was by something both readers and I received from the hand of the Executive Secretary of ICEL, Fr. Bruce Harbert. In responding to your (and my) kind letters about the thorny pro multis controversy (“for all” in the sacramental form for the consecration of the Precious Blood) Fr. Harbert systematically penned a puzzling claim without offering support or references, that is: the Holy Father reserves to himself personally the approval vernacular translations of the sacramental forms. This claim struck me as unlikely and I was not alone – in a copy of a response a WDTPRS reader shared with me I saw that His Eminence George Card. Pell, chairman of Vox Clara, was similarly surprised. With the help of others I have gotten to the bottom of Fr. Harbert’s contention, which sounded like a dodge.

What Fr. Harbert wrote is true. I verified it. Of course, he might have saved us some trouble and provided in his letters a reference to reduce our original level of wonder and confusion. In the Holy See’s official instrument of promulgation, Acta Apostolicae Sedis for 28 February 1974 (AAS 66 (1974) 98-99) we find a circular letter dated 25 October 1973 over the signature of then Secretary of State Jean Card. Villot, countersigned by Archbp. Annibale Bugnini, about this very matter (my translation from the Latin): “The Supreme Pontiff reserves to himself the power of approving directly all translations into vernacular languages of the formulas of sacraments.” 1973 was the year our present ICEL version was approved. There was a dust-up going on about whether the vernacular sacramental forms (i.e., “for all”) were heretical. The circular letter stated a translation (conversio) of sacramental forms was to be prepared (apparabitur – apparo: “prepare, make ready”) by the (then) Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship after consultation with the episcopal conferences; a translation must accurately reflect proper doctrine and be in harmony with the Latin text as much as possible. Nota bene: the Congregation (at present the CDWDS), not the conferences, not ICEL, furnishes the translation of the sacramental form to the Pope for approval. I therefore renew my plea to you, good readers, to write with cordial fervor to those in charge of these matters, if you need addresses and don’t have back issues of WDTPRS wherein they were provided, contact either The Wanderer or yours truly.

Why is this important? During the fall meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, His Excellency Most Rev. Donald W. Trautman, Bishop of Erie, was re-elected chairman of the Bishops’ Committee on Liturgy (BCL – a non-authoritative body). The BCL must soon review ICEL’s latest draft translation which the Vox Clara Committee recently reviewed in Rome. Bp. Trautman has been consistently and sharply critical of the Holy See’s norms for translation issued in the CDWDS’s Liturgiam authenticam (LA). This is rather dramatic, so keep reading. Enter from upstage: a regular WDTPRSer, JB via e-mail from Washington, D.C., where he attended a “Tridentine” Mass last Sunday. “Ding” goes the sanctuary bell. Enter stage right: the priest celebrant in biretta and maniple, Fr. Bruce Harbert, the aforementioned Executive Secretary of ICEL. I ask you: can you wrap your mind around the image of a member of ICEL’s politburo of yore, say 10 years ago, celebrating a Tridentine Mass? I say “Kudos, Father.” No, “for all” during that Mass, I can tell you. Anyway, JB recounts that, in a conversation with Fr. Harbert after Mass, Father assured him that Bp. Trautman is a scholarly fellow who will not have a negative impact on the translation. Having confirmed what Fr. Harbert has asserted before, shall we give him the benefit of the doubt in this matter as well? Quoth Ronald Reagan, “Trust, but verify.”

In 2003 a group decidedly not friendly to the Holy See’s norms, the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Directors (I’ve mentioned them before) presented Bp. Trautman with their Frederick R. McManus Award. His Excellency spoke inter alia about the then forthcoming CDWDS document Redemptionis Sacramentum desired by the Pope against liturgical abuses. His Excellency’s anaphoric remarks in 2003 may reveal something of his approach to documents from the Holy See (slightly edited):

A recent draft of a forthcoming Vatican instruction included several problematic elements – elements which were neither pastorally sensitive nor liturgically correct. While we are thankfully reassured that more competent and more sensible judgments have prevailed, we need to ask how could such proposals be drafted and approved for submission in the first place? When such Roman liturgical drafts call us to return to a liturgical mentality prior to Vatican II, we need to say to one another: Keep up your courage. When liturgical expertise is not respected, … When fundamental principles of liturgical renewal are reversed, we must say to one another: Keep up your courage….

There is more of the same. Folks, do you see what is going on? I say keep up your courage, pick up your pens and ratchet up your efforts. The coming months are decisive!

Lest any “traditional” Catholics think today’s Collect is less valuable because it isn’t old enough, or wasn’t in the 1570 Missale Romanum, it is from the “Gelasian Sacramentary”, compiled around 750 in Paris from material in use much earlier.

COLLECT - LATIN TEXT (2002MR):
Omnipotens et misericors Deus,
in tui occursum Filii festinantes
nulla opera terreni actus impediant,
sed sapientiae caelestis eruditio
nos faciat eius esse consortes.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
God of power and mercy,
open our hearts in welcome.
Remove the things that hinder us

What does the Latin prayer really say? We now consult that sure stock of Latin lemmas the Lewis & Short Dictionary for actus which means, “an act or action” but also, “the moving or driving of an object, impulse.” Impedio (built from the word pes, pedis, “foot”) is “to snare or tangle the feet”. Sapientia means “wisdom”. In Christian contexts, especially of the Early Church, Wisdom is simply loaded with different overtones from theology and philosophy (philosophia, “love of wisdom”). The Bible has a group of writings called “Wisdom literature” which were, according to the Fathers of the Church, filled with foreshadowings of Christ who is identified with Wisdom. The phrase faciat eius esse consortes calls to mind both the Collect prayer in Mass for Christmas Day and also the priest’s prayer when preparing the chalice at the offertory. A consors is someone with (con-) whom you share your lot (sors). This is at the heart of today’s Collect prayer. Remember: Deus, “God”, is declined irregularly and in solemn discourse the nominative is used as the vocative form (e.g. cf. Livy 1, 24, 7). Do not, like ICEL did, fall into the trap of thinking that Deus is the subject of the verbs. The subjects are plural opera and singular eruditio.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Almighty and merciful God,
let no works of worldly impulse impede
those hurrying to the meeting of Your Son,
but rather let the learning of heavenly wisdom
make us to be His partakers.

Last week we were rushing to meet the Lord who is coming and meriting our reward through good works, meritorious for heaven because they are made so in Christ. In Advent, as the Baptist warns us, we are to make smooth the path for the coming of the Lord. This week we are again rushing, but, perhaps we are wiser this week after the first rush of excitement: now are now also wary of obstacles on that path which could impede us, snare our feet. These would be our merely human, simply worldly, works. These “works of worldly impulse” are not meritorious since they are not performed in Christ. There is a sharp contrast between heavenly Wisdom which liberates and worldly “wisdom” which entangles. The Apostle St. Paul contrasts the wisdom of this world with the Wisdom of God (cf. 1 Cor 1:20; 3:19; 2 Cor 3:19). In Romans 12:2 Paul says, “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” This is not just a Pauline concept. Compare our Collect today also with 2 Peter 1:3-4 (RSV): “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge (cognitio: cf. eruditio) of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature (efficiamini divinae consortes).”

St. Augustine of Hippo (+430) beat up some Donatist heretics and dismantled their argument that all clerics ordained by a sinful bishop would be automatically stained in the same guilt. He used imagery like that of our prayer today (Ad Donatistas post collationem in CSEL 53:19.25, p. 123 my translation): “The sludge (lutum) their feet are stuck in is so thick and dense that, trying in vain to tear themselves out of it, they get their hands and head stuck in it too, and lingering in that sticky mess they get more tightly enveloped.” The Donatist argument was based in worldly, not heavenly, wisdom.

Sticky lutum is a metaphor of worldly life. Neglecting God, who speaks in the Church and our conscience, we weak sinners can convince ourselves of anything, over time: down becomes up, back is made front, black turns into white, and wrong is really right. We justify what we know, or knew, to be sinful. Once this becomes a habit, it is a vice in more than one sense of that word. Occasionally our consciences will struggle against the grip of self-deception, but quite often the proverbial “Struggle”, Novocain for the conscience, supplies permission: “I really ‘struggled’ with this, … before I did it!” If we go off the true path into the murky twisted woods, thoroughly mired in sticky error we will not escape the Enemy, the roaring lion seeking whom he might devour (1 Peter 5:8). Nor will we elude Christ the Judge, who will come through dark woods by straight paths. Advent reminds us to prepare for the coming of both the Enemy lion and the Lion of Judah who will open the seals and read forth the Book of Life (Rev 5:5).