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

St. John Bosco (+1888) was a great father figure and educator, working especially with orphaned boys and young men, organizing schools and workshops to teach them trades and give them formation with guidance.  These days a horrible war has been declared on boys and young men in common culture, which is riddled with the rot of a degrading  type of feminism and, now, effeminacy among men in the form of homosexual traits.  Pray to St. John Bosco in this time of need, especially that boys and men who have need of good and wholesome father figures may find them soon.

COLLECT:
Deus, qui beatum Ioannem presbyterum
adulescentium patrem et magistrum excitasti,
concede, quaesumus, ut, eodem caritatis igne succensi,
animas quaerere tibique soli servire valeamus.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O God, who roused up blessed John the priest
as a father and teacher of young men,
grant, we beseech You, that we, enflamed with the same fire of charity,
may be able to seek after souls and to serve only You.

The word adulescens gets our attention.  Just how old is an adulescens (which gives us our word “adolescent”)?  The Roman vocabulary for the different ages of man was a bit fluid but as s a starting point we can consult the mighty Lewis & Short Dictionary under the voice aetas and get some help.  Other entries for the specific words of age states also give varying information, but we will boil some of it down here before we get any older.

The polymath Varro divided the ages of man into pueritia, from birth to the 15th year, adulescentia, from that time to the 30th; iuventus, to the 45th; the age of seniores, to the 60th; and finally senectus, from that time until death. 

Others make a different division, for example, until the age of 7, a boy would be a puer, in the state of pueritia (a girl being a puella).  From 7 onward he would be an adulescens, in the state of adulescentia, until about 15 years.  He remained an adulescens until at least 30, and in some reckoning as old as 40, when he became a iuvenis (juvenis in the L&S) in the state of iuventus (which is not just an Italian soccer team).  At the age of about 65 a iuvenis became a senex, in the state of senectus.   A woman would often be consider an “old woman” from about 40 onward, being called a senex or by the term “matron” or anus (fem.), either married or unmarried.

We might recall the so-called “seven ages of man” spoken by Jacques (“All the world’s a stage…” in Shakespeare’s As You Like It (Act II, vii) who broke it down  into “infant”, childhood – “whining schooby”, adolescent – “lover”, young man – “soldier”, adult – “justice”, old man – “lean and slippered pantaloon”, second childhood of senility – “sans everything”.

  

 

Following tradition, Pope Benedict addressed himself at the beginning of the year to the judges and other canonists of the Roman Rota, the court which deals primarily as the court of appeal for matrimonial nullity cases. This annual allocution is closely watched by canonists worldwide to give some sense of the direction the Pope and the Rota will take in the development of jurisprudence. Generally, the Pope gently corrects what he sees as deficiencies, or praises positive developments. This year’s allocution (VIS has excerpts translated into English <a href="http://212.77.1.245/news_services/press/vis/dinamiche/d0_en.htm">here</a>) was given on Saturday and follows the traditional form.

There is a lot to digest in this year’s allocution. Two significant moments last year in the canonical world were the issuance of the Instruction, Dignitas connubii in the Spring, and the comments made by a number of bishops at the Synod of Bishops regarding the difficulties faced by pastors dealing with those in irregular marriage situations. At the Synod, a number of Bishops urged swifter and "more pastoral" applications of the law to those who are divorced and remarried, so that their marital situation can be regularized and they can be readmitted to the Eucharistic banquet. In this, these Bishops echoed the concerns Pope Benedict himself expressed to the clergy of the diocese of Aosta while on vacation there in July:

"

We all know that this is a particularly painful problem for people who live in situations in which they are excluded from Eucharistic Communion, and naturally for the priests who desire to help these people love the Church and love Christ. This is a problem.

None of us has a ready-made formula, also because situations always differ. I would say that those who were married in the Church for the sake of tradition but were not truly believers, and who later find themselves in a new and invalid marriage and subsequently convert, discover faith and feel excluded from the Sacrament, are in a particularly painful situation. This really is a cause of great suffering and when I was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, I invited various Bishops’ Conferences and experts to study this problem: a sacrament celebrated without faith. Whether, in fact, a moment of invalidity could be discovered here because the Sacrament was found to be lacking a fundamental dimension, I do not dare to say. I personally thought so, but from the discussions we had I realized that it is a highly-complex problem and ought to be studied further. But given these people’s painful plight, it must be studied further. "

and further

"On the one hand, therefore, is the good of the community and the good of the Sacrament that we must respect, and on the other, the suffering of the people we must alleviate. " (<a href="http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2005/july/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20050725_diocesi-aosta_en.html">Meeting with the Diocesan Clergy of Aosta</a>

The Pope truly recognizes the pain of those who have suffered failed marriages, but at the same time recognizes the authentic teaching of the Church that marriage is permanent, and cannot simply be ended. The canonical process for determining the invalidity of marriage cannot be simply a tool for "sanctifying" a divorce – not every marriage proposed to the tribunal is invalid, and it would be a travesty of justice were that to be the case.

Especially in some conservative or traditional sectors of the Church, there is concern that too many marriages are declared null by the Church’s courts, that "annulments" are too easily handed out. I myself shared this concern before beginning my work in a tribunal. The tribunal of the Archdiocese of Detroit is one of the busiest tribunals in the U.S., and therefore, one of the busiest in the world. Instead of seeing judges annulling marriages willy-nilly, with little regard for the law or for the facts of the case, I’ve found priests, lay canonists, and office personnel truly concerned about the administration of justice, the search for truth, and an appropriate pastoral response to the situations we’re asked to face. True, a large number of marriages are found to be invalid, but I have not seen any incidents of justice being miscarried, or of callous disregard for the truth.

This is precisely what the Pope calls for in his recent Allocution: a diligent search for the truth. It’s often said that pastoral concerns and the demands of justice and law are two separate, even opposed concerns. As eminent a canonist as Joaquin Llobell of Santa Croce University <a href="http://www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=83144">recently seemed to adopt this view.</a> Yet Pope Benedict clearly demonstrates that true pastoral concern is synonymous with the demands for justice, in that they both have as their aim the search for truth. Highlighting the pastoral nature of tribunal work, the Pope expressed concern that Tribunals not be overly preoccuppied with the "le formalità giuridiche previste" the prescribed legal formalities, and neglect the pastoral end of the process. At the same time, Courts must have an appropriate understanding of what "pastoral" means – not, as is often interpretted, giving people whatever they ask for and declaring marriages null without sufficient proof (the Law requires that the judge have "moral certitude" based on the evidence presented that the marriage is null).

In the end, the Pope urged the Rota, and by analogy all those involved in tribunal work, to handled cases with appropriate speed and foster a love for the truth, for it is Truth Himself who should be our guide and goal.

Ronald J. Rychlak ("Rishlak") has produced another good book in defense of THE TRUTH.  You might know him already from his masterly Hitler, the War and the Pope.   Now there comes, Righteous Gentiles: How Pius XII And the Catholic Church Saved Half a Million Jews from the Nazis

There are some very good books available which tell the truth about Servant of God Pope Pius XII.   For example, a recent book by a Rabbi is .

Also check out Fr. Pierre Blet, SJ: Pius XII and the Second World War: According to the Archives of the Vatican

In justice Pius XII ought to be declared a Righteous Gentile.

 

You know about the Roman Canon.  You know about canons in Rome.  Here is an interesting story about the possible burial of Civil War era cannons in a cemetery of Rome, Georgia.   It is worth the time to read it.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in January 2006 

Some indirect and somewhat dated feedback: In December there was an interesting conference in Rome sponsored by The Becket Fund. The events director, MD, told me that her grandfather is quite the fan of WDTPRS. So, to him I send kind greetings and thanks for his indirect kudos.

SUPER OBLATA (2002MR)
Altaribus tuis, Domine,
munera nostrae servitutis inferimus,
quae, placatus assumens,
sacramentum nostrae redemptionis efficias.

Right away you will be struck by the alliterative ‘s’ sounds. Today’s so-called “Prayer over the gifts” is also in the ancient Veronese Sacramentary. The densely printed pages of your very own copy of that paragon of Latin lemmas, the Lewis & Short Dictionary, divulge that servitus is (despite its–us ending) a feminine noun. It means, “the condition of a servus; slavery, serfdom, service, servitude.” Infero is “to carry, bring, put, or throw into or to a place”. This verb also can mean “to conclude, infer, draw an inference.” Latin, like all of us, has moods but not good moods or bad moods. Getting Latin moods into English can be a chore. Latin has the subjunctive mood, the bane of many a Latin student. In Latin, the subjunctive mood represents the predicate as an idea, as something conceived in the mind, abstracted from reality. Often people translate subjunctives into English with the auxiliary verbs “may, can, must, might, could, should, would” and indeed the subjunctive can be used to express views and wishes. However, the subjunctive is also applied to things that are in fact very concrete but in the sentence are somewhat logically remote from the subject and verb of the main sentence and are therefore considered to be abstract. This is the case in many relative sentences. In relative sentences the thing being treated can be very concrete and real but, because it is in a relative sentence, the subjunctive is used. It is very tempting for Latin students always to use those abovementioned auxiliary verbs automatically upon spotting any subjunctive. However, very often it is more accurate to make Latin subjunctives sound indicative when putting them into English. We must do that with our prayer today. Efficias is a subjunctive and some will be tempted to say something like “which you may make into the sacrament of our redemption.” It is actually more accurate to give efficias an indicative sound. So, let’s give this our best shot.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
We are bringing in to place upon your altars, O Lord,
the gifts of our service,
which, having been appeased as you take them up,
you make into the sacrament of our redemption.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord,
be pleased with the gifts we bring to your altar,
and make them the sacrament of our salvation.

What did the ICEL translator really do to the Latin prayer? Obvious he (she? they?) changed plural altaribus to a singular. Does this mean anything? Is there anything sinister here? Theologically spooky? Probably not, but we can use this as an opportunity to discuss Catholic things. I try to give the ICEL versions the benefit of the doubt, but they obviously veer, sharply, nay rather careen away from the Latin original. Why? Anyone with a little Latin can see this. We are justifiably suspicious of anything offered by ICEL, even the present, ongoing project. In the past the translators had reasons for their choices to distort the originals. It is not possible to believe that the bishops purposely employed translators so fantastically incompetent that they botched the prayers out lack of skill. In those days bishops would have still had a little background in Latin. They must have picked people with at least a minimum competency in Latin. Let’s leave aside their agenda of composing prayers not in the Missale Romanum. The translators therefore must have seen that, in today’s prayer, the Latin had a plural. Therefore, they wanted to change the Latin into something else. As Sherlock Holmes observed, when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Now, all in all today’s ICEL version isn’t completely off base. But why would the translators change Latin “altars” into “altar”? Was there a theological reason for making the change? We need a lens to view the question more closely.

Consider a first point: Catholics (which word in its roots means “universal”) have never historically been interested in making things or people “smaller”, in the sense of placing unreasonable or unrealistic restrictions on them. Our Church, despite what the media say or some sour-grapes fringe progressives claim, is not into placing unreasonable limits. For example, there is a famous principle of interpretation of the Church’s law whereby the advantages people have as expressed in law are to be amplified while the things that place restrictions on them must be interpreted as strictly or narrowly as possible so as to favor the rights of the individual (odiosa restringenda sunt, favorabilia amplianda).

Consider also a second point: as members of the Church we belong to something not only spread throughout the whole world but also transcending even the grave. No, Catholics are not into making people or things “small”.

Turn now to the ICEL prayer. The translator, by using a singular “altar” rather than the accurate “altars” repressed the fact that Catholics all over the world are this Sunday presenting their gifts on myriads of altars (altaribus), grand or small, simple or ornate, fixed to a wall or free-standing, marble with gilt reredos or on the hood of a sand-pocked armored humvee. People of many cultures focus on their hugely varying altars every day. Every day the one and same Sacrifice of the Mass is being offered for both the living and the dead of every age and in every place.

Please understand: it is a good thing to help a congregation to recognize its particular identity as it is gathered at its particular altar in its particular parish. It is not a good thing to do this at the expense of the Church’s universality, its catholicity. Moreover, altars are a sign of the presence of Jesus Christ, who is not to be limited to one place and time alone. Christ is not to be made “small”, nor is the unity of the Catholic People of God through time, space and even the passage of the grave. We can shift gears and come at this from another direction. Does the change to singular “altar” have anything to do with the attempt on the part of some to constrain all celebrations of Mass to be “facing the people”? This is a big jump.

Consider the following points. In the ancient Church, churches had usually one altar. As the Church grew and her understanding of the Blessed Sacrament and efficacy of Mass and role of priests evolved, churches were built with more than one altar especially under the influence of Western monasticism. There was clearly a main altar, a principal altar, which was the architectural, the visible, logical focus of the whole building. That special place within the sanctuary, itself set apart from the rest of the sacred building – like the ancient Jewish Holy of Holies within the Temple – was where the sacred mysteries were celebrated. Other altars in the church might be used at different times, particularly when many priests were in residence near the church who all needed to say Mass each day. This was certainly the case at a monastery, seminary or, once upon a time, parish. This was also during the time before “concelebration” was revived in the West.

For a long time there has been a movement to emphasize, in an exaggerated way, the importance of one unique altar in the sacred space of the church. This principle of the unicity of the altar is a theological concern not to be trifled with. Much serious ink has been spilled over this issue. However, an otherwise good principle can be applied with so heavy a hand that damage is done. This was certainly the case with the use of the vernacular versus Latin. For decades a maniacal effort to tear “extra” altars out of churches, even historic churches, has resulted in destruction that might have shocked the Visigoths. At the very best some main altars at the wall were converted into shelves for plants. But once the one altar principle was coupled with the goofy idea that the priest must face the people for the Eucharistic Prayer, the door was opened to jack-hammer and crowbar toting reformers. As it happens, the historical foundation for Mass facing the people has been debunked with real scholarship, but the damage has been done far and wide in older churches. The “experts” have had their way in most places. The “high altars” of our churches have been torn out in favor of a table, sometimes not even placed in the center of the eye’s focus. In some places altar are absurdly juxtaposed to and counterbalancing the ambo where the Scriptures are read. My comments here are more than a mere laus temporis acti… a praise of times gone by. The orientation of an altar is truly significant. People glean something very important from the layout of a church and the way the altar is placed and treated. By turning altars around we have, in my opinion, lost as a Church far more than we imagine we have gained. By forcing priest and people to face each other, in closed circle, we have made ourselves “small”.

Here in Rome and elsewhere you find churches with the main altar intact. However, in nearly every case a table altar has been set up in front of it. When I see a huge and magnificent high altar with a silly little ironing board set up also, I shake my head in incredulous disbelief. Many people have been duped into thinking that saying Mass versus populum is of such overriding value that they justify what looks like a picnic table compared to what stands behind it. Many of the same people will then harp on liturgical “diversity” to the point where virtually any liturgical abuse is tolerated, while clamping down in draconian ferocity on anyone who suggests that it is okay to have Mass also… get this… also oriented so that priest and congregation together face the liturgical “East”, whence the Church traditionally believed the Lord would return.

The discussion above is not irrelevant to the issue of liturgical translations, which is what WDTPRS is about. For example, the document of the USCCB called Built of Living Stones: Art, Architecture, and Worship (BLS), when treating the position of altars, in footnote 73 (once note 75) in its online version mistranslates the Latin of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) par. 299. The English mistranslation in BLS of the Latin description of the placement of the altar is skewed so as to impose versus populum celebrations of Mass, which the Latin does not say. The mistranslation was published in November 2000 and remains online now despite the fact that the Latin of that very paragraph 299 in the GIRM had been specifically explained and clarified by the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments (CDWDS – Prot. No. 2036/00/L – 25 September 2000) before the American bishops promulgated BLS. Those who wrote BLS and submitted it to the bishops for approval had to have known about that clarification by the CDWDS and so they must have submitted the mistranslation on purpose. Again, exclude the impossible and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. It is not naïve to suppose that presuppositions drive translation choices. They sure do in these columns!

Dear reader, include our bishops in your prayers. Ask their angel guardians to guide them in their duty to develop an accurate new English translation according to the norms.

In addition to the Chinese New Year, I am also celebrating the University of Minnesota (my native state) Golden Gopher Men’s Hockey team (YAY!) over the (Boooo) Badgers of Wisconsin (my adoptive state).

You may want to know that the symbol/mascot, the Golden Gopher of the University, is probably based on the Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel (Spermophilus tridecemlineatus). You decide.

Now I think we should all sing the…

MINNESOTA MARCH
By John Philips Sousa
LISTEN AND SING ALONG!!
Rah! Rah! Ski-U-Mah. Rah! Rah! Rah!
March on, March on to Victory.
Loyal Sons of the Varsity.
Fight on, Fight on for Minnesota.
For the glory of the Old Maroon and Gold.
March on, March on to win the game.
Down the field*, fighting every play.
We’re with you, team, Fighting team!
Hear our song, we cheer along.
To help you win a victory.

*(“field” = “rink”)

We are all hoping, I am sure, that the Gophers will win another NCAA title this year.

I had a wonderful experience today. I went with a friend, an ancient Chinese priest, a canon of St. Peter’s Basilica, who has been in Rome for many years, since before the whole sad business with Mao, to a New Year’s party held by the Taiwanese Embassy to the Holy See. We had many special dishes for the occasion, which by the way they look or the way their names are pronounced (having double meanings) are meant to bring good fortune for the incoming year. We were at the table with the ambassador along with several Chinese priests. It was a delightful lunch and occasion. Yours truly also won one of the prizes from the drawing, though I did not get the round trip ticket from Rome to Taipei, alas.

The observance of the New Year (Xin Nian) typically several days, but the New Year season lasts from the middle of the previous years’ final month to the middle of the first month in the new year. In the system of reckoning time, years are named in cycles of sixty years. The name of the year repeats every sixty years, therefore. 2006 is the 7th year in the cycle and is called bingxu, I am told. It is the year 4703.

To prepare for the New Year, people give their houses thorough cleaning so as to symbolically sweeping misfortune or bad luck and make room for incoming good fortune that they want to arrive. Doors and windows are often painted and decorated with paper cutouts depicting happiness, wealth and longevity. Characters on red paper are placed upside down on doors, because the Chinese word for "upside down" – "dao" – is like the word for "arrive", so, if the character for "spring" is put up upside down, that means that ‘spring is arriving". The same for "good fortune" etc.

New Yearis a time for family gatherings. Among the foods that are eaten are jiaozi – a boiled dumpling, literally meanings "sleep together and have sons", the meaning of which is apparent. Fish is also eaten because the Chinese word for "fish" sounds the same as that for "abundance". One also eats a seaweed called fat choi, a word sounding "prosperity". Noodles symbolize a long life.

On New Year’s Eve you are to leave all the lights on in your house tonight, by the way. I hear that is very good luck – particularly for the electric company. In the morning children get hong bao which are red envelopes with some money. Then people visit their neighbors to greet each other. They will sometimes give mandarin oranges as a token of good will and good fortune. At the banquet today we had great heaps of "mandarini" (so-called in Italian, of course) and the ambassador made sure to give some to the children who came when they were going out.

There are may more customs, of course, but you get the idea. It was a fine day.

So, I greet all of you with a hearty 恭喜发财 – Gongxi facai!

COLLECT:
Deus, qui beatum Thomam
sanctitatis zelo ac sacrae doctrinae studio
conspicuum effecisti,
da nobis, quaesumus,
et quae docuit intellectu conspicere,
et quae gessit imitatione complere.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O God, who made blessed Thomas
outstanding in zeal for holiness and diligent in application to sacred doctrine,
grant to us, we beg You,
both to fix our eyes by our intellect carefully on the things which he taught,
and also to fulfill by our imitation the things which he accomplished in action.

The verb gero has in it the idea of activity or exertion, “to sustain the charge of any undertaking or business, to administer, manage, regulate, rule, govern, conduct, carry on, wage, transact, accomplish, perform (cf.: facio, ago). Think of res gesta, “a deed” and res gestae, the “events, occurrences, acts, exploits” of a person’s life, as in the case of the famous Res gestae divi Augusti.

As an aside, I mentioned divus, which is classical usage is “of or belonging to a deity, divine”. In later classicising Christian language, it can be used for sanctus, as the title of a saint. Very often you will find in Renaissance writings, when authors were particularly interesting in classical forms of Latin, St. Thomas refered to as “Divus, as in the Summa Theologica divi Thomae Aquinatis, etc.

When I was studying philosophy at the then “College” of St. Thomas in St. Paul, (MN, USA) – which I did concurrently with grad school at the University of Minnesota – don’t ask me how – at the beginning of all the classes, we would always recite a prayer of St. Thomas Aquinas:

Concede mihi, miséricors
Deus, quae tibi sunt plácita,
ardenter concupíscere,
prudenter investigáre,
veráciter agnóscere,
et perfecte adimplére
ad laudem et gloriam Nominis tui. Amen.

Grant me, O merciful God,
to desire ardently,
to investigate prudently,
to acknowledge honestly,
and perfectly to fulfill
those things that are pleasing to Thee,
to the praise and glory of Thy Name. Amen.

The translation in English was different at the school, but… there it is. Here we have total submission of the higher faculties of man to God, who created them and gave them to us as gifts. That is to say, “have authority over me so that I can be more who I am supposed to be.”

In this time when Catholic Education is so very much of in need of care and correction in so vary many places, do not forget to ask St. Thomas for his intercession so that those who oversee these matters, will have the courage and knowledge of how to do those things which are pleasing to God, without the softening fear of human respect.

Things are really looking up in Michigan, aren’t they. Think about it. First, they were blessed to receive His Excellency Robert Carlson as Bishop of Saginaw. Bishop Carlson is a real straight shooter and sound fellow all around. They have now received the gift of His Excellency Alex Sample, the brand shiny new Bishop of Marquette. He is a pious and very bright, faithful man who will dedicate both ends of the candle day and night to his flock. Count on it.

Now we read in The Detroit Freep that His Excellency, Most Reverend Thomas Gumbleton has resigned his post as auxilliary in Detroit. Moreover:

However, archdiocesan spokesman Ned McGrath would not confirm that Maida will keep Gumbleton at St. Leo’s, an appointment he has held since 1983.

“It’s up to the cardinal now,” McGrath said. “I don’t know about staying pastor at St. Leo’s. They’ll have to have discussions about that.”

Maida, who was in Marquette on Wednesday for the installation of a new bishop for the Upper Peninsula, could not be reached for comment. But McGrath said the cardinal, who staunchly opposes opening up past abuse cases to legal action, is likely to raise major questions about his former auxiliary’s political activism.

Let us sing a verse of the grand song:

Thou are so pure, but modest too,
Michigan, my Michigan;
Thou art so brave and still so true,
Michigan, my Michigan,
No promise unfulfilled; -on trust
Thy noble sons have bit the dust,
Remembered are they. For thou art just – Michigan, my Michigan.

PS: There is even some Latin in the 5th stanza.

A long time ago, in a parish far far away, I got in terrible trouble on the feast of St. Angela Merici (+1540), who was foundress of the Ursulines in Brescia and is a patroness of Catholic education.

I had been asked to go to the parish school to bless the school rooms. Naturally such an undertaking would require spending some time in the rooms talking with the children. On my appointed rounds in this K-8 school, I wanted to make sure that the kids knew what I was doing and what it was for. Armed with ritual and holy water, off I went.

Now, one might expect a certain amount of hesitation in the youngest of the children when asked if they knew what the difference is between a sacrament and a sacramental. However, after around 6-8 years of Catholic education you might think that the older children would know at least how to respond to some part of that question. To my astonishment, in the 6th, 7th and 8th grade classes I could no find a single child… not a single child… who could tell me even the name of ONE of the sacraments, much less what a sacrament is or, imagine, what a sacramental is. So, I spent a little time in each class explaining what a sacrament is. I figured that if the kids were going to HOLY COMMUNION at school Masses, they might as well know that “that piece of bread thing”* was a sacrament.

What was the reaction of the teachers? They got angry with ME for explaining to the children what sacraments are and difference between them and blessings, which are sacramentals. They got angry with me, even though it was THEIR responsibility in the ambient of the school room to teach the basics of our Catholic faith to the children in their charge. Not being one to take issues like this lightly, the ruckus did not die down for while.

To make a long story short, I always remember with bittersweet fondness the feast day of St. Angela Merici. I will thus put to you simple questions. Do your children know what a sacrament is? Do they know the names of the sacraments? Do they know what the difference is between a sacrament and a sacramental?

COLLECT:
Pietati tuae, quaesumus, Domine,
nos beata virgo Angela commendare non desinat,
ut, eius caritatis et prudentiae documenta sectantes,
tuam valeamus doctrinam custodire
et moribus profiteri.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
We beg You, O Lord, let the blessed virgin Angela
not cease to commend us to You mercy,
so that, closely following her concrete examples of charity and prudence,
we may be able to guard Your fundamental teaching
and make progess in a good conduct of life.

Here I am guessing that doctrina is not just simply “teaching”, but “teaching” in the sense of “catechism”. For example, when Italians talk about the fundamental
catechism given to children they call it “la dottrina”. Since this prayer concerns a saint foundress of an order dedicated to teaching children, this seems a good choice.

We should all take time to review the fundamental teachings of our Catholic Faith. We read in 1Peter 3:15: “Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence.” A good way to make this review would be with your own copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Get one and give one to those whom you love.

*This was an actual response I once got from a child two days before making his First Holy Communion. Having been asked to show the kids the church and help them understand what to do, I showed them how to genuflect before the tabernacle. They were previously unaware of such a practice. Of course, children like to know WHY they do things, right? So, I said that we pay special attention to the tabernacle (pointing to it and explaining that I meant that beautiful box, etc. etc.) because that is where Jesus is present in the Host they were going to receive for their First Communion. Blank stares. So, going deeper, we had a little quiz about Communion, and its meaning. Blank stares. I asked about Jesus and His being present in Communion. Blank stares. I asked about if they had ever noticed that their parents receive the Host during Mass. At that point one young boy said, “You mean that piece of bread thing?”

One of the things that keeps me a) in touch with the USA and b) sane is listening to streams of various radio and TV shows in my native land. One I particularly like is William Bennett’s Morning in America, which has a subscription services also broadcasts on various radio stations throughout the USA. I am a fairly regular e-mailer and caller to their show. This morning I was on with them for about 10 minutes talking about the Holy Father’s new encylical letter. I post this mainly because I think it is great that a national talk radio show is talking in a serious way about an encyclical of a Pope! Listen to Bennett sometime. His show is great. There is a clip of my interview available on the show’s web site. I don’t know how long it will be available, however.

In all the flurry of activity in the wake of the new encyclical of Pope Benedict, let us not forget to pray for the (now) youngest bishop in the USA, His Excellency Alexander K. Sample who was consecrated yesterday, 25 January 2006, as the new Bishop of Marquette in Michigan. Bishop Sample is a friend from years past. I have every confidence that he will be a good bishop. Do keep him in your prayers.

Ad multos annos!

Pope Benedict tackles in his encyclical the degrading results that come from an ideologized approach to improving man’s lot. If Deus caritas est is offered in part a lens through which we might consider other documents he has promulgated, consider this.

In his Message for the World Day of Peace on 1 January, last, His Holiness spoke of atheistic, materialistic regimes which harm man’s dignity through imposing false "truths". In Deus caritas est he says,

Part of Marxist strategy is the theory of impoverishment: in a situation of unjust power, it is claimed, anyone who engages in charitable initiatives is actually serving that unjust system, making it appear at least to some extent tolerable. This in turn slows down a potential revolution and thus blocks the struggle for a better world. Seen in this way, charity is rejected and attacked as a means of preserving the status quo. What we have here, though, is really an inhuman philosophy. People of the present are sacrificed to the moloch of the future, a future whose effective realization is at best doubtful. One does not make the world more human by refusing to act humanely here and now. We contribute to a better world only by personally doing good now, with full commitment and wherever we have the opportunity, independently of partisan strategies and programmes. The Christian’s programme ”the programme of the Good Samaritan, the programme of Jesus is a heart which sees.

Two things strike me in this paragraph. First, the image of Moloch the hideous pagan god upon whose red hot fire-heated brass statues living babies were sacrificed while its priests banged on drums to drown out their screams, lest the people be moved to pity. This could also be a description of the way that the horrors of abortion are treated in some circles today. Secondly, you can hear a touch of the theological background of His Holiness who is steeped in the writings of St. Augustine together with St. Bonaventure. In the citation from Deus caritas est above, I hear an echo of Richard of St. Victor who said: "Love is the eye and to love is to see." Richard of St. Victor deeply influenced St. Bonaventure.

So much of what Pope Benedict XVI wrote in the first part of Deus caritas est is quite familiar to me – and subsequently I hope also to readers of WDTPRS.

For example, I just placed online my previous work on the prayers for the 4th Sunday of Ordinary Time. In glancing at the first time I wrote about the Collect of that Mass, in the first year of this series back in 2000, I cite several of the sources in which Benedict is quite well versed.

This is to be explained quite simply. First, I have read closely and extensively the writings of Joseph Ratzinger. Secondly, I have some of the same background since I was able long ago to avail myself of still solid Thomistic/Aristotelean philosophical formation at the then College of St. Thomas in St. Paul (MN – USA) in the ‘80s, before the department (and school), morphed into something less Catholic and less systematic. Lastly, when I worked in the Palazzo del Sant’Uffizio, which house the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, I was audacious enough to stop His Eminence in the when I ran into him (fairly often as it turned out) and ask him questions. As a matter of fact, then Cardinal Ratzinger actually suggested to me my thesis topic for my STL in Patristics.

Oh yes, that is the other point of connection: my field is Patristic Theology with a focus on St. Augustine of Hippo. Joseph Ratzinger also began in Patristics, with Augustine, and his love of the Fathers has never left him. Ergo, there are bound to be many points of contact between the the one who forms and the one who is formed. To echo Robert Sanderson (Bishop of Lincoln +1663) “Am not I a child of the same Adam … a chip of the same block, with him?”.

Let’s look at some points of contact in one of my WDTPRS articles and the Pope’s new encyclical. These points of contact not perfect anticipations, but they reveal a forma mentis. I am doing this in no way to seem self-serving. Rather, I want to show that similar foundations and attentive study can, over time, guide and direct though along the same paths as those trod by another. I am sure that others can do this comparison with their own writings. At least I hope they can!

From WDTPRS in 2000:

Commonly used, “love” today usually refers not to the kind of love which is really Christian “charity”, that sacrificial love which in seeking always the good of the other resembles the sacrificial love of Christ, the theological virtue that permits us to love as images of God. Bob can “love” his Ferrari, Susie can “love” her kitty, and without doubt we all “love” baseball and spaghetti. We can talk about the different tenors of love, such as the love of benevolence, or of complacence, of enemies, concupiscence. But we are called to a special sort of love in this prayer… true charity: the infused virtue which makes it possible for us to love God for His own sake and love all those who are made in His image. This is more than benevolence or tolerance, more than appetitive desire. Love is not merely a response to some appetite, like seeing a beautiful member of the opposite sex, a well-turned double-play, or a plate of spaghetti all’amatriciana. It isn’t the sloppy gazing of passion drunk sweethearts or what we see on TV primetime. I call that luv. Real love is the adhesion of the will to an object which is grasped by the intellect to be good. Real love, the sort of love invoked in our prayer, is an act of will. This love delights in the other and is informed by a longing for the good of the other. It makes two resound with one spirit. Love, in the sense this prayer offers, is an act of will based on the work of a discerning intellect that is reshaped and informed by grace.

From DCE in 2005:

2. God’s love for us is fundamental for our lives, and it raises important questions about who God is and who we are. In considering this, we immediately find ourselves hampered by a problem of language. Today, the term “love” has become one of the most frequently used and misused of words, a word to which we attach quite different meanings. Even though this Encyclical will deal primarily with the understanding and practice of love in sacred Scripture and in the Church’s Tradition, we cannot simply prescind from the meaning of the word in the different cultures and in present-day usage.

Let us first of all bring to mind the vast semantic range of the word “love”: we speak of love of country, love of one’s profession, love between friends, love of work, love between parents and children, love between family members, love of neighbour and love of God. Amid this multiplicity of meanings, however, one in particular stands out: love between man and woman, where body and soul are inseparably joined and human beings glimpse an apparently irresistible promise of happiness. This would seem to be the very epitome of love; all other kinds of love immediately seem to fade in comparison. So we need to ask: are all these forms of love basically one, so that love, in its many and varied manifestations, is ultimately a single reality, or are we merely using the same word to designate totally different realities?

From WDTPRS in 2000:

We come back to the connection of knowledge and love, mentioned above. It seems to me that these two are so closely related that they cannot be easily distinguished at times. I am willing to bet that all of us have had the experience of getting to know something or someone and then, “falling in love.” Billy might be fascinated by bugs. From this love for bugs he simply must come to know everything there is to know about them, thus setting the stage for a brilliant career in entomology. On the other hand, we get to know a person or a city and, the more we learn about this complex object of our intellectual effort, we slowly come to appreciate their beauty and come even to a genuine love. Simply put, when we love someone, we want to know everything about him or her and the more we learn the more we love. This is how we must be with God: constantly seeking to understand Him more and more so as to love Him more and more, and by that very love coming to understand things about God that, without love, would not be possible for us to learn. The desire for both love and knowledge are built into who we are and we have a relationship with the objects of both love and knowledge.

From DCE in 2005:

17…. In the gradual unfolding of this encounter, it is clearly revealed that love is not merely a sentiment. Sentiments come and go. A sentiment can be a marvellous first spark, but it is not the fullness of love. Earlier we spoke of the process of purification and maturation by which eros comes fully into its own, becomes love in the full meaning of the word. It is characteristic of mature love that it calls into play all man’s potentialities; it engages the whole man, so to speak. Contact with the visible manifestations of God’s love can awaken within us a feeling of joy born of the experience of being loved. But this encounter also engages our will and our intellect. Acknowledgment of the living God is one path towards love, and the “yes” of our will to his will unites our intellect, will and sentiments in the all- embracing act of love. But this process is always open-ended; love is never “finished” and complete; throughout life, it changes and matures, and thus remains faithful to itself.

From WDTPRS in 2000:

The great 13th century saint and doctor of the Church Bonaventure described “ecstatic knowledge.” This kind of knowledge is merely the product of abstract investigation. Rather, it starts first from standing back and contemplating. By contemplation, the knower becomes engaged with the object, becomes fascinated by it and wants to know it more deeply. This longing draws the knower into the object. Consider: we can study about God and our faith. But really the object of study is a living Person, not a set of abstractions. We need the sort of knowledge of God that draws us into Him. This is a “knowledge” which reaches into us, seizes us, pulls us into itself and transforms us. To experience God’s love is to have certain knowledge, more certain than any knowledge which can be arrived at by means of merely rational examination (but not in opposition to it).

From DCE in 2005:

5. … . Christian faith, on the other hand, has always considered man a unity in duality, a reality in which spirit and matter compenetrate, and in which each is brought to a new nobility. True, eros tends to rise “in ecstasy” towards the Divine, to lead us beyond ourselves; yet for this very reason it calls for a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in January 2005

Feedback from readers – MB opines via e-mail about my special column on the use and necessity of Latin: “I have to tell you how much I enjoyed this column in The Wanderer. Of course, I enjoy all of your WDTPRS columns too. … Disappointment with the translation of the prayers of the Mass is right up there with disappointment with any translation I have come across of the Divine Office. Amateur that I am, even I know enough Latin to recognize a ‘creative’ interpretation. How do they get away with this? Thanks again for all your work, and that you can do it with such kindness and yet a sense of humor should show some people I know that those who love the Mass and the Latin are not necessarily curmudgeons.” Thanks, MB, for the kind thoughts.

Today’s prayer was not in the post-Tridentine editions of the Missale Romanum but it does have its origin in the Leonine Sacramentary or, as it is better titled by its editor, the scholarly L. Cunibert Mohlberg, the Veronese Sacramentary. The three most important ancient sacramentaries are the Leonine/Veronese, Gelasian and Gregorian. The Sacramentarium Veronense (SV hereafter), so called because it exists in a single manuscript in Verona, is dated by famed paleographer E.A. Lowe to the first quarter of the 7th c. The material of the SV is a collection of Roman Mass books perhaps made by Maximianus, archbishop of Ravenna from 546-557 and, according to Joseph Lucchesi, its calendar follows that of Ravenna of the time. The prayers in the SV are attributable to Popes Leo I (+461), Gelasius (+496) and Vigilius (+557). Were you to hear this prayer intoned in Latin, or at least in an accurate translation, you would be thereby transported back 1500 years to our most Roman of Catholic roots.

COLLECT - LATIN TEXT (2002MR):
Concede nobis, Domine Deus noster,
ut te tota mente veneremur,
et omnes homines rationabili diligamus affectu.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord our God,
help us to love you with all our hearts
and to love all men as you love them.

Is this what the