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

You have to love this.

EXCERPT:

AN ITALIAN judge has ordered a priest to appear in court this month to prove that Jesus Christ existed.

The case against Father Enrico Righi has been brought in the town of Viterbo, north of Rome, by Luigi Cascioli, a retired agronomist who once studied for the priesthood but later became a militant atheist.

Signor Cascioli, author of a book called The Fable of Christ, began legal proceedings against Father Righi three years ago after the priest denounced Signor Cascioli in the parish newsletter for questioning Christ’s historical existence.

Yesterday Gaetano Mautone, a judge in Viterbo, set a preliminary hearing for the end of this month and ordered Father Righi to appear. The judge had earlier refused to take up the case, but was overruled last month by the Court of Appeal, which agreed that Signor Cascioli had a reasonable case for his accusation that Father Righi was “abusing popular credulity”.

Signor Cascioli’s contention — echoed in numerous atheist books and internet sites — is that there was no reliable evidence that Jesus lived and died in 1st-century Palestine apart from the Gospel accounts, which Christians took on faith. There is therefore no basis for Christianity, he claims.

Signor Cascioli’s one-man campaign came to a head at a court hearing last April when he lodged his accusations of “abuse of popular credulity” and “impersonation”, both offences under the Italian penal code. He argued that all claims for the existence of Jesus from sources other than the Bible stem from authors who lived “after the time of the hypothetical Jesus” and were therefore not reliable witnesses.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? Vigil of Epiphany

On 20 December Pope Benedict XVI addressed the members of the Sistine Chapel Choir about the importance of sacred music and liturgical celebration. He said an important thing (my translation): “The Pope’s liturgy, the liturgy in (the Basilica) of St. Peter, must be the model liturgy for the world. You know that with television, with radio, today many people in all the regions of the world are able to follow this liturgy. They learn from here, or, they don’t learn from here, what liturgy is, how one ought to celebrate the liturgy.” Now, this seems an obvious point. But Benedict is changing the way papal liturgies are celebrated. He is reclaiming the tradition of Gregorian chant and a cappella music. “Tradition is convinced that choirs of ‘white voices’ (trans. “boys choirs”) can cause us to hear an echo of the angelic song.” The Pope is reintroducing a much stronger dimension of contemplation, of adoration. In Benedict’s Christmas address to the Roman Curia on 22 December he said (again my translation): “In the period of the liturgical reform, Mass and (Eucharistic) adoration outside of Mass were often seen as being in contrast to each other: the Eucharistic bread was not given to be contemplated, but to be eaten, according to one objection spread around then. In the experience of the prayer of the Church, the lack of sense of such estrangement has by now been made plain. Long ago St. Augustine had already said: … “But let no one eat this flesh unless they will have first adored it; … we would sin in not adoring it” (cf. en. ps. 98,9 in CCL 39:1385). In fact, it is not the case that in the Eucharist we receive simply some thing. It is a meeting, the bringing into unity of persons; the Person, however, who comes to meet us and desires to be united with us is the Son of God.” Veteran WDTPRSers know I have recounted what we were harangued with in seminary by the less than liturgically traditional faculty. For example, in their view of sacred music, “Gregorian chant ought to be seen and not heard!”, and in reference to Eucharistic adoration: “Jesus said ‘take and eat’, not ‘sit and look!” They consistently got everything exactly wrong. And now Pope Benedict has come.

Epiphany comes from the Greek word for a divine “manifestation” or “revelation”. The Latin Church’s liturgy for this feast, especially in its antiphons for Vespers, reflect the tradition that Epiphany was thought to be the day not only when the Magi came to adore Christ, but also the day Jesus changed water into wine at Cana, and also when He was baptized by St. John. Each of these three mysteries reveals Jesus as more than a mere man: He is the man God. There are many “epiphanies” or “theophanies” in Scripture (e.g., the burning bush, the Transfiguration). The history of the feast of Epiphany is complex, stretching back to the Church’s earliest times. In the East, Epiphany was of far greater importance than the relative latecomer Christmas. In the West, Christmas came first and the celebration of Epiphany developed later. In many today Epiphany, not Christmas, is when people exchange gifts in imitation of the Magi. In truth, Epiphany falls on 6 January, the twelfth day after Christmas, as in “On the Twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…”, a song some think comes from Ireland during the time when Catholicism was illegal. Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night refers to Epiphany.

Exquisite customs grace this day, including giving gifts and enjoying King Cake and Lamb’s Wool (a drink made from cider or ale with roasted apples, sugar and spices). People blessed apple trees by pouring a libation of cider on them. There is a special blessing of chalk used for hallowing homes: on the lintels of the doors you write “20 + C + M + B + 06”, the year with the initials for the names of the Magi found in the older Rituale Romanum, Gaspar (G and C being related), Melchior et Baltássar. A few years ago a WDTPRSer wrote suggesting that CMB is really “Christus Mansionem Benedicat… May Christ bless this dwelling”, but is so only by coincidence. The names of the Magi are traditional and are not in Scripture. Some ancient authors thought there were as many as 24 Magi… which would fill up a lintel pretty fast. Sometime people call the three stars of the “belt” of the constellation Orion “the Three Kings”. In Italy children wait for “La Befana” (from Italian “Epifania”), an old woman invited by the Magi to accompany them on their journey to find the newborn King. The old woman declined because she was sweeping her house, but she realized her error followed the Magi, who were far ahead of her. She is still searching for Jesus, riding her broomstick. Santa-like, she visits homes leaving toys and candy for good children, and the proverbial lumps of coal for the naughty. Santa gets cookies and milk by fireplaces to sustain him on his way, but Italians appropriately leave wine and oranges for La Befana.

In years past we examined the prayers for Epiphany’s Mass during the day. However, in the 2002 editio typica of the Missale Romanum there is now a new Vigil Mass with its own texts. There was no Vigil in the earlier editions. Since we have never examined these new Vigil prayers, we can look at all three and find out what they really say.

COLLECT (2002MR) “in Vigilia”
Corda nostra, quaesumus, Domine,
tuae maiestatis splendor illustret,
quo mundi huius tenebras transire valeamus,
et perveniamus ad patriam claritatis aeternae.

This Collect or “Opening prayer” was based closely on another in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary for the Mass “in vigiliis de theophania”, “theophany” or “manifestation of God” being another way to express “epiphania”.

Our nifty Lewis & Short Dictionary makes us aware of the subtlties of transeo. This verb can be anything from “cross over” to “pierce, transfix” and “surpass”. Usually we are helped with a preposition to find its meaning. Here we simply have an accusative object temebras which leaves me with the sense of “pierce through”. There is a subtle contrast in trans + eo and per + venio which in their components are very similar but which diverge in meaning, the former indicating the process of the movement, the later referring to its completion. This is elegant. Notice also the three word splendor, maiestas, and claritas which are nearly synonymous and refer all to God’s gloria (Greek doxa and Hebrew kabod), the glorious transforming characteristic of God’s sight and presence which we will experience for all eternity in heaven. We have seen this concept many times in WDTPRS but here the words, stacked one upon another, bring God’s glory into special focus.

LITERAL TRANSLATION
May the splendor of Your majesty,
O Lord, we beseech You, light up our hearts,
by which we may be able to pass through the shadows of this world,
and come through to the fatherland of eternal glory.

We are on a journey through this vale of tears, striving with our might to reach our longed for destination, our heavenly homeland. In St. Augustine’s (+430) theology, Christ Himself is the patria, the Fatherland, as well as being the way to get there, the via. He is “light from light” shining in the darkness, who alone can illuminate our lives. Only with the help of grace can we pass through the shadowy tangle of this earthly existence. Just as a light pierces through darkness, grace knifes through the black shadows like a highly focused beam into our hearts, illuminating them. In turn, perhaps, our own hearts, shining with God’s presence, then can become beacons for others to follow all the way to Christ. Each one of us might be able to be both guiding star and Magi who lead to Christ and then, finding Him, return safe to our intended homeland.

SUPER OBLATA (2002MR) “in Vigilia”
Suscipe, quaesumus, Domine, munera nostra,
pro apparitione Unigeniti Filii tui
et primitiis gentium dicata,
ut et tibi celebretur laudatio
et nobis fiat aeterna salvatio.

There may be herein a trace of Augustine of Hippo (+430) who in two sermons on Epiphany (s. 204 and 373) used the phrase primitiis gentium. Bernard of Clairvaux (+1153) does the same in an Epiphany sermon (s. 3) in a sentence beginning Hodie ergo apparitio Domini celebratur. Otherwise, this is probably a new composition. The only tricky word is pro, which can mean about 15 different things. Take note of the parallel et… et structure in the last two lines: dative + passive verb + subject noun with a –tio. Frankly, I am not very impressed with this Latin prayer. The pro leaves one a little confused, particularly as it is applied to both an action (apparitio) and then things (primitiae) which is clunky, in my opinion. I don’t object to anything the prayer expresses, but the Latin and structure of the thought is awkward.

LITERAL TRANSLATION
Receive, O Lord, we implore, our gifts
dedicated in commemoration of the appearance of Your Only-begotten Son
and of the first representatives of the gentiles,
so that both a rite of praise may be celebrated for You
and eternal salvation maybe be brought about for us.

We move now quickly to the prayer of gratitude after Communion and the purification of the vessels, before we are sent back out into the world with the priest’s blessing.

POST COMMUNION (2002MR) “in Vigilia”
Sacra alimonia renovati,
tuam, Domine, misericordiam deprecamur,
ut semper in mentibus nostris tuae appareat stella iustitiae
et noster in tua sit confessione thesaurus.

The phrase, “ut semper in mentibus nostris tuae appareat stella iustitiae et noster in tua sit confessione thesaurus” is in a prayer for the day of Epiphany in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary. L&S says that alimonia means “nourishment, food, sustenance, support”. Similar phrases with alimonia begin Post communion prayers on the 2nd Sunday of Advent and on Christ the King. The word confessio doesn’t refer our making sacramental confessions, but rather to our action of openly professing faith in God (tua confessione) by word and deed.

LITERAL TRANSLATION
Having been renewed by means of sacred sustenance,
we plead for Your mercy, O Lord,
so that the star of Your justice may always appear in our minds
and that our treasure may be in the open profession of You.

This prayer makes reference to the star that guided the Magi to the crib of the infant King. The star is identified with justice, a theme in the liturgy for Epiphany: in Psalm 72, used at Mass on the day itself, we read: “Give the king thy justice, O God, and thy righteousness to the royal son! May he judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with justice!” In this final prayer of Mass the star foreshadows the sublime reference to the star in the first prayer of Mass on the next day: “O God, who today revealed your Only-begotten, a star having been the guide (stella duce) …”. The gifts brought by the Magi to the Christ Child are embodied in the word “treasure” although, for us, far greater riches are to be gleaned from an open and faithful profession of faith in Christ.

In this dark day of secular relativism, we need ever more urgently for our minds and hearts to be illuminated, both so that we may see clearly in the shadows and also so that others may see us and, in that sight, be so moved as to take up the same journey. We need the light of truth to help us see the things of the world clearly and fairly. We must untangle what they mean and, in many cases, what they do not mean. In justice and equity we should hear what others are really saying or, on the other hand, really trying to say when they express themselves poorly. In this way we will engage the world and those whom we encounter in truth and justice, without which we cannot love in the manner the Christ Child, Christ Victim, revealed.

The WDTPRS series aims to help you explore more fully and love more deeply the content of the prayers of Holy Mass. Fr. Zuhlsdorf welcomes e-mail (frz@wdtprs.com) and letters sent in care of The Wanderer. Visit the Archive and the Blog (wdtprs.com). Fr. Z is Moderator of the ASK FATHER Question Box (askfather.net) and Catholic Online Forum (forum.catholic.org). This is sixth year of the series.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? Epiphany

We come now to Twelfth Night, which this year is really Eleventh Night, since Epiphany (from the Greek for “manifestation”) is now commonly transferred to a nearby Sunday. We are still in Christmastide, that marvelous opportunity to reflect on certain mysteries of the life of the Lord. In fact, there is a threefold mystery unfolded in the time of Epiphany, which is a very ancient feast, far older in observance that Christmas itself. In the time following Epiphany (its own liturgical season before the reforms of the Second Vatican Council), the Church explored different revelations or manifestations of the divinity of Christ, especially in the Gospel readings on the Sundays after Epiphany. The antiphon for second vespers of Epiphany, recalled three manifestations of Christ’s divinity as occurring on this day: “Tribus miraculis ornatum diem sanctum colimus: hodie…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 feast of the Baptism of the Lord is so close to Epiphany. Epiphany once had its own octave and was in many places a Holy Day of Obligation, both of which have, alas, departed per aliam viam, “by another road”.

There are some exquisite customs for this day including a special blessing of chalk to be used in hallowing homes. The chalk is used to mark the lintels of the doors in the format 20 + C + M + B + 03. Veterans of WDTPRS will instantly remember last year when CM wrote that CMB stood for Christus Mansionem Benedicat… “May Christ bless this house”. Well, it didn’t and doesn’t. These are the initials of the three magi (even though Scripture doesn’t count them, much less name them, and some ancient authors thought there were as many as 24, but I digress). Then JB of LA in CA wrote snail-mail denouncing me for writing C+M+B on doorways since the old Rituale Romanum provides the names as Gaspar (G not C), Melchior et Baltássar! As young people are wont to say these days: “Whatever”. In many places Epiphany is the time to give gifts and eat King Cake and Lamb’s Wool. Make some now while turning to our task at hand.

The first thing we observe when looking up our prayer in the new 2002 editio typica of the Missale Romanum is that there is now a new vigil Mass of Epiphany with its own texts. There was no vigil in the 1962, 1970 or 1975 editions. The introit for the vigil Mass, Surge, Ierusalem (cf. Baruch 5:5 and Isaiah 60:1-6), seems to have no precedent in either the Tridentine or Novus Ordo books. Thus, since there is no chant for the introit a schola cantorum would have to make substitutions or, I suppose, put together a chant on the text from an older existing melody. That is how things were ever done, of course. Recycling is nothing new to the Church, be it in texts, architecture, art, theology, (scandals), or music. Which reminds me of a story I once heard. You might all know about the great Benedictine Abbey of Solesmes in France where the best Gregorian chant books are produced by pontifical mandate. Once upon a time, during the renewal of the books after the Council, a visitor came to the Abbey eager to see what was going on and how the monks went about their business editing the new liturgical chant volumes. The Abbot was quite pleased to show him around. Entering a large and bright work studio, the visitor saw many things both wondrous and curious. There were great manuscripts of the most ancient provenance from which the scholar monks did their research for the precise notes and phrases of each melody. There were great reference works, including the esteemed Lewis & Short Dictionary. There were many well-seasoned monks hard at work at their tables, reading, writing, creating and setting type. There was, however, one monk who was off by himself in a corner. Upon further examination our visitor discerned that he was intently and painstakingly cutting and pasting tiny slips of paper into precise patterns on a page. Impressed with what must have without question been a labor of monumental import, our visitor asked the Abbot for insight into who he was and what was his clearly precious work. “Oh yes,” quoth the venerable divine in a low tone, “this is Brother Frodobertus. He composes the new chants.”

POST COMMUNIONEM – Ad Missam in die
LATIN (2002 Missale Romanum):
Caelesti lumine, quaesumus, Domine,
semper et ubique nos praeveni,
ut mysterium, cuius nos participes esse voluisti,
et puro cernamus intuitu, et digno percipiamus affectu.

This prayer was once the Postcommunio of the commemoration of the Baptism of the Lord observed on 13 January according to the 1962MR unless it happened that the day coincided with the first Sunday after Epiphany, in which case the feast of the Holy Family was celebrated.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Father,
guide us with your light.
Help us to recognize Christ in this eucharist
and welcome him with love.

As much as I hate to pick on the lame duck ICEL versions, this is less than good. I think we can do better without even trying to make a smooth and elegant version suitable for Mass.

And as always when we do this, we want to know just what those words really mean. You know where to find the meanings too. Our vocabulary is fairly straight forward. We could review intuitus, related to the verb intueor, meaning, “a look, view” and thus also, “respect, consideration”. In his Eucharistic poem Adoro te devote St. Thomas Aquinas wrote: Plagas, sicut Thomas, non intueor, Deum tamen meum te confiteor:… ”I do not view your wounds as Thomas did, nevertheless I profess You to be my God”. Moer about intuitus below. Affectus, which we have seen before, is from the complicated verb aff- or adficio and means many things. It is apparently not used as a substantive. In order to understand what is happening with this word, we need to look at another derivative of afficio: the noun affectio. Briefly, affectio is “The relation to or disposition toward a thing produced in a person by some influence” and “A change in the state or condition of body or mind, a state or frame of mind, feeling (only transient, while habitus is lasting).”

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O Lord, we beg you,
go before us always and everywhere with heavenly illumination,
so that we may discern with a pure regard the sacramental mystery,
of which you desired us to be participants,
and perceive it with a worthy disposition.

At first glance, you will see immediately a reference to the miraculous star that led the Magi to the Christ Child: “go before us with a celestial light (lumen).” There are also verbs of perceiving and discerning in our prayer (cerno…percipio). We have the image of some in a journey through a dark place who needs both light and also sharpened senses so that he can make the best use of that light lest he lose his way and himself in the losing. Think of the way that Dante is led from the chaos of his life to the light of reason through the allegorical figures sent to guide his way out of the symbolic “dark wood.” Think of the way, in J.R.R. Tolkien’s works, light is always a sign of grace aiding those in dire need, such as when the light of a special star captured in a vial illuminates a dark path for Frodo and Sam as they are trying to carry their horrible burden, the Ring, into Mordor as an act of pure self-sacrifice. We pray for light from above, “heavenly” light. Our prayer today offers a metaphor for our interior journey to Christ. We need graces and lights from above in order to find our way or, as the case may be, find our way back out of the darkness into which we may have fallen. We must therefore consider further the verb praevenio. This signifies, “to come before, precede, get the start of, to outstrip, anticipate, to prevent; to come or go beforehand (late Lat.).”

The word praevenio will remind us right away of the theological distinction made when speaking of actual graces. You recall that God gives us habitual grace, also called sanctifying grace. This is in us as a habit is in us, in a stable and abiding manner. Actual graces are given to us according to our needs here and now, in this or that circumstance. Theologians identify in this category of actual graces something called gratia praeveniens, or “prevenient grace” and sometimes even “preventing grace” (defined by the Council of Trent, cf. Session VI, ch. 5 – we will leave aside for the sake of brevity the erroneous use of this term in some Reformation theologians). God made us with a free will, though that will is now wounded from the effects of original sin. When we are in need, especially when we have fallen into habitual sins and our will has little strength to extricate ourselves from our dark path, God gives the actual grace that, in a sense, “goes before” other graces, such as the actual graces we can receive, such as the sacramental graces from a good confession and absolution. He helps us to repent and be strong to confess before we take action. He does not constrain or bypass our will, but strengthens and cooperates with it through a freely given gift. We find examples of preventing or prevenient graces in the pages of Scripture as, for example, with a reluctant person hears the voice of God (e.g. Jeremiah or the person described in John 6:44). The patristic formula that describes this is Gratia est in nobis, sed sine nobis, that is, grace (as a vital act) is in our soul, but it does not comes from the soul; it is an salutary coming immediately from God (cf. St. Augustine De grat. et lib. arbitr., 17, 33).

When we consider the prayer from this light, we see also a new possibility in intuitus, which is more than just a physical sighting of a thing coming to view. The same Augustine says, “’The mind, when directed towards intelligible things in the natural order, according to the disposition of the creator, sees them in a certain incorporeal light which is sui generis, just as the physical eye sees nearby objects in corporeal light” (cf. De Trinitate 12,15,24). This has to do with spiritual sight in an analogy with physical sight. Grace, then, illumines the soul in such a way that we can discern and perceive clearly spiritual realities, hidden from the sight of the body’s eyes. At the time of Holy Communion it is good to bring to mind what we should have learned in catechism: sacraments are outward signs sensible to the body’s senses that confer invisible grace, perceived only with the eyes of the soul illuminated by grace, both habitual and actual. Think of the moment in the Gospel of Mark when Jesus sees the wealthy young man who has kept the commandments. In the Vulgate we read: “Iesus autem intuitus eum dilexit eum…Jesus looked at/perceived him and loved Him.” Jesus was doing more than just look at the fellows face. We can read much in the face of someone else. We can often perceive falsehood or trustworthiness. In this moment, Christ saw through to the depths of this young man’s soul. He saw with a different sight the spiritual reality and state of the man before Him. God sees us always in this way. We asked Him in this prayer to grant us a sharing in His life (grace) so that we can look back at Him in the moment of Communion and see Him with spiritual eyes. This is an anticipation of how we hope to see Him face to face in the life to come.

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 rather 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? Epiphany

Epiphany, from the Greek word for a “manifestation”, celebrates different ways by which Christ is revealed to be God as well as man. The are many “epiphanies” of God in the Scripture, such as the burning bush seen by Moses, the sight of Jesus by the Magi, the changing of wine to water at Cana, the Transfiguration, etc. The modern celebration Epiphany developed from a very ancient and convoluted history. In the East it was an extremely important feast before the introduction of celebration of the Nativity of the Lord. In the West, the Nativity was first and celebration of Epiphany came later. The determination of the date of Epiphany is equally as complex as the meaning of the feast. Epiphany technically falls on the twelfth day after Christmas. After some fiddling with the modern liturgical calendar, it now can be transferred in most places to a Sunday. This is perhaps a good thing, since the ancient and mysterious Epiphany is now receiving more attention than it did during the time when it was observed more strictly on the sixth day of January.

COLLECT:
LATIN (1970 Missale Romanum):
Deus, qui hodierna die Unigenitum tuum stella duce revelasti,
concede propitius,
ut qui iam te ex fide cognovimus,
usque ad contemplandam speciem tuae celsitudinis perducamur.

Revelasti is a so-called “sycopated” or shortened form of revelavisti. Stella duce is one of our old friends an ablative absolute. Many students of Latin will fall into the trap of translating these into English using a phrase beginning with “with”: “with a star as leader”. That is not correct to do, since it gives an impression of accompaniment rather than a existing condition or circumstance at the time of the action of the main verb.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O God, who today revealed your Only-begotten, a star having been the guide,
graciously grant,
that we, who have already come to know you from faith,
may be lead all the way unto the contemplation of the beauty of your majesty.

I have decided here to stick simply to “Only-begotten” without “Son”, for it is obvious what is going on. Since hodiernus, -a, -um is an adjective for “of this day, today’s”, hodierna dies literally is something like “today’s day.” It is a bit stronger than just “today”. Perhaps the desire was to underscore the mysterious nature of the feast of Epiphany and the three events that traditionally are associated with it. In the Magnificat antiphon for Second Vespers of Epiphany we hear that this was the day when the Magi came to adore Christ, Jesus changed water into wine at Cana, and He was baptized by John. In each case Jesus is revealed to be more than mere man. Celsitudo refers to loftiness of carriage in older Latin. Here its late Latin usage clearly gives us a meaning of majesty: “Highness” is a royal title.

More interesting is the phrase usque ad contemplandam speciem. The word species has so vast a meaning that this brief offering is not place to explore it closely. Suffice that species, along with often meaning “beauty” in our Latin prayers, is a technical philosophical term having to do with the way that the human intellect apprehends things. Species, frequently also called forma (both words for “beauty, splendor”) is the determinant of the mind in the process of knowledge. It is a relationship between the thing known and the faculty of the one who perceives it that allows us to perceive objects directly without a bridge or intermediary. As the old scholastic axiom says, “Quidquid recipitur per modum recipientis recipitur.... Whatever is received, is received in the mode of the one receiving it” (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica I, Q. xii, art. 4). The species also transform, in a sense, the mind of the one perceiving a thing. It is that by which an object is known. The object known acts on the knowing faculty, and the knowing faculty acts on the object known simultaneously. Active and passive in regard to the mind come together and the object is known directly. This is what we are praying for: we want to see God face to face. We want direct knowledge of Him. So, in this phrase usque ad contemplandam speciem (a gerundive construction which indicates purpose) we are praying to be brought “all the way in order to contemplate the beauty” of God. The glory and splendor of this beauty, for which we were made by God, will transform us, making us more and more like what God is by our contemplation of it for ever and ever. The Fathers of the Church, such as Hilary of Poitiers, spoke of the glory of God that transforms us, divinizes us. This prayer is so amazing! In the first part of that ut clause (another kind of purpose construction) we acknowledge that we have already come to know God (the Father) through faith. In the second part we pray to be brought into the transforming sight of God in heaven. This signals a move from faith, by which we walk in our earthly pilgrimage, to knowledge: there will be no more faith in heaven, for faith is our stance before those things which are true but which we do not yet have complete knowledge. Once we are in the sight of God, the Beatific Vision, we will no longer have faith. Christ is the visible image of the invisible God, He is the expressed Beauty and Truth of the Father. Christ could be seen as the species of this prayer. In this prayer, the knowledge of God is linked to the contemplation of His beauty. Here we find a connection between truth and beauty, for just as faith aims at apprehension of the truth, so will our eternal regard of God’s beauty in heaven, where Truth and Beauty are not to be distinguished.

This prayer also underscores our human need for beauty in this earthly life. More and more the influence of post-modernism, particularly in education, has made it harder and harder for people to grasp the existence of objective truth. The ugliness of images that flood our sight, and hideous noise our ears, numbs us to beauty and calm. The discord and restlessness they provoke have little to do with God. Dante in the Paradiso of the Divine Comedy invents new words like “transhumanized” to describe what happens to us through the beatific vision. In the Paradiso, Piccarda says, “In His will is our peace.” He is drawing on both the theology of Thomas and of Bonaventure. The later wrote, in the Journey of the Soul into God, that love finally gives rest to the intellect.

The current dissolution of formal education in fundamentals and tools of learning has rendered many people incapable of following easily a linear argument to a conclusion that they will accept because it must perforce be true: “It is true for you, maybe,” they often respond. Could the proper use of and fostering of beauty in our churches help us reach people in a way that the systematic approach and arguments may not be able to effect at this time? Once people have seen God’s truth shining through beauty (of music, motion, language, environment) they can be reached in other ways. The Church has given two things as a common inheritance for all mankind: art and saints. In art, God’s truth and beauty are reflected in inanimate creation. In the lives of saints, His truth and beauty shines forth in living creation. In both, we find the beauty which points to the truth. The beauty of the truth and the truth of beauty can permeate every dimension of our lives just now as it will in heaven. Think of the great document of the Holy Father, concerning moral theology, called Veritatis splendor... The Splendor of the Truth.

Our splendid Catholic faith and our magnificent liturgy show forth the truth and beauty of God in a way that urges, begs, requires, obliges us to find the most accurate and beautiful words, actions, music and adornment humanly possible. What we say and do in church is a foretaste of heaven and the beatific vision. The Church must once again reclaim her role as the greatest patron of the arts in human history. Beauty in liturgy, in sense, can be a manifestation of the divine: an “epiphany” of a sort. In a new translation of the Missal, our bishops can give us this precious gift: a new glimpse of God through beauty and truth, like shoeless Moses’ sight of God in the burning bush, like the infant Jesus fixed in the gaze of the Magi.

ICEL:
Father,
you revealed you Son to the nations
by the guidance of a star.
Lead us to your glory in heaven
by the light of faith.