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

There is a different sort of “Bird Flu”, or rather, “Bird Flew” in Turkey these days.

I read with amazment today in the Italian Daily Il Messaggero that the would-be assassin of John Paul II and long time Turkish jail-bird Mehmet Ali Agca will probably be released soon.

The Holy See was, as usual, not terrible forthcoming on the matter:

DECLARATION ON POSSIBLE RELEASE FROM PRISON OF ALI AGCA

VATICAN CITY, JAN 8, 2006 (VIS) – This afternoon, Holy See Press Office Director Joaquin Navarro-Valls released the following declaration to journalists:

“The Holy See only learned the news of a possible release from prison of Ali Agca from news agencies. “The Holy See, faced with such a juridical question, confides in the decisions of the courts involved in this matter.”

In English, try Phil Pullela’s story from Reuters.

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE WANDERER in January 2006

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

On Sunday 8 January we celebrated the Epiphany of the Lord, a day traditionally associated with three events in the Lord’s earthly life: the coming of the Magi, His baptism by John in the Jordan, and the changing of water to wine at Cana during the wedding feast. We observed the Baptism of the Lord on Monday the 9th since Epiphany supplanted it from the Sunday.

We have moved into what is called “Ordinary Time”, the Sundays of the Church’s liturgical year that do not have a specific penitential or festal meaning as in the case of Advent/Christmastide and Lent/Eastertide. Our white and gold vestments will be stored again until Easter. Until Ash Wednesday we see green in our churches.

Before the conciliar reform of the Roman calendar, this period before Ash Wednesday was called the Season of Epiphany and the Sundays were called the Sundays after Epiphany. It was a time of transition including those beautiful Sundays called Septuagesima (“70th”), Sexagesima (“60th”) and Quinquagesima (“50th”), all before the beginning of Quadragesima (“40th”) otherwise known as Lent. Liturgical books once called the Sundays after Epiphany and the Sundays after Pentecost the tempus per annum… the time through the year. This terminology has remained even though both these non-festal seasons form two parts of “Ordinary Time”. So, we enter into that period of the Church’s calendar stretching from the adoration of kings and shepherds at the feet of the infant King to the end of the year and the solemn feast of Christ the King, the King of fearful majesty who will come as judge and who will separate the goats from the sheep before ushering in the unending reign of peace.

Today’s Super oblata or what ICEL calls the “Prayer over the gifts” comes to you by way of the 1962MR where it made its cameo appearance as the Secret for the 9th Sunday after Pentecost. However, it was also in the ancient sacramentaries: in the Veronese during the month of April and in the Gelasian for the 2nd Sunday of Lent.

SUPER OBLATA (2002MR)
Concede nobis, quaesumus, Domine,
haec digne frequentare mysteria,
quia, quoties huius hostiae commemoratio celebratur,
opus nostrae redemptionis exercetur.

There is a good deal of assonance in this prayer, on the vowel “e” and quite a bit of alliteration on “s” and sibilants in the last part. Were the soft “c” of liturgical Latin hardened back into its more ancient “k”, the whole prayer would be even spiffier. I like the parallels in the “-tur” endings, helping us to make the conceptual link between the two clauses.

The Lewis & Short, that astounding tome of turgid Latinity, affirms for us that the verb frequento means “to visit or resort to frequently, to frequent; to do or make use of frequently, to repeat.” It also means, “to celebrate or keep in great numbers” as in the observance of public festivals. That same meaning is reflected in the interesting dictionary of liturgical Latin which we call Blaise. Exerceo is “to drive on, keep busy, keep at work; to oversee, superintend” and also, by extension, “to follow up, follow out, prosecute, carry into effect….” Do not forget that the relationship between mysteria and sacramenta is close enough to make them almost interchangeable.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Father,
may we celebrate the eucharist
with reverence and love,
for when we proclaim the death of the Lord
you continue the work of his redemption.

LITERAL TRANSLATION
Grant to us, we beg, O Lord,
to make frequent use of these sacramental mysteries worthily,
for, as often as the commemoration of this sacrifice is celebrated,
the work of our redemption is carried on.

Compare the Latin and the ICEL version. In the Latin we pray “as often as the commemoration of this sacrifice is celebrated” while in the lame-duck ICEL version we have “when we proclaim the death of the Lord.” It is quite true that during Mass we proclaim the death of the Lord, but there is a huge difference between these two statements! Part of the difference can be found in looking at different understandings of the Latin word commemoratio and its English cognate.

We Catholic Christians believe that Holy Mass is a sacrificial memorial of Christ and of His Body and Blood (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church 1356 ff.). The celebration of Mass is a “memorial”, a “commemoration” (Greek anamnesis) of His Sacrifice. During Mass, by means of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we praise the Father and we remember what Christ did for our salvation.

This is far more than a mere remembrance or simple commemoration of a long past event which hade lasting effects, as if we were at a war memorial listening to a reenactment of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. In the sacred action of the liturgy the mysteries of our salvation (mysteria) are truly present to us. Christ’s Sacrifice is made present again in a way that is different from, and yet no less real than, what we see physically around us. Holy Mass and the Divine Liturgy of Eastern Churches is therefore simultaneously both a remembrance of the Sacrifice Christ effected for our salvation and also that same saving Sacrifice made present to us who participate actively in the sacred liturgical action. In fact, the memorial action of Mass is the Sacrifice of Christ re-presented to us, the Church. Historically, Christ’s Sacrifice was carried out in a bloody way, at a one specific time and in one specific place. Sacramentally, however, that same historic Sacrifice is being continued, re-presented, re-effected in an unbloody way in many places and at many times. “The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ’s Passover, the making present and the sacramental offering of his unique sacrifice, in the liturgy of the Church which is his Body” (CCC 1362). The sacramental way of effecting the Sacrifice is no less real than the actual event of Christ’s self-oblation outside the walls of Jerusalem two millennia ago. This should not cause us wonder. Christ said that this would be the case.

I therefore quibble with ICEL’s version: “when we proclaim the death of the Lord you continue the work of his redemption.” First, this is not what the Latin really says. Also, our “proclamation of the death of the Lord” is not what effects the saving work of our redemption. The consecration and consumption of the Eucharist by the priest constitutes the Sacrifice which is at the heart of each celebration of Holy Mass, which, sacramentally, is a commemoration making the past truly present and extending it toward the future.

For a long time the sacrificial language describing the Mass was being diluted or abandoned altogether. I think this came from a tendency either to emphasize the horizontal (human, immanent) dimension over the vertical (divine, transcendent) or else to reduce what happens at Mass to something much more like a Protestant understanding of the Eucharist. Thus, sometimes instead of “Mass” many use merely “liturgy”. Both are fine, but both are needed. Let us speak more about “Holy Mass” and not just “liturgy”, which might mean a baptism, the singing of Vespers, or sacramental confession. Today some folks still refer to an “ordained minister” rather than a “priest”, or how during “liturgy” he says the words of “institution”, rather than the words of “consecration” (the root of which is sacer, “sacred”).

During my seminary days the more radical of the faculty forbade us from using the “‘p’-word” (“priest”). They insisted we were being formed to be “ordained ministers”. This had the purpose of deemphasizing the distinction between the priest… er um… “ordained minister” and all people… er um… “non-ordained ministers”, all of whom exercise “ministry” in some vague way. In essence, “ministry” was pretty much anything people might do. I have no problem with all people being virtuous and holy, integrating prayer and contemplation together with their daily tasks, raising all their words and deeds to the Father in self-oblation, but not everything is “ministry” and not everyone is a “minister”, in the sense the Church understands the term. Priest and minister are radically different ideas. Ministers do good things within a community but priests offer sacrifice and are themselves set apart. Ministers are characterized mostly by their tasks and the priests is distinguished by what the sacrament of Holy Orders has made him ontologically, at the level of his being. In those days of seminary, they were trying to strip the Mass and the priest of their sacral character. The same applies to architecture. Churches had sanctuaries but very often we hear now about “worship spaces”. The architecture reflects the differences of views. The general effect of this squishy 60’s-80’s language about Mass and the priest is something like this: “People are gathered together to celebration of Christ’s memory during which one of their number, who happens to be designated by that community, retells the story of the night before He died, when He established the custom about to be reenacted.” We are therefore grateful that His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI has begun to instill anew a greater sense of the sacred when speaking about all things touching upon the Church’s celebration of the sacred mysteries.

The gloriously risen Christ, who transcends time and space, is always the principal actor in the Church’s liturgies. Thus, what we Catholics say about the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass being truly the Christ’s Sacrifice of Calvary and the Last Supper institution of the Eucharist in no way contradicts what many Protestants and Evangelicals emphasize, namely, that there is one, once-for-all, unrepeatable Sacrifice for our salvation. Yes, there was! And by Christ’s own command and His own personal action in the Church, continuing to the end of time, that once-for-all-time Sacrifice is continued, extended, re-presented really and truly whenever Holy Mass is celebrated. By our baptism we sons and daughters of our heavenly Father are enabled to participate actively in that saving action in a way that by far surpasses the sort of relationship claimed by those who have “been saved” by “accepting Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior.” Holy Mass is all about what Christ does for us, not what we do for Him. If someone asks you if you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you can say truly and with perfect confidence something they cannot: “Yes, I accept Jesus as my Savior in every Holy Communion at Mass.”

Each week the Church gives us wonderful prayers which can be the source of personal reflection and the stepping stone in the catechesis of young people or people interested in the Catholic faith. A prayer from Mass can be used like a crowbar to pry open a dogma of the Church, a flashlight to illuminate an obscure point. You could organize weekly parish classes just to pore over these prayers. We should be ready to explain our Faith when called upon and know what the prayers really say. Perhaps one day we will be given translations of the prayers which are beautiful and faithful to the Latin original. In the meantime, WDTPRS is at your service.

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE WANDERER in January 2005

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

I am glad to have received a note via snail-mail from Fr. VY, OFM who has corrected an error I made about the pre-Conciliar liturgical calendar. I had said that in the 1962MR 1 January was the Feast of the Circumcision when, as Fr. VY points out, by 1962 it was simply Sunday in the Octave Christmas. While 1 January had been still the Feast of the Circumcision in 1959 I gratefully stand corrected about the 1962MR. I received an undated letter from Fr. BF, OSB who included some a copy of an article in The Tablet (22 May 2004) called “The Draft Order of the Mass”. Apparently he shared his thoughts about the draft with Fr. Bruce Harbert, the Executive Secretary of ICEL but didn’t hear back from him at the time of his writing. I note that The Tablet’s article says of the new draft that some people may be “alarmed” at the “hieratic, archaic nature of God’s relationship with humanity implicit in some of the prayers”. I respond saying, “Goodie!” and “It’s not implicit in the Latin so why should it be in the English? Let’s just make it all explicit for the sake of accuracy and honesty.” I want to acknowledge also kind written notes from CC of IL and EL of AZ and others. Your feedback is valuable.

We have into the Sundays “Ordinary Time” (once called the Season of Epiphany) during which we wear the green vestments that some say symbolize of hope. Even though these Sundays are not part of a sacral cycle such as Advent/Christmas with a focus on specific mysteries of Our Lord’s life and saving work, each Sunday is always an echo of Easter. Pre-Conciliar liturgical books called the Sundays after Epiphany and the Sundays after Pentecost the tempus per annum... “the time through the year” and this terminology has remained in the Novus Ordo. We are entering the liturgical span stretching from the adoration of kings and shepherds at the feet of the infant King to the end of the year and the solemn feast of Christ the King, the King of fearful majesty who will come as judge and will separate the goats from the sheep and usher in the unending reign of peace.

COLLECT - LATIN TEXT (2002MR):
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus,
qui caelestia simul et terrena moderaris,
supplicationibus populi tui clementer exaudi,
et pacem tuam nostris concede temporibus.

This prayer was the Collect for the Second Sunday after Epiphany in the 1962MR. We should look at some words before getting at what the prayer really says. The unrivaled Lewis & Short Dictionary says that simul et connects two or more co-ordinate terms or facts and represents them as simultaneous and is the equivalent of simul etiam meaning “and at the same time, and also”. The deponent verb moderor means “to manage, regulate, rule, guide, govern, direct”. The word moderator is what we use in Latin for people like the state governor or the president of the United States: governing officials. A gubernator was the steersman or pilot of a sailing ship.

When we pray in Latin we often ask God to pay attention in some way, usually by “hearing” us. Exaudio signifies “listen to” in the sense of “harken, perceive clearly.” The imperative exaudi is more urgent than a simple audi (the imperative from audio, not the car). I like “harken.” Different words are used for this in Latin and though they mean subtly different things, they are all pretty much the same thing. A good example is the beginning of one of the Litanies in Latin: Christe audi nos… Christe exaudi nos… which is often translated as “Christ hear us… Christ graciously hear us.”

Clementer is an adverb from clemens, means among other things, “mild in respect to the faults and failures of others, i.e. forbearing, indulgent, compassionate, merciful.” We have seen this many times in the last four years. In the religious language of the ancient Romans a supplicatio was a public prayer or supplication, a solemn religious ceremony in consequence of certain public events, good or ill. So, what we have here is a phrase something like, “in an indulgent manner graciously pay close attention to the humble petitions of your people, bent down in prayer.” Tempus means many things but primarily, “time in general, or a season of time; the state of the times, position, state, condition; circumstances.” It can also be “the appointed time, the right season, an opportunity (Greek kairos)”. In the plural tempora gives us the word for the “temples” of the sides of your head. The word “temporal” ultimately derives from tempus and it often indicates worldly or earthly things, material things, as opposed to sacred, eternal or spiritual.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Almighty eternal God,
who at the same time does govern things heavenly and earthly,
mercifully harken to the supplications of Your people,
and grant Your peace in our temporal affairs.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Father of heaven and earth,
hear our prayers, and show us the way
to peace in the world.

In the past we discovered in the course of this WDTPRS series that the ICEL versions of the prayers for the festal seasons of Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter were marginally better than those of Ordinary Time. Now that we are in Ordinary Time again you will see a change in the quality of the “translations”. They must have had a different committee work on the prayers of Ordinary Time. First take note that the ICEL prayer is shorter than the Latin version, which set off flares and rings claxons. Normally when you render a Latin text in English, the English will be considerably longer than the Latin. This is a superficial but solid clue that not all is well.

To my mind the ICEL prayer is sterile, not just terse. We can all agree that God is the “Father of heaven and earth”, but the Latin addresses “Almighty eternal God.” “Father of heaven and earth” makes God smaller than He is, it seems to me, and is not what the Latin prayer really says. “Hear our prayers”, indicates little of our humble posture before God which the Latin clearly proposes with “mercifully give ear to the supplications of your people”. I suppose this is what The Tablet article mentioned above was referring to, namely, the “hieratic, archaic nature of God’s relationship with humanity implicit in some of the prayers”. In the Latin, we are cast down, bent in prayer, asking the almighty God, indulgently to spare us a little attention. I am perfectly content to grovel with penitentially confident joy before God even if the translators of the lame-duck ICEL version were not. From what I have seen of the draft of the Ordinary we will be pleased in the future when a new translations finally comes forth.

The old ICEL version of the first Collect we see in Ordinary Time isn’t terribly successful when compared to the Latin, is it? The bishops’ conferences, the Vox Clara Committee, the restructured, restaffed ICEL and the Holy See have their work cut out for them. If the draft of the Ordinary of Mass is well under way, where are we with the Proper (i.e., the prayers which change according to the day). Translating prayers is a daunting task and thus these people need our prayerful support and, may I say it, incessant positive urging and input. I have provided addresses for the major figures involved on the internet (http://www.wdtprs.com) or you can write e-mail to me for or snail-mail to The Wanderer. Never forget when reading this column to say a prayer for our bishops and ask the Holy Spirit to guide them in their challenging mandate. Also, be kind and respectful when writing. Bishops are peculiar creatures to be sure, but they are still human beings. They have more than enough to do in their busy days to deal with all the negative things which besiege them without getting some snippy letter from a disgruntled critic. You can make your points and observations without being rude or demanding. Look at it this way: if you want a cardinal or bishop or priest to read your thoughts and take them to heart, be nice, otherwise your note will probably wind up in the garbage can.

Getting back to our Collect we are begging God as omnipotent disposer of all things for peace in our temporal affairs now, not just later in heaven. And we want not just any peace man can cobble together, but rather the peace which comes from Him. During Holy Mass (before the entirely optional “sign of peace”) the priest repeats Christ’s words in John 14:27: “Pacem relinquo vobis, pacem meam do vobis… Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” Catholic Christians are confident. Christ said He was going to give it to us.

There is a great difference between the peace the world can offer and the peace that God offers. This world of temporal goods (and ills) is passing and fragile, always susceptible to loss. The goods of heaven are lasting, enduring, solid and dependable. We must never fall into the sin of putting any created thing or person in the place which only eternal God may properly have. No infinite and passing thing can provide lasting joy or eternal peace. Any created thing can be lost through theft, wear and time. The vicissitudes of this passing world roar over us like an inexorable wave and can sweep away any material thing to which we have clung, perhaps even in idolatry. Our wealth, our family, our health, our appearance and our reputation can be taken in the blink of an eye. God alone endures.

God knew each one of us outside of time, before the creation of both the visible and invisible universe. He called us into existence at a precise moment in His eternal plan. We have something to do in God’s plan. He gives us work to fulfill and the talents and graces to fulfill it. We must cooperate with Him, making His plan for us our own so that He can then make us strong enough to carry it out. God knows our needs and in turn we confidently come to Him in prayer asking humbly in our trials during this earthly journey for peace only He can give, the peace which alone can make sense of what we experience in life. Our sins lost this peace for us but it has been restored through the merits of Christ’s Sacrifice which we renewal and remember with each Holy Mass. We ask God to bless us in this new year of salvation. We beseech Him to give aid to all who suffer. With bended knee and foreheads to the ground, bodies and wills both bent in supplication, we beg His patient indulgence and His peace.

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE WANDERER in January 2003

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

The orbit of our globe brings us by God’s plan back to “Ordinary Time”, Sundays not having a specific festal or penitential meaning though they remain echoes of Easter. We see again green vestments, symbols of hope. This season was once the Season of Epiphany and time “after Epiphany” and together with the Sundays “after Pentecost” it formed the tempus per annum... the “time through the year”. So, as we entering into the long cycle of Sundays per annum we set out as a Church on the annual pilgrimage leading from the adoration of the Magi at the Crib to the end of the world and the coming of Christ the King of fearful majesty. Our first last prayer of Ordinary Time to consider, taken verbatim from the Postcommunio of the Friday after Ash Wednesday in the 1962MR, is today’s….

POST COMMUNIONEM
LATIN (2002 Missale Romanum):
Spiritum nobis, Domine, tuae caritatis infunde,
ut, quos uno caelesti pane satiasti,
una facias pietate concordes.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord,
you have nourished us with bread from heaven.
Fill us with your Spirit,
and make us one in peace and love.

Gravely we open the cover of the hefty Lewis & Short Dictionary and look beyond the surface meanings of the words. At the end of our prayer we find concordes from concors, itself a fusion of the preposition cum with cor, cordis, “heart”. Concors means “of the same mind, united, agreeing, concordant, harmonious.” We should also glance for a moment at facio, that polyvalent verb: “to make in all senses, to do, perform, accomplish, prepare, produce, bring to pass, cause, effect, create, commit, perpetrate, form, fashion, etc.”. By now you regular readers of WDTPRS can almost teach a workshop on the meaning of pietas as not merely “piety” in the commonly understood sense today, but also as “dutiful conduct” toward God or parents or benefactors or society. It carries with it the sense of conscientiousness and loyalty. Pietas is not just a nice feeling about these agents in our lives. It resonates in outward conduct, in actions reflecting that interior pietas. At the root of our outward conduct there must be a clear and carefully considered recognition of the different relationships we have with the objects of our pietas. Who am I before God, before parents, before benefactors and parents? What is my authentic part to play in these relationships? How are they bound in pietas to behave toward me? Is this a relationship of equals or one in which I am an inferior or superior? In the present egalitarian climate, we must get this straight if we are going to understand what the prayer really says.

Infundo is “to pour in, upon, or into”. Infundere alicui aliquid, would be “to pour out for, to administer to, present to, lay before” as in to administer a medicine to someone. Infundo is also “to pour into, spread over, communicate, impart.” Much of our theological language sounds funny to many people today because they loose the meaning of the Latinate words of the technical vocabulary, as in the case of “preventing” grace from the column a couple weeks ago. We speak of baptism by “infusion” for example, how water is poured onto rather than into the person, rather than boiling the person in the water as one might a tea bag or coffee when making those homonymous infusions. We also speak of certain things being “infused” into someone at baptism, such as the theological graces of faith, hope and charity (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church 1813).

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Infuse in us the Spirit of your charity, O Lord,
so that those whom you fill with the one heavenly bread,
you may cause to be of one heart and mind in one sense of dutiful conduct.

Since the word Spiritum is the first word in the sentence of the prayer we cannot tell if this is the Holy Spirit or a more general “spirit of charity”. I think it is the Holy Spirit. This gives the prayer a clearly Trinitarian character, since we are praying to the Father about receiving the infusion grace by the presence of the Holy Spirit in our reception of the Son in the Communion just made. The word concordes also implies more than one person.

Concors itself must be examined. In its basic sense it means “of one heart” (cor). This word, therefore, leads us into consideration of the very makeup of man. I say in my literal version “heart and mind”. In the theology of man’s make up teased out from the writing of the blessed Apostle Paul, we find distinctions about what man is, though Paul does not clearly give us a theological anthropology. Rather, Paul hints at who and what man is through man’s relationships with God and the world around him. He uses terms such as “body” (soma), “soul” (psyche), “spirit” (pnuema), “mind” (nous), “heart” (kardia), “flesh” (sarx) which all point to different aspects of a whole person rather than the parts he is assembled from. For example, psyche or “soul” is not simply the vital life force making the biological flesh live but also a whole person, particularly identified in consciousness, the intellect and power of willing things. It is, for Paul, a natural rather than supernaturalized life principle. A person living without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is a psychikos, a materially spiritual person rather than a supernaturally spiritual person. Pneuma is used by Paul for the Holy Spirit and also for man. In the case of man, when joined to soma and psyche it seems to indicate the dimension of man capable of receiving the Holy Spirit, a pneumatikos man. Nous or “mind” is in Paul’s view seemingly the knowing powers and intellect of a person able to understand and make judgments. There is a close tie between nous and kardia, or “heart”, the more affection dimensions of the intellect. “Heart” is rather like the one’s interior emotional landscape, the thing in us that loves and grieves and fears and suffers and plans. This is the element in us that can be “hardened” (cf. 2 Cor 3:14) or “strengthened” (cf. 2 Cor 1:20-22). Thus, in trying to render concordes in our prayer today, I say “one in heart and mind”, as I am blending the intellective and affective landscapes of a baptized person.

But our prayer does not leave the intellective and affective dimensions of our personhood to rest inert as an painted landscape or interior still life. Despite the fact that many and fascinating things are going on in fine still life paintings, especially of the Flemish school, the Italian term for a still life is a “natura morta” a “dead nature”. In our prayer we also have the powerful image of the grace charity being poured or infused into us by the Holy Spirit. Charity is, of course, not simply “love”, as might be mistaken for the word we use when talking about spaghetti, Fluffy the cat, Suzie, or the Cubs. This sort of love is simultaneously oriented to God and to our neighbor, as described in Christ’s command. The love of charity describes the bond of love between us and God. Charity is also sacrificial love, in its most perfect form exemplified by Christ upon the Cross and which we imitate and exercise by choice with our neighbors. This love is a choice of will, which always considers first the good of the other. Without this sort of two-fold, bidirectional love, our prayer after communion is just a still life. It is a beautiful but static and lifeless work of aesthetic beauty. It has a lovely ring, as the struck brass of Paul’s 1 Cor 13 might have: “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” This love calls us to act outwardly as we ought according to our vocations.

The other word which can serve to keep us honest in this prayer is pietas. Does this concept of duty not drive us to a deep examination of conscience? We must be honest about who we are and who we aren’t. Placed with concors and caritas, pietas challenges us to be real and vital, well-integrated images and portraits of God in our words and actions, rather than a mere still life. If that is true at the moment of our Post communionem, then it is true for every aspect of the liturgy. Mass is, in fact, not so much about us and what we do, but about what God is doing for us. We have a duty to act according to the truth of who we are, who God is, and what is really going on in the Mass. In this we must often give up things for which we long or which we personally might prefer. This applies to the whole of our Catholic lives, too.

Clearly this word “duty” is swaying my thoughts this week. I had the great privilege of meeting again with two men for whom I feel a great admiration and gratitude. Both of them embody a sense of duty befitting men of God. Both men are military men, both US Marines, one retired, one on active duty. The older man, who served at the nation’s highest level in the military, is a retired general, highly decorated, wounded, the winner of two Navy Crosses in service as a captain in command of a company in Vietnam. The other is presently the captain of an infantry company earning distinction for his leadership. The one is the father of a lovely daughter, the other the lovely daughter’s fiancé whom he hopes to marry in May. The captain just returned from a long overseas deployment shortly before Christmas and visited me with the retired general, his wife and daughter when they came to this area to firm up wedding plans for next May. All of them are dedicated, edifying, and deeply involved Catholics. While they were here, perhaps two weeks after his return to the States, our captain was suddenly recalled and will ship out again in a week or so for what we must all assume is an indefinite period of time. What I saw in this family, at this sad and upsetting unforeseen news, helps today to shape my own attempt at rendering what our prayer really says.

There was sorrow and fear on the part of the daughter, her captain, the mother and the father the general. What might have gone through the mind of the older Marine who was in his turn, captain of men, a commanding general sending youth to war, and also a father of a daughter set on marrying a younger version of himself, going out again as the tip this nation’s spear? I saw them all recover quickly and place his orders in their proper place in their lives. They lived pietas. They were slightly subdued from that point, but in no way were they crushed or despondent, as would be those who have no faith or hope or sacrificial love. The morning after the news of his orders, I said Mass which they attended using the votive texts for those making a journey or pilgrimage. The general served, making all the responses he learned in his childhood, deeply engrained in him: “Introibo ad altare Dei… I will go unto the altar of God, the God who gives joy to my youth….” That morning I gave the captain a rosary of knotted cords, dark green, which an elderly sister had made. I have long used it for travel, since it is not metal. When the captain got it, he said something that struck me hard and put his sense of duty into focus for me. While I was thinking the rosary was inconspicuous, light and easily stowed, the moment he took hold of it he said, “It won’t make any noise.” It was a tool to be used, a weapon he understood. It occurs to me that he just might be the sort of man whose Catholic faith, present vocation and their duties are so integrated into who he is that he sees all things in his life from that perspective. We who by baptism and confirmation are soldiers of Christ in this Church Militant can learn a great deal from this.

I am grateful to this family for the reminder of how to live.

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE WANDERER in January of 2002

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

The WDTPRS for Epiphany generated a great deal of mail. Via the marvelous medium of e-mail Fr. AL of NC wrote that he was “a bit disappointed” with WDTPRS for Epiphany. Father thought I was saying that many of the wonderful things we historically associate with this feast “had been swept away by the reforms of Paul VI.” “In fact,” he continues, “not only are these elements still a part of the Church’s Liturgy but they have been augmented by the addition of prayers and readings which expand on the very themes you mention.” He opined, “I really don’t see how one could suggest that the actual Liturgy no longer gives as clear an “affirmation of the divinity of Christ” or that we no longer “move from the prophecies and stars and magi to the person of the Lord Himself, revealing who he was in all he said and did.” My Dear Fr. AL, I did not suggest that, really. If by my use of the past tense in saying “we were given affirmations of the divinity of Christ” in the older, traditional expression of the Roman liturgy, by no means should one conclude that I think we are not now given those affirmations through the Novus Ordo. I am sorry if I gave that unintentional impression. It seems to me that the WDTPRS series is, if anything, an expression of what I think of the Novus Ordo Missae and the newer liturgical calendar provide for us. As a matter of fact I wholeheartedly wish we could all actually have what the Novus Ordo offers! Still, I thank Fr. AL of NC for sending me his observations. Another person, CM, writes via e-mail concerning Epiphany and the blessing of houses with the use of chalk: “You say there C + M + B would be the initials of the magi. To the best of my knowledge (and against common opinion) the meaning of these three letters is “Christus Mansionem Benedicat.”” (May Christ bless this dwelling”). Hmmm….this goes against my opinion too, but thanks anyway. If anyone else can back this up, by all means let me know.

We have once again returned to what is called commonly “Ordinary Time”. These Sundays of the Church’s liturgical year, while remaining each one an echo of Easter Sunday, do not have a specific festal or penitential meaning. Our priests at Mass again wear green vestments, which symbolize hope. Before the reform of the Roman calendar, this time was once called the Season of Epiphany and the Sundays were called the Sundays after Epiphany. It was a cycle of transition toward Lent. Liturgical books once called the Sundays after Epiphany and the Sundays after Pentecost the tempus per annum... the time through the year. This terminology remains even though both these non-festal seasons now comprise the two parts of “Ordinary Time”. With the return to the tempus per annum we set our liturgical feet on that road that stretches from the adoration of kings and shepherds by the infant King’s manger to the end of the year and the solemn feast of Christ the King, the King of fearful majesty who will come to us as judge.

SUPER OBLATA:

LATIN (1970 Missale Romanum):Concede nobis, quaesumus, Domine,
haec digne frequentare mysteria,
quia, quoties huius hostiae commemoratio celebratur,
opus nostrae redemptionis exercetur.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Grant to us, we beg, O Lord,
to make frequent use of these mysteries worthily,
for, as often as the commemoration of this sacrifice is celebrated,
the work of our redemption is carried on.

As our Lewis & Short Dictionaries affirm for use, the verb frequento means “to visit or resort to frequently, to frequent; to do or make use of frequently, to repeat.” It also means, “to celebrate or keep in great numbers” as in the observance of public festivals. Exerceo is “to drive on, keep busy, keep at work; to oversee, superintend” and also, by extension, “to follow up, follow out, prosecute, carry into effect….”

ICEL:Father,
may we celebrate the eucharist
with reverence and love,
for when we proclaim the death of the Lord
you continue the work of his redemption.

There are some very good things in this prayer that we might explore and even review with young people or also those who are interested in the Catholic faith, perhaps as possible converts to Holy Mother Church. As a matter of fact, we should be ready to explain these things when called upon. Consider inviting people to come to Mass with you on Sundays. Never underestimate the power of an invitation. Imagine what our churches would be like if each week every practicing Catholic out there invited someone along, someone fallen away, someone wandering or lost, someone simply curious. One in ten people might accept the invitation, but that is one more than if no one was invited at all.

Let us make a comparison of the Latin and the ICEL. Note that in the Latin we hear “as often as the commemoration of this sacrifice is celebrated” while in the ICEL we hear “when we proclaim the death of the Lord.” While it is true that at Mass the baptized do in fact proclaim the death of the Lord, there is a great difference between these two statements. Part of the difference can be found in looking at different understandings of the Latin word commemoratio and its English cognate.

We Catholics believe that the Mass is a sacrificial memorial of Christ and of His Body and Blood (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church 1356 ff.). The celebration of Mass is a “memorial”, a “commemoration” (Greek anamnesis) of His sacrifice. Thus, during Mass by means of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit we praise the Father and we by unitive and active participation remember what Christ did for our salvation. But this is far more than a mere remembrance or simple commemoration of what happened long ago. In the sacred action of the liturgy the mysteries of our salvation (mysteria) are truly present to us. Christ’s sacrifice is made present again in a way that is different from, and yet no less real than, what we see physically around us. Mass is therefore simultaneously both a remembrance of the sacrifice Christ effected for our salvation and also that same saving sacrifice made present to us who participate in the sacred liturgical action. The memorial action of the Mass is in fact the sacrifice of Christ re-presented to us through the Church. Historically that sacrifice was carried out in a bloody way, at a specific point in time and in one place. Sacramentally, that same historic sacrifice is re-presented, continued, re-effected, in an unbloody way in many places and at many times. “The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ’s Passover, the making present and the sacramental offering of his unique sacrifice, in the liturgy of the Church which is his Body” (CCC 1362). The sacramental way of effecting the sacrifice is no less real than the actual event of Christ’s self-oblation outside the walls of Jerusalem. This should not cause us wonder. Christ said that this would be the case.

I will therefore quibble with ICEL’s version: “when we proclaim the death of the Lord you continue the work of his redemption.” Not only is that not what the Latin says, but I think that the dimension of sacrifice (hostia) is not adequately expressed. It is true that, by the fact that Christ effects it for us, redemption is “His”, but this was for us, this is “our” redemption (nostrae redemptionis). Also, it is not our “proclamation of the death of the Lord” that effects the saving work of our redemption. It is the sacrificial consecration and consumption of the Eucharist by the priest that constitutes the celebration of Mass.

Very often we hear today the sacrificial language describing the Mass being diluted or abandoned altogether. I think this comes from a tendency either to emphasize the horizontal (human, immanent) dimension over the vertical (divine, transcendent) or else to reduce what is happening at Mass to something much more like a Protestant understanding of the Eucharist. Language has meaning. Thus, sometimes instead of “Mass” many use merely “liturgy.” Both are fine, but both are needed. Often one hears of the “ordained minister” (not “priest”) saying the “words of institution” (not “consecration”). The general effect is that “people are gathered together to celebrate the memory of Christ by means of one of their number re-telling the story of the night before He died.”

The gloriously risen Christ, who transcends time and space, is the principle actor in the Church’s liturgy. Thus, what we say about the sacrifice of the Mass being truly the sacrifice of Calvary in no way contradicts what many Protestants and indeed fundamentalists emphasize and object to in Catholic practice, namely, that there is one once-for-all sacrifice that cannot be repeated. Yes, there was, and by Christ’s own command and His own personal action continuing to the end of time in the Church, that once-for-all-time sacrifice is continued, extended, really and truly re-presented in our whenever Holy Mass is celebrated. By the sacraments of initiation we sons and daughters of our heavenly Father can participate in that saving action in a way that by far surpasses the sort of relationship claimed by those who have “been saved” by “accepting Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior.” The Mass is about what Christ does for us, not what we do for Him. When some asks us Catholics if we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we can say truly, “Yes, in every Holy Communion at Mass.” And we mean it.

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE WANDERER in January 2001

What Does the Prayer Really Say? Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

On Sunday 7 January we celebrated the Epiphany of the Lord, a day traditionally associated with three events in the Lord’s earthly life: the coming of the Magi, His baptism by John in the Jordan, and the changing of water to wine at Cana during the wedding feast. We observed the Baptism of the Lord on Monday the 8th since Epiphany supplanted it from the Sunday. We have the Cana event today.

We have moved into what is called “Ordinary Time”, the Sundays of the Church’s liturgical year that do not have a specific festal or penitential meaning. We wear the green of hope in this season. Each Sunday, however, remains an echo of Easter. Before the reform of the Roman calendar, this time was once called the Season of Epiphany and the Sundays were called the Sundays after Epiphany. It was a cycle of transition toward Lent. Liturgical books once called the Sundays after Epiphany and the Sundays after Pentecost the tempus per annum… the time through the year. This terminology has remained even though both these non-festal seasons form two parts of “Ordinary Time”. So, we enter into that period of the Church’s calendar that stretches from the adoration of kings and shepherds at the feet of the infant King to the end of the year and the solemn feast of Christ the King, the King of fearful majesty who will come as judge and will separate the goats from the sheep and usher in the unending reign of peace.

COLLECT:

LATIN (1970 Missale Romanum)Omnipotens sempiterne Deus,
qui caelestia simul et terrena moderaris,
supplicationibus populi tui clementer exaudi,
et pacem tuam nostris concede temporibus.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:Almighty eternal God,
who governs heavenly and earthly things at the same time,
mercifully give ear to the supplications of your people,
and grant your peace in our temporal affairs.

Our wonderful Lewis & Short Dictionary lets us know that simul et is the equivalent of simul etiam and means “and at the same time, and also”. It connects two or more co-ordinate terms or facts and represents them as simultaneous. Moderor, a deponent verb (it has a passive form but an active meaning) means to manage, regulate, rule, guide, govern, direct. The word moderator is what we use in Latin for people like the state governor or the president of the United States: governing officials. (A gubernator was the steersman or pilot of a sailing ship. One thinks of the “ship of state”, but I digress….). When we pray these prayers in Latin we usually ask God to pay attention to us in some way, usually by “hearing” us. Different words are used for this in Latin and though they mean subtly different things, they are all pretty much the same thing. A good example is the beginning of one of the Litanies in Latin. Christe audi nos… Christe exaudi nos... which is often translated as “Christ hear us… Christ graciously hear us.” The choice of one word or another may have as much to do with the sound and rhythm it creates as anything else. Exaudio means “listen to” in the sense of “harken, perceive clearly.” There is a greater urgency to exaudi (an imperative, or command form) than in the simple audi. I like “harken.” Also, we are asking eternal and omnipotent God Creator of the universe to listen to us little finite sinful creatures in a manner that is not only attentive but also patient and indulgent. That word clementer, an adverb from clemens, means among other things, “Mild in respect to the faults and failures of others, i.e. forbearing, indulgent, compassionate, merciful.” (The Lewis & Short Dictionary is truly useful. Everyone should have a copy. You can get it through the WDTPRS BOOKSTORE.) In the religious language of the ancient Romans supplicatio was a public prayer or supplication, a religious solemnity in consequence of certain (fortunate or unfortunate) public events. A supplication was a day set apart for prayer, either by way of thanksgiving or of religious humiliation and genuflection. Supplicatio is a compound of plico, meaning “to bend or fold”. Here the bending refers to the body, head or the knee to the ground in humble petition. So, we have a phrase that runs something like, “in an indulgent manner graciously pay close attention to the humble petitions of your people, bent down in prayer.”

Going on now… if you are like me, when you hear the end of this prayer, and that word temporibus (from tempus; neuter plural: tempora) in this context you think of the famous utterance of M. Tullius Cicero in his first oration against Catilina: O tempora! O mores! Mores comes from mos, and we get our English word “mores”, meaning custom, fashion, modes of behavior, moral attitudes. You could say â€Å&ld