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

The view from my window is sometimes staggeringly beautiful. I really think I might have one of the best views in all Rome. Here is what it looked like on 2 February.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  5^th Sunday in of Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in February 2003 

Treasures arrived this week!  I mean letters from you readers, of course.  A veritable stack of them arrived, most in handwritten form.   Since they all dated to September/October 2002, I think the editor found a pile that had not been forwarded.  In this confined space I cannot mention all the comments I get by snail mail and e-mail, but do know that I read everything.  First, thanks to HS of BC, Canada and HNY of NY who sent items.  Mrs. HT of TX writes: For a long time now, I have been a devoted reader of the WDTPRS? … On Oct. 17 I was impressed by Clavius.  Imagine trying to live without a decimal point….” Dear HT, just ask my accountant how its done.  Going on: “I saw your picture.  I thought you would be in your eighties, an ancient Latin scholar…”  Yes, I get that a lot.  You are not alone in your error about my age, HT.  Many in chanceries far and wide that are dead positive I am from the ‘50’s of one century or another.  By the way, Christopher Clavius, SJ (1538-1612) was the mathematician who calculated the 1582 reform by Pope Gregory XIII of the out-of-kilter Julian calendar. I wrote of Clavius in my column on the Super oblata of the 29^th Sunday in Ordinary Time last October.  Included with the present article is my own detail photo from the bas-relief on the tomb of Gregory XIII in St. Peter’s Basilica.  The marble depicts Clavius presenting the Pope with his schema for the calendar.  The bespectacled figure is an onlooker at the far left.  I promise it is not a portrait of the present writer. Rather, he closely resembles another correspondent for The Wanderer, Mr. Farley Clinton in Rome, who, while never at the far left, may indeed have been the model for the sculptor Carlo Mellone back in 1723.

Do not suppose that everything I get is laudatory.  TC, Esq. of NYC, handwrote wrote a blistering rebuke about virtually all my presentation of your feedback in last year’s column for the Super oblata of the 25^th Sunday in Ordinary Time.  Sorry I irritated you, TC, sincerely.  When Catholic gentlemen disagree, they must seek common grounds.  The next time I journey to Gotham I will take you for coffee.  Also writing from the same NYC, DH took me up on a challenge I proffered in that same column wherein I spoke of Clavius.  I wrote back then of a tiny abandoned fountain next to the Roman church San Salvatore in Lauro bearing a Latin poetic inscription.  I suggested that some of you might want to “take a crack” at a translation.  DH did, and elegantly too, tossing in comments on Horace’s Ode 1.4, Catullus’ Carm. 5 and T.S. Eliot’s appraisal of them both.  Delightful!  Thanks DH.  You inspired me to dust off some long neglected neoteric poets I so enjoy.  Year by year I appreciate Horace ever more, just as my Latin profs told me I would. One needs a working knowledge of those poets to appreciate the inscriptions found in Rome, so much were they a part of cultural ambience of the humanists that produced them.  First century (BC and AD) neoteric poets (or Poetae Novi) wrote comparatively brief pieces abounding in colloquial language and learnéd allusion. This was a movement reacting against long epic poetry of the ancient world, such as the Greek Illiad and Latin Aeneid.  Neoterics were in part inspired by earlier Greek poetry of Alexandria in Egypt, especially that of Callimachus (fl. 250 BC), and his quip mega biblion mega kakon… “a big book is a big evil”.   Please join me and TC for that coffee, DH, or a glass of Caecubum when I come to the (get ready) Magnum Malum. 

POST COMMUNIONEM

LATIN (2002 Missale Romanum):

Deus, qui nos de uno pane et de uno calice
participes esse voluisti,
da nobis, quaesumus, ita vivere, ut, unum in Christo effecti,
fructum afferamus pro mundi salute gaudentes.

 This is new to the Novus Ordo of 1970 and subsequent editions, though, speaking of learnéd allusions, there are many biblical echoes herein, e.g., Rom 12:5, 1 Cor 10: 16, John 15, 16; John 17:11 & 21.

 
ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):

God our Father,
you give us a share in the one bread and the one cup
and make us one in Christ.
Help us to bring your salvation and joy
to all the world.
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Do you remember what the Congregation for Divine Worship wrote when last year they rejected the ICEL translation of the 2^nd (lame duck) edition of the Missale Romanum?   One of the CDW’s objections was that ICEL inelegantly referred to sacred vessels with language more befitting “kitchenware”.  I think future translators might do better by this Latin prayer.  Let us look at it more closely.  The verb affero merits some attention.  The meticulous Lewis & Short Dictionary helps with this complicated (at least in literal English) prayer.  Affero means basically, “to bring, take, carry or convey a thing to a place (of portable things, while adducere denotes the leading or conducting of men, animals, etc.)”.  It also is used for “to bring, bear, or carry a thing, as news, to report, announce, inform, publish” (constructed with alicui or ad aliquem aliquid, or with accusative and infinitive).  Thus, it signifies concepts such as “occasion, impart, allege, adduce” and (rarely in classical Latin) “to bring forth as a product, to yield, bear, produce” such as “to bear fruit” (cf. Vulgate Luke 12:1).  Participo is “to share; viz., to cause to partake of, to impart; and also, to partake of, participate in” and it can be constructed with the preposition de.  L&S cites the Vulgate 1 Cor 10:15-17: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ (communicatio sanguinis Christi)?  The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ (participatio corporis Domini)?  Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread (de uno pane participamur)” RSV.    

LITERAL TRANSLATION:

O God, who desired that we be participants
of the one bread and one chalice,
grant us, we beg, so to live that, having been made one in Christ,
we, rejoicing, may bear fruit for the salvation of the world.

This prayer shows a strong influence of both Paul and John.  Especially striking (and obvious) is the connection between the oneness we have in union with Christ as members of the Mystical Body, which is the Church, and how Holy Communion is both a sign of that existing communion and an efficient cause of that communion.  In the context of the Last Supper, Christ prayed to the Father before instituting the sacraments of the Eucharist together with Holy Orders and then going out to His Passion and Sacrifice: “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one (ut omnes unum sint).  As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us (ut et ipsi in nobis unum sint), so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one (ut sint unum sicut nos unum sumus), I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one (ut sint consummati in unum), so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” John 17:20-23 RSV.   Immediately you will see the importance of this passage for the Church’s proper efforts in a real process of dialog with non-Catholic Christians in an authentic ecumenism.  This was the phrase used to identify one of the Holy Father’s most important encyclical letters on this matter, Ut unum sint.   Please note that last phrase is the passage I quote: “that they may be completely one” or as the Vulgate puts it: ut sint consummati in unum.  The late Latin verb consummo means “to sum up” and “to make perfect, to complete, bring to the highest perfection.” We describe someone as a “consummate gentleman” or a completed sacramental marriage bond as having been “consummated”.  Do not to be confuse consummo with consumo, “to take wholly or completely” and “to consume, devour, waste, squander, annihilate, destroy, bring to naught, kill” as in “to consume a Sacred Host” or “consumer price index” or even “consumed with envy”.

In all we do, including that consummate moment when we consume Holy Communion, let us reflect in our dealings with our neighbors a real oneness with Christ so that others may be moved to enter into the glory of that same communion with us in Him and we may all be one at last.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time

ORGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in February 2002 

For those who enjoy the use also of the Church’s older, traditional, Roman calendar this Sunday would also be called Quinquagesima, meaning “fiftieth”, for it is roughly fifty days before Easter. You will recall that the Latin name for Lent is Quadragesima for “fortieth” since it begins about the fortieth day from Easter.  We are drawing close to Lent.  The pre-Lenten preparatory Sundays helped the Catholic to ready himself for a fruitful Lent.  It is time to consider well what penitential practices we will adopt.  Don’t wait until the Thursday after Ash Wednesday to decide.

Regarding the great Lewis & Short Dictionary GM from New Zealand writes via e-mail: “$175! Thats $NZ 416, not including postage and packaging.”  Well… sorry about that.  If it were up to me I would have one issued to every Catholic at the moment of baptism.   But in this fallen world, the L&S is spendy.  Don’t blame the messenger.  As my old pastor used to say, “Darn Adam, anyway!  It’s all his fault.”

SUPER OBLATA:
LATIN (1970 Missale Romanum):

Domine Deus noster
qui has potius creaturas
ad fragilitatis nostrae subsidium condidisti,
tribue, quaesumus,
ut etiam aeternitatis nobis fiant sacramentum.

There is a touch of military imagery in this prayer through words like subsidium and sacramentum (originally meaning an oath taken by soldiers).

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O Lord our God,
who made these creatures above all others
unto a support of our frailty,
grant, we beseech Thee,
that they may become for us the sacrament also of eternity.

The verb subsideo gives us the substantive subsidium originally meaning, “the troops stationed in reserve in the third line of battle (behind the principes), the line of reserve, reserve-ranks, triarii.”  By extension it also means “support, assistance, aid, help, protection.”   Our trusty (and well-worth-the-expense) Lewis & Short Dictionary states that potius is from the rarely declined potis which is “able, capable; possible.”  We see it often in the comparative form potior which is “preferred, better, preferable” and in the superlative potissimus (declinable) and thus the comparative adverbial form potius signifying “rather, preferably, more.”   We even see potissime and potissimum as a superlatives for “chiefly, principally, especially, in preference to all others, above all, most of all.”   Potius strengthens the concept it accompanies.   In a context such as today’s prayer we need to say something like “above all” or even “above or in preference to all others.”  Because the potius is imbedded in has…creaturas we can fairly easily divine what is being said. 

Always be careful with the Latin verb condo, cóndere, condidi, cónditum  (generally “to bring, lay or put together” in the sense of “establish, build, construct, compose, describe” and, strangely, “hide.”  Condo is not to be confused with condio, condíre, condivi, condítum: “to put fruit in vinegar, wine, spices, etc., to preserve, pickle” whence our English word “condiment.”  This gets confusing, since “to lay up”, as in to pickle or preserve, can also be expressed by condo!  Thus, M. Porcius Cato (234-149 B.C. – the “Elder” or the “Censor” to distinguish him from his homonymous grandson), in his no nonsense work on running a farm De agri cultura (called variously De re rustica), wrote oleae conduntur [condo] vel virides in muria… (muria… think of muriatic acid) which is “green olives persevered/laid down in salt brine.”  Also in De agri cultura XVII we find the same Cato’s descriptive chapter Oleae albae quo modo condiantur [condio]… “how light colored olives are to be preserved”.  Moreover, in his Natural History, C. Plinius Secundus (A.D. 23-79 – who died perhaps from poisonous gases in Stabiae about 16 km from the eruption of the volcano Vesuvius while trying to good and close), also called “the Elder” (to distinguish him from his nephew C. Plinius Caecilius Secundus “the Younger” Pliny (A.D. 62-113) – who described early Christians and their liturgical worship in his letters to the Emperor Trajan and who actually wrote the description of Vesuvius’ eruption at the request of the historian C. Cornelius Tacitus) says: vitis ipsa quoque manditur decoctis caulibus summis, qui et condiuntur [condio] in aceto ac muria, describing cooked tendrils of grapevines flavored with vinegar and salt brine.  Yum.  We need to know all of this in case during Advent we are called upon to sing the great hymn entitled Cónditor Alme siderum...O Nourishing/Kind Maker of the Stars.  The incautious, due to the stress the Gregorian chant melody lends to the first word, might be tempted to sing Condítor Alme Siderum… O Kind Pickler of the Stars.   Most of the time in Latin we can make impressive mistakes simply by getting one letter wrong.  We also have to watch for words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently because of accent!  Variety is the spice of life in Latin.

ICEL:
Lord our God,
may the bread and wine
you give us for our nourishment on earth
become the sacrament of our eternal life.

Note that the ICEL translator decided to break down the Latin hae creaturae… “these creatures” into what we actually see at the altar, bread and wine.   I don’t think that is a very good idea, though I can understand why it was done.  The reason I think that was a poor choice is because the way that the word and concept “creature” is used in the Latin liturgical tradition when something is being sanctified.  In the older Rituale Romanum, which contained different sacramental rites and blessings, there is found the rite for blessing holy water.  As in the rite for baptism, water was to be infused with salt.  Both the salt and water were first exorcised by the priest who would solemnly pray: “Thou creature of salt, I purge thee of all evil by the living + God, by the true + God, by the holy + God…  Be thou a purified salt for the health of believers, giving soundness of body and soul to all who use thee.  In whatever place thou art sprinkled, may phantoms and wickedness, and Satan’s cunning be banished.  And let every unclean spirit be repulsed by Him Who shall come to judge the living and the dead, and the world by fire.”   And for water, “Thou creature of water, I purge thee of evil….  Mayest thou be empowered to drive forth (the envious foe) and exile him together with his fallen angels….”  In the newer Missale Romanum, in the Appendix containing the rite for blessing water to be sprinkled at Mass during the penitential rite, the priest still calls water a creatura, though he no longer exorcizes it and does not speak to the water any longer as if it were a living thing.  But this image of the thing to be blessed as a living creature was once fairly common.  On the feast of St. John the Evangelist there was a special blessing for wine: “…Bless, + O Lord, this creature draught that it might be a helpful medicine to all who drink it.”   On Epiphany the priest would bless gold, incense and myrrh first exorcizing them and calling them all creatura,  “creatures.”   The creature oil was exorcized and blessed.   Anything that was to be presented to God for His special sanctification was to be exorcized just as a living person was to be exorcised before being presented for baptism.  It seems that the more important and precious a thing was, the greater the need for it to be pure at its offering, before God sanctifies and takes it apart from ordinary things unto His own. How important, then, are the bread and wine being prepared at the offertory of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass?  They will be taken by God to be transformed into Jesus Christ Himself. 

Water, salt, oil, bread and wine… these are simple things from daily life.  They are simple but of profound, even critical, importance.  We cannot live without them.  In the holy rites of the Catholic Church we would speak directly to the things to be consecrated (“Thou creature of water, I purge thee of evil….”) as if they were living things, so intimately were they bound together with how God supports our very lives.   Our blessed Lord during His earthly life instituted the seven sacraments we enjoy today.  Knowing that we are human creatures and not angelic creatures, he gave us outward signs with these sacraments so that we could understand when the invisible and interior reality was being conferred.  He thus took simple, but vastly important created things from our ordinary lives and raised them to a new sacramental reality.  Even the need to tell our troubles to a friend, so common but so important for our well-being, he raised to a sacrament.  The longing of a man and woman to be together, instituted as a holy union from the beginning of our race, was elevated making of the very bodies of the spouse something new and holy.  The struggle at the end of life or when we are in mortal peril was taken by Christ and given back to us as a sacrament and the daily and common yet life-supporting substance oil was his vehicle for giving us grace.

A word like creatura in these prayers gives us a sense of wonder about what is happening.  It reminds us that we too are creatures, made in the image and likeness of God.  Our super oblata today points out in a profound way, through the word creatura, that at the moment of the offertory of Holy Mass we are suddenly implicated in a hallowed nexus of the creaturely and the Creator.  The solemn language of the moment drapes, as it were, the altar and its appointments, the priest/mediator, and particularly (potius) the creatures of the bread and wine to be consecrated, with a mysterious cloak, reminiscent of the cloud that would descend upon the mountain and the tent when YAWEH God would speak face to face with Moses.

In our liturgical prayers we need to have a sacral style, removed from daily language.  They must be beautiful, evocative, striking and solemn.

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

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE WANDERER in January 2001

This Collect appeared in the pre-conciliar 1962 Missal, the so-called Mass of the Council of Trent, on the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, at the same time of year it appears since the reform mandated by the Second Vatican Council.  Obviously the Church deemed that what this prayer had to say was so important that it was retained after the reform.

LATIN (1970 Missale Romanum)
Familiam tuam, quaesumus, Domine, continua pietate custodi,
ut, quae in sola spe gratiae caelestis innititur,
tua semper protectione muniatur.

The repetition of the ending -tur gives this prayer a nice crisp sound.  Note also the separation of tua…protectione by semper, which gives it an elegant turn.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O Lord, we beseech you to guard your family with continual religious dutifulness,
in order that that (family) which is propping itself up upon the sole hope of heavenly grace
may be always defended by your protection.

Custodio means “to watch, protect, keep, defend, guard.”  It is common in military language.  Innitor, a deponent verb, means “to lean or rest upon, to support one’s self by any thing.   Innitor also has military overtones: the great Lewis & Short Dictionary provides examples from Caesar and Livy, describing soldiers leaning on their spears and shields (e.g., scutis innixi ... “leaning upon their shields” from Caesar, De bello Gallico 2.27).   Munio is a similarly military term for walling up something up, putting in a state of defense, fortifying so as to guard.