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

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  7^th Sunday of Ordinary Time

I must tip my biretta to the Internet blog called The Commonplace Book of Zadok the Roman for a story in the British Telegraph.  Apparently a group of Latin students in Germany formed a hip hop band about a decade ago named Ista and are now producing and selling CDs of rap music in Latin.  They sell disks through their internet site.  One of the band members made a point WDTPRS made a couple weeks back when we were discussing the language in which papal documents are composed: “Latin is a good language to rap in actually. It has a good rhythm and can be to the point.” 

Before the end of last year we were comparing the first draft of the ICEL translation of ordinary prayers of Holy Mass, the second draft, and our own WDTPRS version which we worked through in fourth year of this series (2003-04).  Let’s get back to that.  We had reached the Roman Canon’s Qui pridie:  WDTPRS LITERAL VERSION: Who, the day before He suffered, took bread into His holy and venerable hands and, when (His) eyes were raised to heaven to You, O God, His Father Almighty, giving thanks to You He blessed it, broke it, and gave it to His disciples, saying: All of you receive and eat of this: for this is My Body which will be handed over for you.  1^st NEW ICEL DRAFT: Who on the day before he was to suffer took bread into his holy and venerable hands, and with eyes raised to heaven to you, God, his almighty Father, giving you thanks, he blessed, broke, and gave it to his disciples, saying: Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is my Body, which will be given up for you.  2^nd NEW ICEL DRAFT (changes underscored): Who on the day before he was to suffer took bread into his holy and venerable hands: with eyes raised to heaven to you, O God, his almighty Father, giving you thanks he said the blessing, broke the bread and gave it to his disciples, saying: Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is my Body, which will be given up for you.

In the 2001 document on translation norms Liturgiam authenticam from the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments we find some important principles which those preparing the new vernacular version must adhere to.  For example,

19. The words of the Sacred Scriptures, as well as the other words spoken in liturgical celebrations, especially in the celebration of the Sacraments, are not intended primarily to be a sort of mirror of the interior dispositions of the faithful; rather, they express truths that transcend the limits of time and space. …  20.  … the translation of the liturgical texts of the Roman Liturgy is not so much a work of creative innovation as it is of rendering the original texts faithfully and accurately into the vernacular language. While it is permissible to arrange the wording, the syntax and the style in such a way as to prepare a flowing vernacular text suitable to the rhythm of popular prayer, the original text, insofar as possible, must be translated integrally and in the most exact manner, without omissions or additions in terms of their content, and without paraphrases or glosses. Any adaptation to the characteristics or the nature of the various vernacular languages is to be sober and discreet.   … 25. So that the content of the original texts may be evident and comprehensible even to the faithful who lack any special intellectual formation, the translations should be characterized by a kind of language which is easily understandable, yet which at the same time preserves these texts’ dignity, beauty, and doctrinal precision. By means of words of praise and adoration that foster reverence and gratitude in the face of God’s majesty, his power, his mercy and his transcendent nature, the translations will respond to the hunger and thirst for the living God that is experienced by the people of our own time, while contributing also to the dignity and beauty of the liturgical celebration itself.  (Emphasis added).

I have received notes from people telling me I am wasting my time and energy supporting a better English translation.  I always respond to them that the use of vernacular is here to stay, for better or for worse and whether we like it or not.  Furthermore, would it be better for the Church or worse if, on the one hand, the translations actually conveyed what the content of the Latin original says or, on the other, if the English prayers remained as empty and banal as they are?   So, we had better give support for better translations than we are now forced to use.  At the same time, we are seeing an interest in Latin and more traditional expressions of liturgy popping up all over the place.   All along WDTPRS has been saying we need both good English translations and far more Latin. 
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Not only did The Wanderer itself have an encouraging article about Latin liturgy in last week’s issue, recently in The Washington Times (31 January) there was an article about the beginning of Masses celebrated in Latin (in the Novus Ordo) at St. John the Beloved Catholic Church in McLean, Virginia.   While that article focuses mostly on the older, so-called “Tridentine” Mass, and quotes the His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI in his 1997 Salt of the Earth saying, “I am of the opinion, to be sure, that the old rite should be granted much more generously to all those who desire it”, the focus remains on Latin and more traditional expressions of Catholic liturgy.  According to Fr. McAfee in the same article, “The younger people want to do it more than the older people.”  Fr. McAfee said, “Converts are very open to it. Again, they want the whole thing. At St. Catherine’s [Fr. McAfee’s former parish], I converted two Jews because of that Mass.”  As a convert I too can attest to this: when I became a Catholic I too wanted the whole thing, my entire Catholic inheritance.  The idea that people wanted to keep my newly embraced Catholic  heritage from me made me see red. Going on in that article, (and take note of this all you pastors of parishes out there) Fr. McAfee says one parishioner sent him a $10,000 check and another contributed $5,000 upon hearing Latin Masses were going to begin.  

 This Sunday would have been Sexagesima in the older, traditional Roman calendar.  Our so-called “Prayer over the gifts” is found in the ancient Veronese Sacramentary in the prayers for July under the title Orationes et praeces diurnae.

 SUPER OBLATA (2002MR):

Mysteria tua, Domine, debitis servitiis exsequentes,
supplices te rogamus,
ut, quod ad honorem tuae maiestatis offerimus,
nobis proficiat ad salutem.

 By now all faithful readers of WDTPRS know that mysterium and sacramentum are nearly interchangeable in liturgical Latin.  We like to say “sacramental mysteries”. 

 The language of Latin prayers is quite different from our ordinary speech these days.  One of the things you will notice right away is that it is “courtly”: the language immediately differentiates between the addressee and the speaker.  The incomparable Lewis & Short Dictionary reveals that our term maiestas means “greatness, grandeur, dignity, majesty” and furthermore it is used “of the gods; also the condition of men in high station, as kings, consuls, senators, knights, etc., and, in republican states, especially frequently of the people”.  One of the greatest crimes in ancient Rome was to harm or diminish the maiestas of the people, high treason: majestatem minuere or laedere… laesa maiestas.   In English we use the French version, “lese-majesté”. 

 Our Latin prayers will address Almighty God using both personal pronouns (such as the usually invisible tu, and tibi, te, etc.) and also by abstract names such as Maiestas tua (“your majesty”, “your greatness”) Nomen tuum (“your Name”), and Pietas tua (“your goodness”).    In the New Testament words like gloria and maiestas stand for God’s sovereign grandeur, as in Heb 1:3-4: “(Filius) qui cum splendor sit gloriae maiestatis (Greek megalosúnes) in excelsis... He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has obtained is more excellent than theirs” (RSV - cf. also 1 Tim 3:16).  Also in Matthew 25:31: “Cum autem venerit Filius hominis in maiestate sua (Greek dóxe(i))... When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne” (RSV).  

 Exequor means primarily “to follow to the end, to pursue, follow” but it can also be “to follow or accompany to the grave”.  It can also be “follow up, prosecute, carry out; to perform, execute, accomplish, fulfill”.   Proficio is one of those polyvalent words appearing often in our prayers, and it usually means something like, “to be useful, serviceable, advantageous, etc., to effect, accomplish; to help, tend, contribute, conduce.”  It is rather stilted to say “be serviceable for us”, but our WDTPRS task is to be slavishly literal, not to “be advantageous” unto smooth, liturgically useful versions.  Let’s see what sort of hash ICEL made of the prayer before going on.  You know that when the English is shorter than the Latin, things are going to get ugly.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord,
as we make this offering,
may our worship in Spirit and truth
bring us salvation.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
As we are performing Your sacramental mysteries
with due liturgical services, O Lord, we humble petitioners beg You,
that what we are offering unto the honor of Your Majesty,
may be advantageous for us unto salvation.

 Perhaps the most interesting word in our prayer is servitium.  In the abstract it means, “the condition of a slave or servant, slavery, servitude”.  In the concrete it is, “a body of servants, the class of slaves”.   Gaius Plinis Secundus (+79), called Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia uses the word for the “drones” among bees.  The Roman playwright Publius Terentius Afer (+159 called simply “Terence”) in his play Andria uses this together with debeo (a form of which is in our prayer today, paired with servitiis) in the phrase “hoc tibi pro servitio debeo... “I owe this to you as your servant”.   The Church Father and Doctor St. Augustine (+430) used servitia debita about necessary service of the poor in a discussion of the active and contemplative life symbolized by the figures of Martha and Mary (s. 103,5).  Turning to another reliable source of Latin clarity, the focused French dictionary of liturgical Latin we call Blaise, servitium is found to be more precisely the liturgy itself and also the service of God by priests.  This is, I think, the meaning we must latch onto here in the service of getting to the bottom of what this prayer really says.

This “prayer over the gifts” rings clear with our humility and God’s majesty.  We apply ourselves to what we owe to God by duty and His commands, but, in doing so, we are in turn enriched beyond our imagining.   The words mysteria tua, Your mysteries, remind us that even though we are acting together in the context of Holy Mass, God is the true actor, the true dispenser of the gifts we receive through the rites of Holy Mass.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  7^th Sunday in of Ordinary Time

ORIGNINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2003

Once again I rely on the terrier-like reporting of the ubiquitous Mr. John L. Allen, Jr. of the National Catholic Reporter.  In his 7 February 2003 Word From Rome Mr. Allen reports about ICEL and its latest comings and goings… to and from Rome, that is.  You will recall that the Holy See placed a great focus on the English language translations after the Congregation for Divine Worship (CDW) issued its normative document Liturgiam authenticam (LA) in May 2001.   Apparently now it is time to examine and renovate the translations in other languages.  Pace Mr. Allen, the German equivalent of ICEL, the Internationale Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Liturgischen Kommissionen im deutschen Sprachgebiet (let’s call it IAG), based at the Deutsches Liturgisches Institut in Trier, will soon be restructured too.  Joachim Card. Meisner, Archbishop of Köln, Germany, delivered the bad/good news during a January meeting.  Fr. Eberhard Amon, IAG’s secretary, said he expects two new bodies to result from the overhaul.  The German language is important since it is consulted for translations into Eastern European languages. Mr. Allen says, “The French may be the next in line.  In 2002, the French translation of the marriage rite was rejected by Rome, and the Vatican sent a letter to the French bishops asking that re-translations of other liturgical texts in light of Liturgiam Authenticam begin.”   I find it interesting that the rejection of a translation by a critically important text seems to be the first salvo in the CDW’s process of overhauling translations and bodies entrusted with them.  Back in the English world, Fr. Bruce Harbert, ICEL’s new Executive Secretary, was in Rome 5-6 February for meetings with the CDW.  As Mr. Allen reports, this is interesting because, in the past, the when Mr. John Page was Executive Secretary, ICEL was informed by the CDW that “’collaborators’ and ‘employees’ had no standing to be present at meetings at the congregation.”  It seems the attitude has changed a bit in Rome.

 I received a nice fax (forwarded to me) dated 26 January 2003 from FM of GA, a convert like your author, who differs in a fundamental way with the CDW’s document LA.  I quoted the problematic (for FM) paragraph in my column for the Super oblata of Trinity Sunday.  FM: “You quote paragraph 25 of LA in your May 23^rd (2002) column, ‘So that the content of the original texts may be evident and comprehensible even to the faithful who lack any special intellectual formation, the translations should be characterized by a kind of language which is easily understandable, yet which at the same time preserves these text’s dignity, beauty, and doctrinal precision’ (emphasis added).  I suggest that this is a self contradictory goal.  The same goal is in place in most of our schools today.  However, the way it is implemented is by ‘dumbing down’ the curriculum….  What LA evidently does not take into account (and much of the thrust of Vatican II similarly ignores) is that the Church has a translator that the secular schools purposely deny… Latin….  Depending on the age of the student the Catholic teacher would discuss the vernacular meaning of the Latin in words suitable for that age group.”  FM, I must comment.  First, I agree that there is much “dumbing down” of the liturgy since Vatican II.  No question.  Most conspicuous to us, however, is the deficient 1973 ICEL translation.  Keep in mind that a new translation is in the works.  To be fair, it must be given its chance.  Second, the “dumbing down” of the liturgy we see today was not mandated by the Council Fathers at Vatican II!   They mandated only very few changes in the constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium.  The Consilium, under Card. Lercaro and (later) Archbp. Bugnini, went way beyond the Council’s mandates, made massive changes, and (sadly) got them approved.  Don’t lay this at the feet of the Council: it is the brainchild of those who implemented the Council.  Third, I have been saying again and again in these columns that, while a grown man can survive on a diet of creamed carrots and milk, fit for infants, he cannot thrive.  We need steak and a robust Zinfandel (I almost wrote “Bordeaux”, but I am not buying French right now) in order to be satisfied.  I do not see that LA 25 contradicts that.  I beat the drum for the widespread restoration of Latin to its rightful place as much as you do, FM.  

 I have a wonderful image in my mind (which I, though relatively young, have witnessed) of people participating in celebrations of Mass in Latin, each having his own prayer book with translations in different languages, even different translations in the same language.  An Englishman might have his book, Latin in one column and an older archaic style in the other.  His little son and daughter have their missals too, with simple translations suitable for children, not “dumbed down” but tailored to their ability to grasp.  Next to the man is an Italian, with his book in Latin and Italian.  Next to them is a woman from Korea and a young person from Argentina. All have their own versions.  Yet, in this diversity, they are all able to give themselves over to the sacred action in “full, conscious, and active participation”.  None of them even remotely “left out” because Mass is in a language they do not understand.  I mostly cringe in large modern Masses in which there must be some jarring babble of different tongues, some parts in English, some in Spanish, some in, say, Vietnamese, in a futile attempt to make every feel “welcomed” or able to “participate”.   When that occurs, everyone can participate for a few moments, but no one can participate for the whole thing.  James Joyce once said of the Catholic Church as “here comes everyone”.    But the diversity of languages was a sign of disunity and rebellion against God from the beginning (Gen 11:6-9).  The Pentecost event, in which everyone understood all languages was the anti-Babel (Acts 2:3-13).  Latin was not only the Church’s anti-Babel, it is everyone’s heritage, possession, and inheritance, open to all, especially on the foundation of good tools and good catechism.  It is used, without bias for age, race, culture, and education.  I also realize that the vernacular is here to stay.  I agree with you wholeheartedly, FM, that Latin would be very useful for every age and every type of person to the degree they individually can benefit from it.  But, and this is a huge but, that depends entirely on those different people having the benefit also of adequate liturgical catechisis, which you suggest in your comments.  Where are the catechists/priests who can provide it?  If we must have use of the vernacular (and we must), we must also have the very best translations we can muster.  The texts, according to LA 25, are to reflect the content and beauty of the original.   I know, FM, that this is a thorny problem. On the other hand, nothing is gained from having bad translations.

 POST COMMUNIONEM

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Almighty God,
help us to live the example of love
we celebrate in this eucharist,
that we may come to its fulfillment in your presence.

 LATIN (2002 Missale Romanum):
Praesta, quaesumus, omnipotens Deus,
ut illius capiamus effectum,
cuius per haec mysteria pignus accepimus.

 This prayer was, with minor changes, the Postcommunio of the Fifth Sunday left over after Epiphany, which was celebrated near the end of the liturgical year: Quaesumus, omnipotens Deus: ut illius salutaris capiamus effectum, cuius… without the praesta. This prayer seems to have origins in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary.

 LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Grant, we implore you, Almighty God,
that we may obtain the effect of that
of which we have received a pledge token by means of these sacramental mysteries.

 In the older form of the prayer in the 1962MR the middle part was a bit clearer: “…the effect of that salvation of which…”. In the grand Lewis & Short Dictionary we find that the neuter noun pignus (from the root found in pango; cf. paciscor) means “a pledge, gage, pawn, security, mortgage (of persons as well as things)”. It is also “the object of a wager, a wager, stake” and “children, parents, brothers and sisters, relatives, as pledges of love.”  It is especially found in constructions with the verb capio, as in our prayer today, as in pignus capere, “to take a pledge or security for payment”, pignora capere, “to issue execution, make seizure of property” and “pignoris capio, “a proceeding by which the summary collection of certain debts was secured”.

 Several things come to mind as I hear this.  First, as we have explored various times in these WDTPRS columns, we are living in a state of “already, but not yet”.  With the resurrection of the Lord, the work of our salvation is completed, our humanity is at the right hand of the Father in the Risen Christ, but we are still awaiting the finalization and ultimate effects.  In the moment of Holy Communion, when we receive the pledge, the down payment, of our face to face encounter with the Almighty, we are as close to that final state as we can be in this life.  Second, one of the meanings of pignus refers to other people in our lives, close to us, our neighbors, as being signs or tokens of something valuable, something we will obtain to a greater extent later.   We all know of Christ’s two-fold command to love God and neighbor (Matthew 19:19).  We all know the parable in which Christ describes the fates of those who are solicitous to their needy neighbors and those who neglect them (Matthew 25:31-46).  Our neighbors are an eschatological sign to us (Greek ta eschata “last things” – eschatology is the study of the “last things”, our death and judgment, the end of the world and its culmination when God will be “all in all” (cf. 1 Cor 15).   Pignus is found few times in the Latin Vulgate version of the New Testament, and all times in the letters of Paul (cf. 2 Cor 1:22; 2 Cor 5:5; Eph 1:14) and they all refer to the baptismal branding or “seal” we receive especially in baptism (and its intensifying in the other sacraments of initiation, confirmation and Eucharist).  For example, in 2 Cor 1:21-22, the RSV version gives us: “But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, by putting his seal on us and giving us his Spirit in our hearts as a first installment.”   

 By our baptism and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we can be admitted to Holy Communion.  It is by our baptism that we are enabled to participate at Mass with “full, conscious, and active” participation, with what I call “active receptivity”.  “Active participation” reaches its perfection in a good Holy Communion.  Communion, however, is never to be isolated from the rest of our lives.  Our baptismal character calls us to extend the effects of our Communion and the preparation for reception of that Communion into all the other corners and levels of our lives.   As communicating Catholics, with each passing day and every Holy Communion, we should be consciously striving to see also in our neighbors, and not just the Sacred Host, as pledges and tokens of what we have been promised.  The Eucharist is always privileged in this formula or rule for living, for only the Eucharist of all the sacraments, is the one Whom it signifies.  Only the Eucharist, of all the concrete things we encounter in this life and experience with our senses, is worthy of worship.  Yet our Lord, God and Savior has commanded sacrificial love, on His pattern and example, to be extended to our neighbors.  For us this has everlasting impact.

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

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2001

COLLECT:
LATIN (1970 Missale Romanum):
Praesta, quaesumus, omnipotens Deus,
ut, semper rationabilia meditantes,
quae tibi sunt placita, et dictis exsequamur et factis.

 
Nice here is the spiffy separation of et dictis…et factis by the verb.  Note also the et…et construction, which every first year Latinist knows means “both… and”.  It provides a parallel structure in that clause, lending to it a nice rhythm when spoken and especially when sung.  Right away we will make a connection between the two neuter plurals rationabilia… placita, which also strengthens their association in the prayer.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Grant, we beg, Almighty God,
that we, meditating always on rational things,
may fulfill those things which are pleasing to You
by both words and deeds.

 Amongst the many things we find in the excellent Lewis & Short Dictionary that exsequor can mean are “to follow, go after, pursue” as well as “to follow up, prosecute, carry out; to perform, execute, accomplish, fulfill” and also “to go through with in speaking, to relate, describe, say, tell.”  In a way, any of those meanings can be plugged into this translation.  We certainly must, as Christians, carry out or perform things pleasing to God.  We follow after and pursue those things.  And we even tell a story about what is important to us by our words and deeds.  We reveal ourselves as more or less good images of God by what we say and do.  Rationabilis is an adjective meaning “reasonable, rational”.  I will make a choice for “rational” here, partly because of an association I make between this prayer and another I know.  But first, a Biblical connection.

In John 8,28-29 Jesus gives a warning to unbelieving Jews: 

So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority but speak thus as the Father taught me.  And he who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him (quae plactia sunt ei, facio semper).”

 Now for the connection I mentioned above.  When I was studying philosophy, at the beginning of all the classes, we would always recite a prayer of St. Thomas Aquinas:

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

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

 Here we have total submission of the higher faculties of man to God, who created them and gave them to us as gifts.  That is to say, “have authority over me so that I can be more who I am supposed to be.”

 Let’s put this together now.  First, we are creatures made in the image and likeness of God.  We are made to act like God acts, using our gifts and powers of intellect and will.  These faculties are wounded because of Original Sin, but they still separate us from irrational animals.  Thus, we can distinguish between “acts of humans” (such as breathing and digesting) that are not much different than what brute animals do except that a human does them, and human acts (like painting, repairing a car, conversing, choosing to love) which involve the use of the higher faculties.  So, we must be interiorly engaged and focused with mind and will on the action we, as agents in God’s image, are carrying out.  This is important for our understanding properly what “active participation” in the liturgy means.  Many people have fallen into the trap of thinking that “active participation” means carrying things around, clapping, singing, etc.  But we can do all those things and actually be mentally a gazillion miles away, thinking about the grocery list or pondering what the score of the game is.  We all have the experience of catching ourselves whistling without have realized we were doing it.  Conversely, we can sing and sing and get all the words and notes, or read aloud perfectly, but actually be thinking about something else.  Sure, we are “actively” doing it, but we are not acting as “humanly” as we ought.  That is not the kind of participation we need at Mass.  We need to be actively receptive to what is taking place in the sacred action of the liturgy.  I contend that watching carefully and quietly with actively receptive listening to the spoken Word or to excellent sacred music is far more active than distracted singing, poor reading, or carrying things around.  It is actually quite difficult to listen.  It takes real concentration and desire.  When our minds and wills are engaged to listen we are, in a way, participating more actively than most other ways.  It looks passive, but it isn’t.  We submit and receive what Christ, the true actor in the Mass, gives us not as passive animals, but as engaged and actively receptive images of God.

 Christ came into this world to save us from our sins and to teach us who we are.  He did this by His words and deeds.  Those words and deeds save us and instruct us as to how we are to act as images of God.  In paragraph 22 of the Second Vatican Council’s Gaudium et spes, often attributed to His Holiness, we read that:

 The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of Him Who was to come, namely Christ the Lord. Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear. It is not surprising, then, that in Him all the aforementioned truths find their root and attain their crown.  He Who is "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15), is Himself the perfect man. To the sons of Adam He restores the divine likeness which had been disfigured from the first sin onward. Since human nature as He assumed it was not annulled, by that very fact it has been raised up to a divine dignity in our respect too. For by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man. He worked with human hands, He thought with a human mind, acted by human choice and loved with a human heart. Born of the Virgin Mary, He has truly been made one of us, like us in all things except sin.

 
In this, dare I say it, intellectually arrogant post-modern, post-Christian world we live in, there has been in most circles a nearly complete divorce between faith and reason, authority and intellect.  Faith is seen by some today as the intellect’s idiot cousin.  Authority is only to be questioned.  But that model for man’s relationship with Truth can lead only to a black pit of despair, an emptying of the content of every word and every deed, rendering pointless everything that is human – both suffering and joy alike.  We are who we are because God made us to be so.  We need to engage our minds and wills, bring to completion by faith what reason can glean, and submit to proper authority with active receptivity.  In order to be truly human during our pilgrimage in this world, we need reminders of this together with the grace of God.  Our collect is a very good prayer for our times.

 ICEL:
Father,
keep before us the wisdom and love
you have revealed in your Son.
Help us to be like him
in word and deed…