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

Today is the feast of one of my favorite saints, St. Frances of Rome (+1440).  She married into the Ponziani family, whose medieval palazzo is still in Trastevere.  When I moved to Rome many years ago I first lived there in that palazzo.  Therein is a chapel in the place where she died.  She has a place in my life, for sure.  At the death of her husband she founded a convent of Benedictine nuns, Oblates of the Benedictine Congregation of Monte Oliveti, headquartered in the nearby Tor di Specchi.  This convent is open once a year, today, for the public to enjoy.  St. Francis body is in the church in the Roman Forum called S. Maria Nova al Foro Romano. 

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "With her husband’s consent Frances practiced continency, and advanced in a life of contemplation. Her visions often assumed the form of drama enacted for her by heavenly personages. She had the gift of miracles and ecstasy, (as) well as the bodily vision of her guardian angel, had revelations concerning purgatory and hell, and foretold the ending of the Western Schism. She could read the secrets of consciences and detect plots of diabolical origin. She was remarkable for her humility and detachment, her obedience and patience[.]"

Pontifications pointed to Amy Wellborn’s note on the "Ubiquitous Song Leader".  Bishop Edward J. Slattery of Tulsa is publishing in his diocesan paper the Eastern Oklahoma Catholic a series of articles calling people to a more faithful application of the Church’s norms on liturgy.  After the last Synod of Bishops His Excellency has asked clergy, liturgists and musicians to review Sacrosanctum Concilium. 

Here is a sample (my emphasis added):

“I ask them to pay special attention to the sections devoted to Sacred Music (Chapter 6, 112 – 121) that those who share responsibility in a parish for the implementation of the Council’s liturgical norms might reacquaint themselves with what the Council Fathers actually wrote concerning the requirements of proper liturgical music, and in particular the principle which places the text in importance over the melody, thus acknowledging the primacy of Gregorian Chant among the Church’s musical traditions, not merely from the position of its great venerability and beauty, but also because chant, having no rhythm, never forces the text to be rewritten to fit a specific meter. Chant allows us a certain sacred space within which that Word which God spoke in ancient times can be heard today with greater clarity and fidelity.  I understand that this review of music must lead to changes and that changes will often be irksome and problematic. For this reason I would caution that this gradual, but definite, reintroduction of Gregorian chant into our parishes and communities be done with careful study, deliberate consultation and much prayer. However, as a sign of the seriousness with which I approach this topic, I am asking that pastors move with some dispatch to introduce their congregations to the simpler chants of the Kyriale, including the Gloria, Sanctus, Pater Noster and the Agnus Dei.”  (Eastern Oklahoma Catholic March 6, 2006). 

Bishop Slattery gives his flock a whole lot more beside.  For example: “I am also asking our people to recover their sense of the sacredness of the sanctuary by refraining from idle conversation in Church before and after Mass.”  Or, how about this: “If… our attention is repeatedly pulled away from the altar to the presence of the cantor or the choir, then our participation at Mass can become a kind of tennis match, and our response in prayer remains shallow and disjointed.  … (W)e should be honest enough to acknowledge that the placement of the choir, cantor and the musicians (in the front of the church) has proven to be a terrible distraction in many parishes.”  

I love this guy. 

Today’s prayer is unchanged from the Veronese Sacramentary and the Gelasian and so-called "Gregorian".  It was in the 1962 Missale Romanum too.  It was the used on the 8th Sunday after Pentecost.  I cannot fathom why the redactors of the Novus Ordo thought there were not enough ancient lenten prayers in the available venerable sacramentaries.  

I don’t get it.  Anyone have a reasonable, irenic explanation? 

On the other hand, there is this week a theme of the mind developing.  We have seen a mens / corpus paring this week.  Today, well… let’s see what we can find by looking at what the prayer really says.

COLLECT
Largire nobis, quaesumus, Domine,
semper spiritum cogitandi quae recta sunt,
promptius et agendi,
ut, qui sine te esse non possumus,
secundum te vivere valeamus.

One of the meanings of secundum found in the prestigious Lewis & Short Dictionary is "agreeably to, in accordance with, according to".  Remember that largire is an imperative of a deponent verb, not an infinitive.   The famous verb cogito is more than simply "to think".  It reflects deeper reflection, true pursuit in the mind: "to consider thoroughly, to ponder, to weigh, reflect upon, think".

LITERAL TRANSLATION
We beg you, O Lord, bestow upon us
the spirit of thinking always things which are correct,
and of carrying them out promptly,
so that we who are not able to exist without You
may be able to live according to Your will.

Yesterday in my Augustinian peregrinations I found a text which harks to at least the a part of the content of this prayer.  In Io. eu. tr. 51,3:

"For Christ, who humbled Himself, made obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross, is the teacher of humility.  When He teaches us humility He doesn’t thus let go of His divinity: for in it (His divinity) He is the equal of the Father, while in this (His humility) He is like unto us; and in that He is the Father’s equal He created us in order that we might exist; and in that He is like to us, He redeemed us so that we would not perish."

In God, we live and move and have our being.  We are made to act as God acts: knowing, willing, loving.  When we cleave to God, seeking what is good and true and beautiful through the tangle of our wounded intellect, we are seeking God.  Once we know what is good, true and beautiful either because we reasoned to it or authority helped us, then we must act in accordance with the good, truth and beauty we have found.  Today we are praying to God to give us the actual graces we need in order to live more properly according to His image He placed within us.  For we are even more ourselves, even more free when, eschewing our own varying wills, we embrace Him who is Goodness, Truth and Beauty.

Yet there are times when we purposely (and thereafter habitually) choose against what reason and authority point to as good, truth and beauty.  We make the choice to stray and sin.  In doing so we diminish ourselves, who have our very existence from the One whom we have defied.  We must return to the correct path, like Dante who has strayed into the dark woods after leaving the path of the right reason.

So often, we could avoid straying and sinning if we would just act on that first proper of our minds and consciences.  Sometimes, of course, we must ponder to discern the correct path in difficult situations.  But most of the time, we get into trouble when we hesitate in doing what we know is right.  We mull and pick and dawdle and get ourselves into a whole hornet nest of problems.  Prompt action helps us to avoid many problems and many sins.  In a way, the phrase of the Nike commercial (and Nike means “victory” in ancient Greek) sums it up:  Just Do It.