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

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  2^nd Sunday of Lent – Roman Station: St. Mary in Domnica alla Navicella

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2006

DR writes via e-mail: “The response to ‘The Lord be with you’ should be ‘and with your spirit.’   My question here is, what is the meaning of ‘and with your spirit.’  What are we saying with that statement.  Also what are we saying with the incorrect form namely “and also with you.”   What are we saying with that statement?”  Thanks for the question, DR.  What are we saying with the present ICEL form?  I really don’t know other than to guess that there was a desire to eliminate distinctions between the ordained and lay people.  Here is why. The Latin response says “And with your spirit”.  Note the lower-case “spirit”.  What this refers to, as I understand it, is the sacramentally ordained character of the priest or deacon.  It is an acknowledgment of the fact that when the sacramentally ordained calls the Holy Spirit upon the people, he does something different than what lay people do.  This all reminds me of a story someone sent to me.  Apparently his priest always said with enthusiasm “The Lord IS with you!” to which in true curmudgeon fashion he responded “And MAYBE with you!”

This is a variation of the Secret for Quinquagesima Sunday in the 1962 edition of the Missale Romanum.  It strikes me as very odd indeed to lift a Secret from a pre-Lenten Sunday and insert it into the texts for the Second Sunday of Lent.  Why not just take the secret for the Second Sunday of Lent?   That is all above my pay grade, I suppose.

SUPER OBLATA (2002MR):
Haec hostia, Domine, quaesumus, emundet nostra delicta,
et ad celebranda festa paschalia
fidelium tuorum corpora mentesque sanctificet.

As happened four years ago, when we first looked as this prayer, we have just concluded the Winter Olympics.  I marvel at the skills and conditioning of the athletes competing and, in some cases this year, the overweening pride which led to rather humiliating defeats – warnings to us all.  Having those images of athletic competition in mind today’s prayer reminds me of the Latin phrase of the satirist Juvenal, “Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano… A healthy/sound mind in a healthy/sound body is something to be prayed for.”  There is our –nd- form again.  It may be that Juvenal was inspired by Homer: “A faultless body and a blameless mind” (Odyssey III, 138 – trans. Pope).  This was a common theme in the ancient world.  The Stoic Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger (+65) wrote: “Hold fast to this sound and wholesome rule of life: that you indulge the body only so far as is needful for good health.  The body should be treated rigorously, that it may not be disobedient to the mind” (ep. 7, 5).  These authors, together with those of Scripture, were part of the cultural formation of the author of today’s prayer so many centuries ago.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Let this sacrificial offering cleanse our sins, we beg, O Lord,
and let it sanctify the bodies and minds of Thy faithful
for celebrating the paschal feasts.

Humans are not angels.  We have both body and soul.  The bond between body and soul is so great that when the one is separated from the other we die.  But so powerful is that bond that our soul awaits the moment when it will once again (using philosophical language) inform matter  which is our body.  We will arise from the dust from which we were formed.  Some will rise to the unending happiness of heaven, some to perpetual damnation of hell.  Our eternal destiny is determined by our state of soul at the time of death.  If we die in God’s friendship, we will enjoy heaven.  If we die separated from God’s friendship, we will be damned to hell.  The way we live prepares us for the way we must die.  If, in order to be victorious, athletes must be disciplined and earnest to achieve perfection in their sport, or any other human endeavor, can we think that the spiritual struggle could require less dedication?

The Apostle St. Paul and other New Testament authors describe our Christian life using imagery of sporting events of his day.  For example, in 1 Peter 5:4 we read, “When the chief Shepherd is manifested you will obtain the unfading crown of glory.”  The letter of the Apostle St. James says, “Blessed is the man who endures trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him.”  The Apostle St. John wrote, “I am coming soon; hold fast to what you have, so that no one may seize your crown” (Rev 3:11).  St. Paul admonishes us:

For I am already on the point of being sacrificed; the time of my departure has come.  I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. (2 Tim 4:6-8)

During this Lent we can take to heart the adage that drove Olympic athletes: citius – altius – fortius… swifter – higher/deeper – stronger.  In performing spiritual and corporal works of mercy we can be citius…swifter.  In examining our consciences we can be altius… deeper.  In watchfulness regarding things of the flesh we can be fortius…stronger, and thereby win our unfading crown of glory.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord,
make us holy.
May this eucharist take away our sins
that we may be prepared
to celebrate the resurrection.

I can’t bring myself to make many comments on this lame-duck version.  Suffice to say that I believe that the Eucharist takes away our sins because it is the Sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ.  He paid the price for every sin ever committed or that would ever be committed.  His Person is the price of our salvation.   The Latin clearly refers to His Sacrifice and the ICEL version does not.  In the Sacrifice of the Mass we renew this saving event, recognizing it as the source of forgiveness.  In expunging that key concept, Sacrifice, a great injustice was done to the Truth and to the People of God, who deserve to know what the prayer really says.  
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Let’s move on to our “Prayer over the people”.  During Lent, I am including the new/ancient Oratio super populum now happily restored in the 2002MR.  It is pronounced after the Post Communion.  In the ICEL “Sacramentary” there is on Sundays of Lent a “Solemn blessing or prayer over the people” but they are not prayers from any Latin Missal. 

The origin of this special invocation is a little hard to pin down.  Fr. Joseph A. Jungmann in his monumental two volume The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development gives a history of this prayer at the beginning of the section concerning the close of the Mass (vol. II, pp. 427ff).  Jungmann emphasized something that caught my attention: we are at a “frontier” moment, the threshold of the sacred precinct of the church and the world.  In a way, this prayer helps you take what you gained from Mass out into the world and put it to good use.

By the time of St. Pope Gregory the Great (+604) this blessing was only during Lent, probably because it is a time of greater spiritual combat.   Indeed the Oratio super populum was extremely important for those who were not receiving Holy Communion, as was the case of those doing public penance before the Church, the ordo poenitentium.  

How important was this “Prayer over the people” to our ancient Roman forbears in the Faith?  In 545 Pope Vigilius (537-55) was celebrating the station Mass at St. Cecilia in Trastevere.  Soldiers of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, a pro-Monophysite (the “Christ had only one nature” crowd) arrived after Communion to take the Pope into custody and haul him off to Constantinople.  The people followed them out of the basilica all the way to the boat demanding “ut orationem ab eo acciperent… that they receive the blessing prayer from him”.  The Pope recited it.  The people said “Amen”.  Off went Vigilius.  He would return to Rome in the flesh only after his death.

Our marvelous history and customs and traditions, wonderful stories like this from the past, all make me wonder what we would do in similar circumstances.  What would we do if our priest, our bishop, our Pope were hauled before our eyes off the altar before the final blessings?  How important do you think these priestly invocations of God’s help upon us are for our daily lives?  How important is the role of your priest in your Catholic life?  

Sure, it happens all the time that the priest’s all too human flaws make it difficult to see in him what God has placed upon his soul.  I get complaints about priests constantly via e-mail and snail-mail.  Sometimes they are about me!  Regardless of how inadequate some of you might think Father is, his blessings are effective.  His consecrations and absolutions are valid.  And rarely, rarely, despite how it might seem in the moment, or how ignorant or thick or lazy or given to less than edifying things you think he may be, does he act in such a way that his blessings or celebrations of sacraments are not guaranteed by the Church’s authority and God’s own promises.  As spotless as Holy Mother Church is, we do not belong to a Church of the pure only.  The priest, however inadequate you might think yours to be, is mysteriously alter Christus.  He remains the fundamental figure in the formation of the Christian faithful. 

Consider now our prayer.  Note that unlike the other prayers of Mass, in the “Prayer over the people” the priest prays for and over the people, not including himself.  In all other prayers of Holy Mass he speaks of “we” and “us”.  This one is entirely for you..

ORATIO SUPER POPULUM (2002MR):
Benedic, Domine, fideles tuos benedictione perpetua,
et fac eos Unigeniti tui Evangelio sic adhaerere,
ut ad illam gloriam, cuius in se speciem Apostolis ostendit,
et suspirare iugiter et feliciter valeant pervenire.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
With a perpetual benediction bless, O Lord, Your faithful,
and make them so to cling to the Gospel of Your Only-Begotten,
that they may be able always to long for and happily attain
to that glory whose beauty He showed to the Apostles in Himself.

This wonderful plea for your sake on the part of the priest, which I hope you might hear with your heads bowed unto God, connects us back to the moment of the Transfiguration about which we were instructed in the Gospel for today’s Holy Mass.  That glimpse of something of His divine glory helped the Apostles endure the horror of His suffering.  It can help us now in our Lenten discipline, as we say “No!” even to some things which are good and say “Yes!” to performing works of mercy.

In some parts of the world right now, this year, priests are being killed.  Fr. Andrea Santoro was murdered in Turkey, martyred to the shouts of “Allahu akbar!”  Fr. Michael Gajere was lynched with 15 others in Nigeria by Christian hating Islamic fundamentalists.   According to the Holy See, 1 bishop, 20 priests, 2 nuns, 2 monks, and 1 lay catechist were killed in mission countries in 2005.  In this season of spiritual combat, in this age of spiritual combat, do not hesitate to ask the priest when you meet him for his blessing!   By asking the priest to help you, you help him to be a priest.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  2^nd Sunday of Lent – Station: St. Mary in Domnica alla Navicella

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2005

Fr. WL of NY writes “I get much good info and teaching from your work in The Wanderer on the prayers of the Mass.  Keep up the good work.”  Thanks, Father, I will do what I can.   You can do your part by recommending that people subscribe.  Put the paper into as many hands as possible.   Ecomonics has its critical role in this project.

During the week after the 1^st Sunday of Lent we would have observed the Ember Days of Lent.  “Ember” derives from Anglo-Saxon ymbren, “a circuit or revolution (from ymb, “around”, and rennen, “to run”), the annual wheel of the sun.” Winter, spring, summer and autumn all had their Ember Days.  These days of fasting and abstinence on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday fell during the weeks after the first Sunday of Lent, after Pentecost, around the time of the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on 14 September, and after the third Sunday of Advent (more or less St. Lucy’s day, 13 December).  There is a medieval couplet in rather degenerate Latin about the times they fell rendered in archaic English that is just about as bad: “Fasting days and Emberings be / Lent, Whitsun, Holyrood, and Lucie.”  Rood is Middle English for a Crucifix.  Whitsunday is Pentecost, from Old English hwita sunnandæg, “white Sunday” for the color of vestments once used for that feast.  The Fathers of the Church (e.g., St. Leo the Great (+461) and St. Jerome (+420) spoke of this custom, which perhaps stemmed from a Jewish practice of fasts at different times during the year.  As far back as Pope Gelasius (+496) Ember Days were often auspicious for ordinations. 

Do you recall my observation that during the “strong” liturgical seasons the ICEL translations tended not to be quite as bad as those during Ordinary Time?  I take it back.  Today’s collect is a new composition for the Novus Ordo based on a precedent in the ancient Spanish Liber Mozarabicus Sacramentorum. 

COLLECT - ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
God our Father,
help us to hear your Son.
Enlighten us with your word,
that we may find the way to your glory.

LATIN TEXT (2002MR):
Deus, qui nobis dilectum Filium tuum audire praecepisti,
verbo tuo interius nos pascere digneris,
ut, spiritali purificato intuitu,
gloriae tuae laetemur aspectu.

In other offerings of WDTPRS we have see that gloria, in early Latin writers such as Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose and in liturgical texts, points to more than fame or splendor of appearance.  Our Latin liturgical gloria is the equivalent of biblical Greek doxa and Hebrew kabod.   Latins translated these concepts also with words like maiestas and claritas.  Gloria has to do with man’s recognition of God as God.  At the same time gloria is a characteristic of God which will transform us throughout eternity.

The form pascere could come from two verbs, the active pasco and the deponent pascor which the unrivaled Lewis & Short Dictionary says mean the same thing: “drive to pasture, feed, attend to the feeding of, nourish, maintain, support.” Here pascere is simply a present active infinitive with digneris.  Digneris is in turn from dignor, a deponent for, “to deem worthy or deserving.”  With an infinitive as its object (pascere) it means “to regard as fit, becoming, worthy of one’s self; to deign.”  Rather than go through the wordy, “regard it as a thing worthy of you to nourish us” we can stick with “deign” or sometimes “vouchsafe”.  Under the old translation norms, made obsolete by the issuing of Liturgiam authenticam in 2001, ICEL systematically avoided words indicating distinctions between the statuses of persons.  Concepts like “majesty” (maiestas), “servant” or “handmaid” (servus, famulus, famula), begging (quaesumus), etc. were expunged by ICEL even though in the Latin prayers they were unavoidably integral to their content.  The new draft translation in preparation does not avoid these concepts, so inherently important for a healthy Catholic’s spiritual life.  The vocabulary of the prayers reinforces that this covenant we are in with God is not a contract between equals: He is Almighty and eternal, we are lowly and mortal.  We do well to beg, to plead a supplicants before His majesty, not as cowed slaves terrified of a harsh master, but with the reverential awe of children looking at authority with the eyes of truth.  Our prayers should help us to see who we are and who we are not.

In today’s prayer we have a strong reference to our senses of hearing (audire) and of seeing (intuitus, aspectus) both physically and also inwardly, spiritually.  The voice of God the Father spoke at the Transfiguration commanding us to listen to His beloved Son.  We listen to Jesus and look at what He does, both in the pages of Scripture and through His continuing presence in the Church.  Christ’s words which we hear and His deeds which we see, both save us and teach us who we are. 

This brings us to the “seeing” words intuitus and aspectus.  Aspectus has both active and passive connotations, that is, the sense of sight, the act of seeing a thing, or the appearance of the thing itself.  Aspectus can mean, “mien, countenance”, how something “looks”.  Think of Henry V in Shakespeare’s play inciting his soldiers before battle to “lend the eye a terrible aspect” (III, i).  Intuitus derives from intueor and means “a look, a view; respect, consideration.”  You know intueor from a verse of the great hymn of St. Thomas Aquinas Adoro Te Devote: “I am not looking (intueor) at the wounds, like Thomas; I am nevertheless professing faith that you are my God; make me always more to believe in you, have hope in you, love you.”  That hymn, to the hidden divinity of the Eucharist, also sings, “ex auditu solo tuto creditur’ only “by hearing” is the doctrine of the Real Presence believed “safely”, since sight, touch and taste can deceive us.

In the prayer spiritali purificato intuitu is an ablative absolute construction with a perfect participle.  Our intuitus spiritalis could be our own ability to see clearly into the state of our soul as if our intuitus (“insight”, “view”) were a spiritual lens that needed to be cleaned so we might have a more perfect “view”.  Otherwise intuitus could be the spiritual landscape within us, the “view” God sees, how we “look” to Him and by our own inspection or introspection how we look to ourselves.   The word “view” gets at both angles of intuitus (the power to see and that which is seen).  “Insight” would tend to favor just one possibility in intuitus.  The English cognate “intuition” suggests the wrong connotation from common usage, that is, “sudden insight” or “good guess”. 

Both how we see and what is seen in us, our “spiritual view”, must be purified (purificato) so that God is not offended (cf. Habakkuk 1:3)   God and neighbor must see His image in us.  We must see His image in ourselves and others if we are going to treat them with the charity He commands.  We must look past the imperfections of the flesh, the wounds caused by sin and see the intended reality.  St. Bonaventure (+1274) wrote about how Thomas the Apostle looked through the Lord’s visible wounds and saw His invisible wound of love.  Lent is a time for gaining spiritual “insight”, getting a proper “view” of the Love who died and rose for us, thus transforming us into more perfect images of who He is: risen, living, glorious.  This necessarily requires a close examination of our lives to see and also to hear what or whom we have placed at the center of our lives, in His rightful place. 

The Word of God, from all eternity, is the perfect image of the invisible Father.  We are made according to that image.  In the Incarnation the Word became the perfect visible image of the invisible God.  This perfect image, Jesus, came into the world to save us from our sins and to reveal us more fully to ourselves.  He gives us the ultimate “view” or “insight” of who we are and what we are to do.  In the Transfiguration the three apostles see something more of Jesus’ perfect image and it is a sight that transforms them.  Remembers how Moses was transformed by and how his face shown with light after his encounters with God in the cloud of His glory (Heb. shekina) when it descended on Mt. Sinai or the tent/tabernacle (cf. Exodus 33:7ff; 34:29ff). A symbolic shekina remains in our churches even now: more than a red presence lamp a baldachin or a veil covering the tabernacle is the true sign of the Real Presence! 

By tradition, the Church reads the Gospel passage about the Transfiguration on this Sunday.  In His Transfiguration the Lord reveals through our humanity some little glimpse of His divine nature so that His chief apostle Peter, with John and James, will be able to bear the horror of His Passion.  The voice of the Father is heard to command: “This is my Son, my beloved.  Listen to Him” (Mark 9:7).  Our Collect today recalls the Transfiguration and then asks God to nourish us interiorly with the Word, the Son (who comes to us at Mass in Scripture and the Eucharist).  The interior presence of the Word purifies our interior spiritual landscape and readies us for the Beatific Vision which will transform us forever.  The way we “look” here on earth (“look” at our neighbors and “look” to our neighbors) prepares us for what we will behold in heaven.

This season of penance is for our interior purification. By giving up good things, we take control of our appetites and passions.  We experience deprivation before fulfillment.  There is a liturgical diminishing in Lent so that the Easter liturgy can be even more joyful.  Only the pure may enter into the Beatific Vision (cf. Ps 24:23-24; Rev 21:27).  In our earthly lives we must be purified of attachments to sin and perfected in love.  This purification begins during life and, provided we die in the state of grace, may continue purgatory.  In our Collect we acknowledge this necessity of purity in order to see the face of God.  Our Collect today points to the reason we are taking on the yoke of penance.  At the same time, our seeing the Lord and the Lord’s own image (intuitus/aspectus) transform us and make us better able to bear the burden of penance. 

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O God, who commanded us to listen to Your beloved Son,
deign to nourish us interiorly with Your word,
so that, once (our) spiritual view has been purified,
we may rejoice in the sight of Your glory.

Perhaps one thing we can all do during Lent is practice using what I call “resurrection glasses”, that is, trying to see people as God intends them transformed in the resurrection.  Even the most annoying people might look different to us through “resurrection glasses”.  Also, this is a year especially dedicated to the Most Holy Eucharist.  Perhaps a good supplement to our Lenten discipline would be frequent visits to the Blessed Sacrament exposed for perpetual adoration.  (There is an special indulgence for doing so this year.) Richard of St. Victor (+1173) wrote, “Love is the eye and to love is to see.”  Look upon Him who was pierced for our sake.  He will transform your spiritual landscape.  He is waiting to be seen both within and without.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  2nd Sunday of Lent – Station: St. Mary in Domnica

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2003

Feedback is in order. First, from and Italian bishop His Holiness, John Paul II in Rome, speaking on Psalm 150 during his 26 February general audience: “The liturgy unites two shrines, the earthly temple and infinite heaven, God and man, time and eternity…. It is necessary to discover and constantly live the beauty of prayer and the liturgy. We must pray to God not only with theologically exact formulas, but also in a beautiful and dignified way…. In this regard, the Christian community must examine its conscience so that the beauty of music and song return even more to liturgy. We must purify worship from an aberration of styles, of careless forms of expression, of slipshod music and texts that are barely in harmony with the greatness of the act we celebrate." (Emphasis added)  NB: The Pope was speaking to whole world and not just WDTPRS, but his comments were so appropriate for what we do here every week that it seemed like he was speaking directly to us.  Thank you, Your Holiness. 

In the 30 January offering of WDTPRS we had a bit of commentary on the precision of other vernacular translations.  To this end, TÓM writes from NY about the Irish Gaelic version saying: “Many thanks for the enlightening articles which keep reminding me that no translation can carry all the innuendoes and echoes and allusions of the Latin.  Triste dictu!”   Indeed, sad to say.  I wish I could do a better job myself.  TÓM provided also an Irish version of the prayer from that column which he claims is fairly accurate.  Since the Gaelic of this priest of Prussian origin is non-existent, I reproduce here his compliments rather than his Irish text.  In the meantime, I offer him a hearty Go raibh maith agat for his efforts.

GL writes via e-mail: “I would like to say how much I enjoy reading your weekly articles in "The Wanderer." It is always one of the first things that I turn to. I know that you hear that often, but I had to say it as well!”  Funny… that’s what I do too.  At any rate, GL, if you get something from these articles, perhaps others would also.  You might think of giving a few gift subscriptions.  I know The Wanderer could use them these days.   Fr. WR writes via e-mail: “Permit me to begin by thanking you for your interesting and worthwhile articles in The Wanderer.   I always read them and often with much pleasure; …. And of course, my gratitude and congratulations are owed almost equally to the editorial policy-makers of The Wanderer for deciding to give you your regular column….   I am a convert from dreary Protestantism, and entered the seminary during Vatican II.  I should be grateful, I suppose, for having had even only one year of Latin, but I was really cheesed-off when it was dropped quam primum. Since then I have had to continue making up for this sad lack.”  Right, Fr. WR.  By denying young Catholic men in seminaries their rights to their Latin heritage they are also denying them the tools they need for their formation.  Aside from how Latin trains you to think, by not having this critical language they are effectively made slaves to other people’s translations and opinions.  Thus, seminary professors and other “experts” can tell them nearly anything and get often away with it.  

CP writes via e-mail: “You mention Quadragesima as the season of Lent….  Can you possibly explain for the readers (many of the younger ones may never have experienced a Latin liturgy; one woman I was talking to was stunned when she found out there had been something else before she was born in 1970) … the whole frame of reference and how the word "lent" came about?”  Sure, CP.  Historically, the time of the fast and preparation before Easter had different lengths, and at one point it was as long as eight weeks.  Today, the Church calculates 40 days from the First Sunday of Lent until Holy Thursday, inclusive.  The days of Ash Wednesday and the days of the week before the First Sunday are certainly considered Lent as well, of course, but they are a historic hold over from a series of preparatory days. You can see this reflected in our liturgical books where they are called Thursday, Friday and Saturday “after Ash Wednesday” rather than “of the first week of Lent”.  The first week of Lent starts on Sunday.  The first four days of Lent once had strong thematic messages to help us enter into the rest of Lent, which until about the time of Pope St. Gregory I, the Great, really began the following Sunday.  Lent is an extremely important season in our calendar.  It is important for our spiritual lives.  In a sense we are readying ourselves for another “baptism” at the feast of Easter.  We require a somewhat painful period of penance before we can experience properly the joys that come with the Resurrection.

Forty day periods are commonly found in the pages of Sacred Scripture.  The rain of the flood fell for forty days and nights (Gen 7:12) and Noah opened the ark after forty days (Gen 8:6), Moses fasted twice for forty days (Deut 9:18-25) and was on the mountain for forty days (Exodus 24:18; 34:28), spies were in Canaan for forty days (Numbers 13:25), the Israelites wandered in the waster for forty years (Num 34:33), Ezekiel endured the iniquity of Judah for forty days (Ezek 4:6), Elijah fasted and journeyed forty days before he had his vision (1 Kings 19:8), God gave Nineveh forty days to repent (Jonah 3:4), Goliath defied Saul’s army for forty days (I Sam 17:16), and Jesus spent forty days in wilderness praying and fasting before beginning His public ministry (Matthew 4:2).  Forty days was the Jewish embalming period (Gen 50:3).  Jews could not inflict more than 40 lashes (Deut 25:3).  We are called to imitate our Lord.  In Lent we go with Him into “quarantine”.  As we read in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:  "’For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sinning’ [Heb 4:15]. By the solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert." (CCC 540).  The Lord was seen for forty days after He arose (Acts 1:3).

POST COMMUNIONEM

LATIN (2002 Missale Romanum):
Percipientes, Domine, gloriosa mysteria,
gratias tibi referre satagimus,
quod, in terra positos,
iam caelestium praestas esse participes.

This is a new composition for the Novus Ordo based on a prayer in the Gelasian Sacramentary. 

Let’s see if we can discovery any surprises in our prayer.  With our accustomed diligence we turn again to our heavy and handy Lewis & Short Dictionary.  Right away we will notice satagimus and we will instantly suspect that it is interesting.  It is so interesting that you will have to look for it under the lemma (entry) satis where you will find satis constructed with ago as sat ago, sometimes written as one word satago.  This means, “to have enough to do, have one’s hands full; to be in trouble” and also “to bustle about, make a to-do, be full of business.”  In business language it is, “to satisfy, content, pay a creditor.”  In other prayers we have seen, and often how gratia is not only “grace” but is also “thanks” when we construct it with a verb such as ago (again) and referro.  I suspect we have referro here, instead of ago so that we don’t get bored with a repetition of words. 

The verb percipio might be easily mistaken as “perceive” by the incautious, for that is one of its meanings.  But we have to consider the context.  However, percipio also signifies “to take wholly, to seize entirely” and then by extension “to perceive, feel and “to learn, know, conceive, comprehend, understand.”  I will use “grasp” here, but not in the sense of “seize” (as some of the less than perceptive do when the “grasp” Holy Communion).  In our prayer today, it is in the form of a present active participle. By “present” we understand that the time of the verb is picked up from, is “contemporary” with, the time of the main verb.   Also, remember that the words sacramentum and mysterium are often interchangeable in liturgical prayers and that our old friend gloria is not just “glory” but also a characteristic of God, a transforming power which Himself which He intends to share with us in the world to come.  The Eucharist is an anticipation of this gift.   Praesto means a range of things, from “to become surety for, to answer or vouch for, to warrant, be responsible for, to take upon one’s self”, and “to show, exhibit, to prove, evince, manifest”, and “to give, offer, furnish, present, expose”.  We will need a bit of a circumlocution to get at this.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
As we are now grasping, O Lord, the glorious transforming sacrament,
we are busy offering thanks to you,
for you are granting us, placed here on earth,
to be participants of the heavenly mysteries now at this very moment.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord,
we give thanks for these holy mysteries
which bring to us here on earth
a share in the life to come.

The Church has glorious things to offer us from Christ Himself.  The content of our prayers, what our prayers really say, hold inestimable treasures for us, if only we can get them open.  If only someone will give us a key.  The Church’s “liturgical movement” of the early and mid 20^th c. began to haul the goods out for us and lay them out for all to enjoy.  The majority of the fathers of the Second Vatican Council wanted, I think, continue that process.   These prayers, the whole sacred action of the Mass and its chief gift, the Eucharist, are meant to transform us.  In the moment in which we hear this prayer, we have just completed the reception of Holy Communion.  Hopefully we have been treated to sacred silence or truly sacred music.  The times of the verbs and tenses of the prayer are all present, contemporary, referring to moment – the very moment  – we hear this prayer.  The Blessed Sacrament is still “held” (percipio) within our bodies.  We are called on to participate in these sacred mysteries with “full, conscious and active” participation, “grasping” interiorly, in our hearts and minds, what we are grasping interiorly in our bodies.  Unlike normal food, which we transform into who and what we are, the Eucharist is the mysterious food which gloriously transforms us into Who It is.  We are given a foretaste of heaven.  As we hear in the prayer used at Benediction, “Panem de caelo praestitisti eis… He has given us (praesitisti is from praesto) the Bread from heaven, containing in itself all delight….”  He has the power the change us, placed here on this earth to serve the Him in all we say and do.

During Lent, I include the new/ancient Oratio super populum now happily restored in the 2002MR.  This is pronounced after the Post communio.  It should be noted that in the ICEL “Sacramentary” in English there is on Sundays of Lent a “Solemn blessing or prayer over the people”.   These are not in the Latin 1975MR. 

ORATIO SUPER POPULUM (2002MR):
Benedic, Domine, fideles tuos benedictione perpetua,
et fac eos Unigeniti tui Evangelio sic adhaerere,
ut ad illam gloriam, cuius in se speciem Apostolis ostendit,
et suspirare iugiter et feliciter valeant pervenire.

MY LITERAL RENDERING:
With a perpetual benediction bless, O Lord, your faithful,
and make them so to cling to the Gospel of your Only-begotten,
that they may be able to long for always and happily attain
to that glory whose beauty He showed to the Apostles in Himself.

The verb suspiro means “to draw a deep breath, heave a sigh, to sigh” and thus “sighing after, longing for”.  

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  Second Sunday of Lent – Station: St Mary in Domnica alla Navicella

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2002

At the time of this writing the Winter Olympics are in full swing.  The schizophrenic but nevertheless spectacular opening night ceremonies included a new “theme” (why do they need a theme?) by the composer John Williams, who did the scores for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, et. al. The music filled my head with visions of whip wielding athletes on skis in spaceships and on flying bicycles chasing the Ark of the Covenant.  Still it was nice to hear some Latin that evening: the motto of the Olympics is Citius – Altius – Fortius… Swifter – Higher – Stronger.  The gold-medalist of Latin dictionaries, our Lewis & Short, tells us that altus derives from the verb alo, “to grow, nourish, raise up.”  Thus, altus (of which altius is a comparative) means “higher.”  It also means “deeper”.  Of the announcers on TV who talked about the Latin words it was easy to tell which were Catholic.  They used the Italianate pronunciation with its soft consonants (chi-tsee-oos) while others (non-Catholics?) used a version of the restored classical pronunciation (kee-tee-oos…etc.). 

This is the XIXth round of the Winter Olympics.  Olympiads were once a unit of measuring time.  The ancient Greeks used to calculate the passage of years according to the four year period between their athletic games, which were highly religious events as well.  We are not sure exactly when these religious games started but by 776 B.C. they were held every four years in Olympia, Greece.  In the beginning, they have just one race, a sprint, for the prize of a laurel or olive wreath – a crown of glory. By 500 B.C. the were more disciplines such as boxing and wrestling as well as races on foot in armor and in chariots drawn by mules.  There was no Gen-Xer snow-boarding, I’m afraid, though I can imagine that the crash and impact potential of a hurtling chariot drawn by one of natures most unpredictable critters might have been a thrill too.  By A.D. 100 A.D. the prizes were richer and thus bribery, corruption and boycotts swiftly followed.   This will sound familiar to anyone who watches the pair’s figure skating events.  In A.D. 393 the Emperor Theodosius banned the ancient Olympic games in order to discourage pagan worship.  Now they are back … and so is paganism, at least in the opening ceremonies this year. 

What does all this have to do with the liturgy?  Each year when you go to church on Christmas Eve you hear a selection sung (hopefully but doubtfully in Latin) from the Roman Martyrology which announces the birth of Christ.  Because in the ancient world dating was not standard, it was necessary to list many different items so that by over lapping enough of them you could get a relatively accurate idea of when something took place.  Thus, dating always included who the consuls were in Rome, the number of years after Rome was founded (ab Urbe cóndita… not condíta), who might have been pro-consul or governor in a province, what event might have taken place that year, and so forth.  In the Roman Martyology we hear that Christ was born during a four year period – Olympiade centesima nonagesima quarta…during the 194^th Olympiad.  As I mentioned in a previous WDTPRS, the Martyrologium Romanum is one of the liturgical books that will need an English translation according to the guidelines in the Congregation for Divine Worship’s document Liturgiam authenticam.  The newest edition of the Martyrologium has been released in Latin in a handsome red binding with silk ribbons.  It includes the more recently canonized saints and blessed and thus is a real treasure.

SUPER OBLATA:

LATIN (1970 Missale Romanum):
Haec hostia, Domine, quaesumus, emundet nostra delicta,
et ad celebranda festa paschalia
fidelium tuorum corpora mentesque sanctificet.

This is a variation of the secret prayer for Quinquagesima Sunday in the 1962 edition of the Missale Romanum:  Haec hostia, Domine, quaesumus: emundet nostra delicta: et ad sacrificium celebrandum, subditorum tibi corpora, mentesque sanctificet.   It strikes me as very odd indeed to lift a secret from a pre-Lenten Sunday and insert it into the texts for the Second Sunday of Lent.  Why not just take the secret for the Second Sunday of Lent? 

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Let this sacrificial offering cleanse our sins, we beg, O Lord,
and for celebrating the paschal feasts
let it sanctify the bodies and minds of Thy faithful.

There are different ways to render that gerundive ad celebranda festa paschalia.  There are more than fifteen distinct constructions to purpose in Latin, and this is one of them.  Thus, we could say, “in order to celebrate the paschal feasts”.   We might tease it out a little and says something like, “Sanctify …minds and bodies … unto the paschal feasts that are to be celebrated.”  That retains something of the passive dimension of the gerundive with its characteristic –nd- form.  I prefer the simpler approach, “for celebrating the paschal feast.” 

Perhaps because of the images so fresh in my mind right now, of rocketing luges, the earnest Picabo Street (not exactly a traditional saint’s name, is it), furiously sweeping curlers and zooming speedskaters, this language of this super oblata reminds me of the famous phrase mens sana in corpore sano…a healthy mind in a healthy body.  This phrase comes probably from the Latin writer Juvenal: Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano… “A healthy/sound mind in a healthy/sound body is something to be prayed for.”  There is our –nd- form again.  In turn this may be inspired by Homer’s “A faultless body and a blameless mind” (Odyssey III, 138 – trans. Pope).   This theme was a constant topos among ancient philosophers, such as the Stoic Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger (4 B.C. – A.D. 65): “Hold fast to this sound and wholesome rule of life: that you indulge the body only so far as is needful for good health.  The body should be treated rigorously, that it may not be disobedient to the mind” (Ep. 7, 5 – ad Lucilium).

We humans are persons having both body and soul.  We are not like the angels, persons having only soul.  So great is the bond between body and soul that when the one is separated from the other and we die, the human soul awaits the moment when it will once again (using philosophical language) inform matter and we shall rise from death anew, some to the glorious happiness of heaven and some to eternal separation from God in hell.  It is our state at the time of death that determines our destiny.  If we die in God’s friendship, we enjoy heaven.  If we die separated from God’s friendship….  Thus, the way we live prepares us for the way we die.  If athletes need dedication and discipline to achieve perfection in their fields, how much more is dedication and discipline required in the spiritual struggle?

Because of the fall of our first parents in the Original Sin of rebellion against God, we lost the opportunity not to die.  We are now compelled to pass through the gates of death.  We also have wounds to our intellects and wills.  Our appetites are not easy to control and channel.  It takes great discipline over time to develop virtues and master our passions.  The flesh urges us in directions that are not good for us spiritually.  We long for things that are quite often in themselves good things, but we want them for the wrong reason, at the wrong times, to the wrong extent, in the wrong way.  Thus, it is necessary for us all to exercise self-control – itself a thing that must be learned through self-denial.   This is one of the reasons why Holy Mother Church gives us a law that Catholics must do penance on all Fridays of the year and during the season of Lent.  We use the Lenten season in particular as a way of preparing ourselves to celebrated properly the great feast of Easter and the resurrection.  The period of self-denial helps us to master our faults that hold us back or even damn us spiritually and also, psychologically, makes Easter that much more wonderful.  This Lenten project of ours must involve both physical and spiritual discipline.

ICEL:
Lord,
make us holy.
May this eucharist take away our sins
that we may be prepared
to celebrate the resurrection.

It is true that the Eucharist is the summit of all the sacraments, even the sacrament by which sins are forgiven.  In the Eucharist we receive forgiveness for venial sins.  However, in my opinion the language of this ICEL version is ambiguous enough that some listeners might be left with the impression that all their sins, mortal sins too, are forgiven simply by receiving Holy Communion.  In the Latin version there is a different quality to the prayer: “Let this sacrificial offering cleanse our sins, we beg, O Lord,…” includes the element of sacrifice, namely Christ’s once-for-all self-offering on the Cross for our sins.  We believe that it was by this Sacrifice that Christ took every sin ever committed or that would ever be committed and in His own self-oblation became the payment and restitution to the Father for those sins.  In the Sacrifice of the Mass we renew this saving event, recognizing it as the source of forgiveness.  At the same time we remain acutely aware that Christ established not only the Eucharist at the Last Supper in the context of His Passion and Calvary, He also established the sacrament of Penance or Reconciliation.  Just as He gave the Twelve that those that would succeed and collaborate with them the power to change bread and wine into His Body and Blood, so too He also gave them the power to forgive in His own name the sins that people would confess to them.  Confession of sins to a priest who has faculties from the Church to forgive them is the ordinary way that Jesus Christ wanted us to receive that forgiveness that actually cleanses those sins from our souls.   Confession is an integral part of our Lenten journey.

The blessed apostle Paul describes different aspects of the Christian life using terms directly derived from the Greek sporting events of his time.  Other apostles use this same imagery as well. Is it too hard to imagine from Whom they learned it?   In 1 Peter 5:4 we find: “When the chief Shepherd is manifested you will obtain the unfading crown of glory.”  The letter of the apostle James says: “Blessed is the man who endures trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him.”  The beloved apostle John writes in his Apocalypse 3:11:  “I am coming soon; hold fast to what you have, so that no one may seize your crown.”  Paul admonishes us in 2 Timothy 4:6-8:

For I am already on the point of being sacrificed; the time of my departure has come.  I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.

During this Lent we can take to heart the adage that drives athletes today.  In performing spiritual and corporal works of mercy we can be citius…swifter.  In examining our consciences we can be altius… deeper.  In exercising control and watchfulness regarding things of the flesh we can be fortius…stronger and win an unfading crown of glory.     

What Does the Prayer Really Say? Second Sunday of Lent – Station: St. Mary in Domnica alla Navicella

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2001

Traditionally during this last week we would have had the Quatuor Temporum Quadragesimae…the Ember Days of Lent.  The beginning of the four seasons of the year were marked by Ember Weeks, during which Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday were days of fasting and abstinence. Ember Week occurred after the first Sunday of Lent, after Pentecost, after the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and after the third Sunday of Advent. According to pious tradition the Ember Days in December were introduced by the Apostles as a preparation for the ordinations which occurred during that month. According to St. Leo The Great in the fifth century, the summer Ember Days were being observed during the octave of Pentecost and the autumn Ember Days in September. St. Jerome, in his commentary on the eighth chapter of Zachary, thought that the Ember Days were modeled on the Jewish custom of fasting and abstaining four times during the year.  Also according to tradition, on this Sunday the Church reads the Gospel passage about the Transfiguration.  The Lord reveals something of His divine nature so that His chief apostles will be better able to bear the horror of His Passion.  The voice of the Father is heard: “This is my Son, my beloved.  Listen to Him.” This passage helps us to understand our collect today.

COLLECT:

LATIN (1970 Missale Romanum):

Deus, qui nobis dilectum Filium tuum audire praecepisti,
verbo tuo interius nos pascere digneris,
ut, spiritali purificato intuitu,
gloriae tuae laetemur aspectu.

The sound of the two words intuitu… aspectu is quite agreeable.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O God, who commanded us to listen to your beloved Son,
deign to nourish us interiorly with your word,
so that, once (our) spiritual view has been purified,
we may rejoice in the sight of your glory.

First, let us contend with the form pascere. This could come from either of two verbs: the active pasco and the deponent pascor.  Our handy Lewis & Short Dictionaries inform us that they both mean the same thing: “drive to pasture, feed, attend to the feeding of, nourish, maintain, support.” Students of Latin will see instantly that this form can be many things, including various singular second person forms like the future active indicative, present passive imperative, or present passive indicative.  Here pascere is simply a present active infinitive that goes with digneris: deign to nourish us.  Digneris is from dignor<" alt="" border="0" />—[if supportFields]>< ![endif]-->, a deponent verb meaning to “deem worthy or deserving.”  With an infinitive as its object it means “to regard as fit, becoming, worthy or one’s self; to deign.”  I suppose we could say here, “regard it as a thing worthy of you to nourish us.”  I, however, am sticking with my “deign” even though most of us are not walking around saying “deign” to each other very much at present, though perhaps such courteous, even courtly speech would be an improvement over the way we hear people address each other and even God nowadays.

We need to look briefly at these “seeing” words intuitus and aspectus.  Aspectus has both active and passive connotations, and so refers to both the power of sight and the thing seen.  It is the sense of sight, the act of seeing a thing, or the appearance of the thing itself.  It can by extension mean, “mien, countenance.”  Intuitus seems to derive from intueor and means “a look, a view; respect, consideration.”  You will be familiar with intueor from one of the verses of the great hymn of St. Thomas Aquinas Adoro Te Devote.

Plagas, sicut Thomas, non intueor; Deum tamen meum te confiteor. fac me tibi semper magis credere, in te spem habere, te diligere.

I am not looking at the wounds, like Thomas; I am nevertheless professing faith that you are my God; make me always more to believe in you, have hope in you, love you.
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Intuitus is here with spiritalis.  Also, this is an ablative absolute construction having a participle of a past tense, the perfect.  We are noting herein a condition that must be accomplished before we can have what is spoken of next.  So, we could take this ablative absolute clause to mean one of two things.  First, our intuitus spiritalis could be our own ability to see clearly into the state of our soul must be purified, as if it were a lens that needed to be cleaned so that we can have a more perfect view.  Also, it could be the spiritual panorama within us itself, a spiritual panorama which God is looking at too, one that needs to be purified so that His eyes are not offended.  This is why I choose to say, “once our spiritual view has been purified,” for that gets at both these possibilities.  St. Bonaventure wrote about how Thomas looked through the visible wounds and saw the invisible wound of love.  Lent is a time for gaining spiritual “in-sight” into the Love that died and rose for us, transforming us into what He is: risen, living, glorious.  This necessarily requires a close examination of our lives to see whom it is we have placed at the center.

In other offerings of WDTPRS I have mentioned that gloria, in early Latin writers such as Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose and in early liturgical texts, means far more than simple fame or celebrity or splendor of appearance.  Our Latin liturgical gloria is the equivalent of biblical Greek doxa and Hebrew kabod.   Latins also translated doxa with the words like maiestas and claritas.  It has to do with man’s recognition of God as God and the acknowledgment of the salvation won for us by Christ, crucified and risen.  At the same time this “glory” is a power of God that transforms us into what He is. 

Consider that the Word of God, from all eternity, is the perfect image of the invisible Father.  We are made like that image, according to it, visible images of the invisible image.  In the Incarnation the Word becomes flesh, the perfect visible image of the invisible God.  This perfect Image came into the world to save us from our sins and to reveal us more fully to ourselves.  He gives us the ultimate “in-sight” into who we are and who we are to be.  In Jesus’ Transfiguration the three apostles see something of the perfect image.  This is a sight that transforms them.  One remembers how Moses was transformed and how his face shown with light after his encounters with God in the cloud of His glory (Heb. shekina) when it descended on the tent/tabernacle. (The shekina remains with us in our churches architecturally even now: more than the presence lamp it is the veil covering the tabernacle, or the baldachino, over it that is the sign of the presence of the Lord, just as the cloud of God’s glory that covered the tent made by the People of God in the forty years in the wilderness.)  Clearly the sight of God is something that only God controls.  Similarly, it is something that requires profound preparation.

In our collect, we invoke the memory of the Transfiguration.  Then we ask God to nourish us interiorly with the Word, the Son, who comes to us at Mass in Scripture and Eucharist.   This interior presence of the Word purifies our interior spiritual landscape and readies us for the Beatific Vision which will transform us.

One of the purposes of a season of penance is interior purification. By giving up things that are good, we take control of our appetites and passions in preparation for what is to come.  We experience a liturgical diminishing in Lent so that Easter can be more joyful.  Since only the pure may enter into the Beatific Vision, in order to have the joy of heaven, we must be purified of our attachments to sin and perfected in love.  This purification must begin in our earthly lives and, provided we die in the state of grace, may continue purgatory.  In our collect we acknowledge this necessity of purity before seeing the face of God.  Our collect today points to the reason why we are taking on ourselves the yoke of penance.  At the same time, our seeing the Lord and the Lord’s own image (intuitus/aspectus) transform us and make us better able to bear the burden.  Perhaps a good supplement to a lenten discipline this year would also be frequent visits to a chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is exposed for perpetual adoration. As Richard of St. Victor said: “Love is the eye and to love is to see.”  Look upon Him who was pierced for us and let Him transform your spiritual landscape.  He is waiting for us both within and without.

ICEL:
God our Father,
help us to hear your Son.
Enlighten us with your word,
that we may find the way to your glory.