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

As a convert to the Catholic Church I am interested in hearing and reading about the conversion experiences of others.  Pontifications, to which I tip my biretta, alerted me to one posted on Argent by the Tiber about the writer’s conversion at the time of the election of Pope Benedict XVI.

I am stuck in his story about how at the very moment he was having that experience I was there present covering with FoxNews.  It was my first papal death and election as a Catholic, for the pontificate of John Paul II (who ordained me) had been very long.  It was very exciting, made more so by the close access and pressure of doing press coverage as well.

When we were on the air with the funeral Mass of the Pope, of the conclave, and of the election, I clearly remember feeling a great weight of responsibility.  Perhaps some comment of mine about what Mass meant to Catholics or who we thought "Peter" is in the Church just might must make a difference to one of the millions of people listening. 

I have no idea what the writer at Argent By The Tiber was watching during for the election of Benedict XVI, but I was not wrong in my estimation that the power of the moment, the sounds and images carried live, would be critical in somebody’s life.

To God goes all the credit for everything good which these events have wrought.  Non nobis, Domine...

A tip of my biretta goes to Amy for making me aware of the interview article in Affari Italiani with Archbishop Piero Marini, the Pope’s Master of Ceremonies.

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Here is a bit that was not translated in the piece Amy related to the blogosphere. 

Archbishop Marini told the interviewer:

The "Tridentine" or Rite of St. Pius V, which is really the Missale Romanum brought up to date according to the last provisions in 1962 by John XXIII, was kept in force under certain conditions in order to avoid making the passage from the old to the new rite traumatic for the more elderly of the faithful.  Then Pope Wojtyla granted that one could, in certain church, celebrate according to the rite of St. Pius V, and there it is.  But to go beyond this to to go beying the Church, and this you cannot do.  If the liturgy is the sign of unity for the Church, I can’t create groups of the faithful who on such and such a day at such and such an hour pray in one way, and then another group an hour later prays in another.  And so we come to the Lefebvrites.

Let’s be clear once and for all: they have to accept what the Second Vatican Council decided, otherwise no reconciliation will be possible.  But then, what do these people want?  The majority of the faithful have gotten used to the idea that, without the new rite, which wasn’t a child of the Curia but rather an labor of international character, the celebrations and foreign visits of Pope Wojtyla would have been impossible to carry off.  And so, because they (the Lefebvrites) don’t adjust, what difference is there?  Let me tell you an anecdote.

Some years ago some Lefevbrites came to see me and I received them.  One of this spoke up and said: ‘Your Excellency, the new rite is a heresy’ ‘Why?’, I asked.  ‘Because’, the Lefebvrite responded, ‘in the old rite the celebrant genuflects, adores the Host, rises, shows it to the faithful and then genuflects again to adore it.’  ‘And so?, I said.  ‘So, this is a heresy because the celebrant, in genuflecting only after the showing of the Host, in reality is asking the consent of the community before proceeding to the consecration."

Hmmm… "Behold, the Good Shepherd".

Immediately you will recognize a couple problems here. 

First, you will notice the great lack of respect that His Excellency has for the "legitimate aspirations" which the late Pope commanded by his Apostolic authority be shown to those who desire the use of older forms of liturgy.  He is fairly contemptuous, as a matter of fact.  His reference to them as "those people", has the same impact in Italian as in English, maybe more so.  No one will deny that some of the more traditional stamp can be very hard to reason with.  In fact, I sustain that this movement tends to attract people who are only happy when they are unhappy.  Still, I think it behooves those in positions of ecclesiatical authority to exercise spiritual works on mercy in their regard.  Or don’t they deserve Christian charity?  Do we treat kindly only those who agree with us?

Second, you will recognize a straw man when you see one.  In that anecdote he tells is simply ridiculous.  You cannot for a moment doubt it happened just as he related it.  Lord knows, I have heard this and equally risible "arguments" against the Novus Ordo.  However, to present this as if it were a serious representation of Lefebvrites in general is absurd.  There are some very smart people making very smart arguments in the whole old Mass/new Mass debate.  Reducing it all to this dopey story is hardly to make his own position any better than the anecdote he told.

We can even create a very suggestive strawman with the use of contrasting photos.  In this message you see Card. Razinger celebrating the so-called "Tridentine" Mass.  Not all celebrations of the older Mass are like that.  You also see an atrocious and probably sacrilegious episode which, thanks be to God, is not representative of the Novus Ordo as it is used in most places. 

Not every celebration of the new Mass is bad, though many are.  Not every celebration of the older Mass is perfect, ... indeed few are.  However, there are fewer differences between them, when celebrated according to the books and with a traditional style in mind, than there are differences between, say, St. Ipsidipsi and St. Idealia just down the street in your town.  You can go from church to church in some places and see Masses so different you would think they were all representative of different religions.  And this doesn’t even bring into the discussion the fact that Ukrainian Catholics and Maronite Catholics are celebrating in their own particular Rites.  Are they somehow less Catholic than Latins just because one group prays one way and another group prays in another?  Piffle. 

Folks, a couple friends came through with version of the famous Internet Prayer in both Dutch and Maltese!  Kindly say a prayer for each of the them.  If you can contribute to the collection, please do!  Any language missing from the list will be happily added.  There are visitors to this blog from all sorts of places in the world.  Let’s get to work!

Here are today’s additions. 

The Maltese version is a real trip.  You need to have the proper fonts activated on your computer to see it with the right characters.  Otherwise, you get some odd paragraph symbols, etc.

I have heard there is some interest in having audio files of the different languages.  I will see what I can do.

Here are the new versions:

MALTI (MALTESE)  NB: This may not appear correctly if you do not have the proper fonts.

Talba qabel tidħol fuq l-Internet:
Alla li tista’ kollox u bla tmiem,
li ħlaqtna skond ix-xbieha tiegħek
u ridtna nimxu wara kull ma hu tajjeb, veru u sabiħ
l-aktar fil-persuna divina tal-Iben Waħdieni tiegħek, is-Sinjur tagħna Ä esù Kristu,
agħti lil dawk kollha li jfittxuk,
li bl-interÄ‹essjoni ta’ San Isidor, Isqof u Duttur tal-Knisja,
fil-mixja tagħna fl-internet
inwasslu ħarsitna u għemilna lejn dak li jogħġob lilek u
nÄ¡ibu ruħna bl-imħabba u l-paÄ‹enzja ma’ dawk kollha li niltaqgħu magħhom.
Bi Kristu Sidna. Amen.

NEERLANDISCH (DUTCH)

Almachtige, eeuwige God,
die ons naar Uw beeld hebt gevormd,
en ons gelast hebt, alles wat goed, waar en schoon is,
vooreerst in de goddelijke persoon van Uw eniggeboren Zoon,
Onze Heer Jezus Christus te zoeken,
geef, bidden wij,
dat wij, door de voorspraak van de heilige Isidorus, Bisshop en Kerkleraar,
in onze zoektochten doorheen Internet,
niet slechts handen en ogen richten naar wat U welgevallig is,
maar bovendien allen die we aantreffen liefdevol en geduldig bejegenen,
door Christus Onze Heer. Amen.

COLLECT
Gratia tua ne nos, quaesumus, Domine, derelinquat,
quae et sacrae nos deditos faciat servituti,
et tuam nobis opem semper acquirat.

If this prayer seems "odd" to you for some reason, you are on the right track.  While there is nothing at all wrong with the prayer, it seems out of place… because in a sense it is.  In the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary this was a Post Communion for the Wednesday of the 2nd Week of Lent.  In the 1962 Missale Romanum and its previous editions, this was the Post Communion of Thursday in the same week.  So, the redactors of the Novus Ordo extracted this from its place and inserted it into its present spot.  Why?  There must have been a thematic reason.  

The verb derelinquo is "to forsake wholly, to abandon, desert" and also "to leave behind" (even in the sense of inheritance).  Someone who is a "derelict", is really someone abandoned, utterly forsaken.  

Acquiro (or ad-quiro) is "to add to, to get or acquire".

Deditos is probably the adjectival form deditus, a, um "given up to, addicted, devoted to something; eager, assiduous, diligent", derived from dedo.

It is entirely possible that the phrase "gratia tua" refers not just literally to the freely given gift which we call "grace", but also is a courtly form of address for God, "Your Grace".  This use of substantive or adjective with tua an address is fairly common of Latin in the age whence this prayer comes.

We have here in quae + subjunctive faciat… acquirat a characteristic result clause.   These are sometimes a little hard to get into smooth English without making the original Latin structure nearly disappear.  That’s okay, of course, in making a smooth liturgically useful prayer.  However, in these WDTPRS articles it is our objective to stick closely to the original so that you can see for yourselves what is really going on inside the Latin.   So, put on your archaic sounding English caps for a moment, and ready yourselves for an older application of "might".

LITERAL TRANSLATION
Let not Your Grace  abandon us, O Lord, we beg,
which might make us eager for Your holy service,
and always acquire for us Your assistance.

As you can see, "might" here, does not have the force of "maybe", but rather coveys an auxillary force of probability or purpose.  

PUT ANOTHER WAY
O Lord we beg You, let not Your grace forsake us,
which, in our having it, shall result in us being made eager for the sacred service You determine
and shall always obtain for us Your support.

OR YET ANOTHER WAY
O Lord, we beg You, let not Your grace desert us,
for we need it in order to be made eager for Your holy service,
and it must obtain for us Your succor.

A MOCKING LAME-DUCK ICEL VERSION
O God,
you are with us.
Help us serve you always.

As we think about this prayer, remember that originally it was recited by the priest after Communion, rather than at the beginning of Mass.  So, we are praying herewith that the graces and effects of the Communion just received would endure.  Fairly soon after this prayer we receive the final blessing, wait for the last Gospel and (for a few decades at least) the Leonine prayers after Mass.  Then after a quiet moment of thanksgiving out of church we would go to our work, whatever that might be.

Perhaps in order to get our mind around this prayer today we can think in terms of the rhetorical device called hysteron proteron.  This Greek term, literally, "the latter, the former" refers to a reversal of time or sequence to create an effect.  For example, we do this everyday when we "put on our shoes and socks".  I normally put on my socks and then my shoes.  A more serious example is found in Dante’s Commedia where in order to covey something of the super speed of their ascent to the heaven of the moon the Poet says that it took no longer than it takes an arrow "to strike, fly, and leave the bow" (Par 2.23-6).  The word "strike" comes first, to emphasize its importance, even though chronologically it occurs after the shot and flight of the arrow.  In Shakespeare you find this all the time.  For example in Anthony and Cleopatra we hear "Th’ Antoniad, the Egyptian admiral, / With all their sixty, fly and turn the rudder" (III, x, 1-2).  Clearly you have to turn the rudder before you can flee.

Give this some consideration now for your participation at Mass.  If you go into church with the effects and the results firmly in mind before Mass starts, your active participation might take on a different quality.  Reception of Communion in the state of grace is the most perfect kind of "active participation" at Mass.  Thus, think of the Communion which is to come at the Collect so that you may be more recollected at Communion.  See every moment and action, every word and gesture, of Mass in light of Communion.  Do the same even when you are NOT able to receive!