COLLECT
Devotionem populi tui,
quaesumus, Domine, benignus intende,
ut, qui per abstinentiam temperantur in corpore,
per fructum boni operis reficiantur in mente.
This was in the pre-Conciliar Missale for Thursday (not Wednesday) of the 1st Week of Lent, but slightly different. In the Novus Ordo it is somewhat softened. Are you getting used to that now?
Devotionem populi tui, quaesumus, Domine, benignus intende : ut, qui per abstinentiam macerantur in corpore, per fructum boni operis reficiantur in mente.
I refer you all to what we have already said regarding the complicated word mens.
There is our friend macero, which we examined at length in yesterday’s offering. Yesterday we saw moderatio substituting maceratio. Today we see the Novus Ordo redactors substitute tempero, related to temperatio. Tempero is "to observe proper measure; to moderate or restrain one’s self; to forbear, abstain; to be moderate or temperate". We can also use this word to indicate the mixing of liquids, such as when water is added to wine in a cup, according to ancient usage. Horace in Ode 1.20 talks about this is a poem dedicated to his patron Maecenas:
Vile potabis modicis Sabinum
cantharis, Graeca quod ego ipse testa
conditum levi, datus in theatro
cum tibi plausus,
care Maecenas eques, ut paterni
fluminis ripae simul et iocosa
redderet laudes tibi Vaticani
montis imago.
Caecubum et prelo domitam Caleno
tu bibes uvam; mea nec Falernae
temperant vites neque Formiani
pocula colles.
The parts below in parenthesis I added to make this clearer to those who don’t know much about Horace.
(When you visit me in the country at my farm)
You will quaff from simple drinking cups
the lowly Sabine which I laid down with the
Greek style seal, in the year when the applause
was given to you in the theater,
dear knight Maecenas, so loud that
the Vatican hill together with the banks of
the fatherly river Tiber sent the praises
back to you.
(At home) you will be drinking Caecuban and the grape
crushed in the Calenean press; my vines
and not Falernian or Formian vines will
blend in your cups
(when you visit my Sabine farm house in the country).
A long time ago, one of my Latin profs told me that as I got older I would appreciate Horace more and more. He was right. Not only do I appreciate him more and more, my life is beginning to resemble his more an more, oddly enough. Horace, at a certain point, wanted to leave the bustle and pressure of Rome and just retire to his country house. I live in Rome. Right now I can turn my head a few degrees and gaze out my window across Father Tiber to the Vatican Hill, now decorated with the famous little chapel. Yet I too long to return to my "Sabine farm", where there is peace and clean air, time to reflect and write and pray, receive guests and reach for the book I want in my own library of several thousand volumes. *sigh*
In any event, tempero also means, "to forbear, abstain, or refrain from; to spare, be indulgent to any thing". Think of the virtue temperance, akin to the virtue moderatio we saw yesterday. In both cases, curiously the concept macero was taken out. However, whereas yesterday the mens caro contrast was obscured by the change, today mens and corpus are pretty firmly underscored by the structure of the prayer.
REALLY LITERAL TRANSLATION
We beg You, O Lord, kindly look upon the
devotion of Your people,
with the result that they who by means of abstinence are being sparing in due measure in respect to the body
may by means of the fruit of good work be refreshed in respect to the mind.
Our prayers this week are giving us all sorts of different virtues to think about: devotio, moderatio, temperatio.
It bears repeating that we are not, in the is WDTPRS series, trying to produce smooth, liturgically useful versions of the Latin prayers. We are simply trying to pry them open for you so that you know what they REALLY say. Compare them to the ICEL. Post your comments if this is useful.
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ICEL version:
Lord, look upon us and hear our prayer.
By the good works you inspire,
help us to discipline our bodies
and to be renewed in spirit.
Of course, it obviously was not the goal of ICEL to actually translate these prayers — which is why I call them “versions” rather than translations. But if I had been an ICEL minion — perhaps a first-year seminarian paid by the hour (or piece) — having little evident knowledge of Latin grammar, but with my Cassell’s at hand for line by line word for word translation, I might have produced something like this:
Upon the devotion of your people,
we beg you, O Lord, to kindly look,
so that, through abstinence and temperance in body,
they may through fruit of good work be refreshed in spirit.
Hmm. Could I in my youth have gotten a job working for ICEL? Would they have done better to hire me?
- Yet I too long to return to my “Sabine farm”, where there is peace and clean air, time to reflect and write and pray, receive guests and reach for the book I want in my own library of several thousand volumes. sigh -
This reminds me of a similar sentiment expressed by St. Jerome in his letter “Ad Marcellam (43)”:
“… cum primum licet, quasi portum quendam, secreta ruris intremus. Ibi cibarius panis, et olus nostris manibus irrigatum, et lac deliciae rusticanae, viles quidem sed innocentes cibos praebent. Ita viventes, non ab oratione somnus, nec saturitas a lectione revocabit. Si aestas est, secretum arboris umbra praebebit. Si autumnus, ipsa aeris temperies, et strata subter folia, locum quietis ostendent. Vere ager floribus pingitur, et inter querulas aves, Psalmi dulcius cantabuntur. []
Habeat sibi Roma suos tumultus, arena saeviat, circus insaniat, theatra luxurient, et matronarum quotidie visitetur senatus. Nobis adhaerere Domino bonum est, et ponere in Domino Deo spem nostram …”
i think “devotio” needs another glance since “devotion” in english has rather strayed in two separate directions:-
(1) into the soft, romantic side of affection (“they are devoted to each
other”), and
(2) the harmless formalities (cf. the now archaic phrase for signing off a letter “i am your devoted servant”, or “the second semester is devoted to . . “.
“devotio” is much more rigorous than this. it prolongs the military language that has so marked the prayers of the lent so far since a primary meaning is the formal dedication by a general of himself and his army to the infernal gods before a battle. the romans spoke of “devotio capitis” – “me . . atque meum caput devoveo” . . in other words, by “devotio” they put their head on the line. its an utter and irrevocable dedication of their lives in the service of their country.
“intende”, meanwhile, is translated all round as “look upon”. the compilers of the latin prayers made a deliberate point of varying their language so that it would not become monotonous. in the same way, today’s prayer speaks of the “populus”, when yesterday’s spoke of the “familia”. yesterday i remarked on the use of “look” to translate “respice”. english, being so rich in synonyms, leaves us with no excuse to be less enterprising than the latin authors. “stretching” and “straining” are at the root of “intendo”, and when it is used in the figurative sense of “paying attention to” it implies a concentrated focus of all the faculties. so pliny the younger, in one of his letters, says of a person: “ipse ad scribendum animum, oculos, manum intendit”, and livy (born 100 years before pliny)writes: “totam curam in belli apparatum intendit”.
asking God “to look upon the devotion of Your people” understates the intensity of the prayer.
I am very glad for the comments. Do check the regular weekly columns which explore the deeper meanings of words like devotio and familia with famulus and also respice. I these morning blog entries I don’t have the time to get too far into the vocabulary. So, I am glad you are picking up some of the slack!