What Does the Prayer Really Say? Third Sunday of Easter
ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2002
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News: In a recent number of the weekly English edition of the Vatican’s newspaper L’Osservatore Romano (N. 12 (1735) – 20 March 2002) we see a box with a large bold headline “Holy Father receives New Roman Missal”. There is a photograph of the Pope looking at a beautiful edition of the new third typical edition of the Missale Romanum (2002MR) bound in white leather. The accompanying story recounts, inter alia, some interesting information. With the publication of the 2002MR, after a 10 year process, “another stage begins that is in the hands of the Bishops’ Conferences: the work of revising the translations in use to ensure that they faithfully reflect the official Latin text in accord with the measures prescribed by the Instruction Liturgiam authenticam approved last year by the Holy Father. Once the Bishops’ Conference gives its approval, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has to issue the necessary recognitio for the revised texts.” (Emphases added)
The superb English language weekly National Catholic Register (NCReg) just had a front page article “Head of Liturgy Panel Resigns: New Direction for the Mass?” (vol. 78 No. 13 March 31-April 6, 2002). It reminds us that the U.S. representative to ICEL and the elected next chairman of the U.S. Bishops Committee on the Liturgy, Chicago’s excellent Francis Card. George, fired Mr. Gabe Huck, the former director of the Liturgy Training Publications. They also state that Fr. Michael Spillane resigned as executive director of the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions. NCReg reports, “there has been a significant turnover in ICEL’s advisory committee,” according to Franciscan Fr. Gilbert Ostdiek, former chairman of ICEL’s subcommittee on translation and revision of texts. Sour grapes abound, apparently. The aforementioned Mr. Huck in NCReg said that they have been revising English translations now for 10 years, and that they were “unequalled in the Catholic world.” Mr. Huck said, “There are better translations in that book. They are pastorally workable. But it will all be wasted or sit on a shelf maybe until a new Pharoah (sic) rises over Egypt.” Also, the executive secretary of ICEL, Mr. John Page, is resigning as of 15 August. Mr. Page hinted to NCReg that his resignation has some connection with a statement made His Excellency Bishop Maurice Taylor of Galloway (Scotland). According to NCReg, “Bishop Taylor said that since the two-year trial period for implementing ICEL’s new constitution will be reached at the end of July, Page felt that August would be a good time to leave.”
In the months following the appearance of LA many have opined that the whole issue of preparing or correcting new translations will be in effect “dead on arrival”. The past track record of the bishops suggests that they will either study the new norms in LA to death and benignly ignore them, thus prolonging indefinitely the use of the old and deficient translations, or they will fight to be excepted from the norms “for pastoral reasons”, and so forth. I resubmit that the Holy See is not going to let this happen. The comments in the English edition of L’OR, read by all chancery personnel everywhere English is spoken are a reminder that the stop watch’s start button was firmly clicked when the 2002MR was released. As I have said many times in these WDTPRS offerings, the heat can be turned on from “below” and not just from the Holy See “above”. You, dear reader, can keep the pot boiling by both prayers and by kind, respectful, brief, cordial letters to your bishops. Let them know that you are supportive of their positive efforts to prepare new, accurate, faithful and beautiful translations. Let them know that you know that the ball in now in their court and the shot clock is running.
SUPER OBLATA:
LATIN (1970 Missale Romanum):
Suscipe munera, Domine, quaesumus, exsultantis Ecclesiae,
et, cui causam tanti gaudii praestitisti,
perpetuae fructum concede laetitiae.
This prayer was originally in the 1962 Missale Romanum as the secret of the Sunday after Easter, in albis, also called “Low” Sunday. It has an ancient ancestor in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary.
LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Take up, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the gifts of the Church exulting,
and grant the fruit of perpetual rejoicing
to whom Thou hast already furnished the motive of such a great joy.
Our weekly curiosity brings us back to the helpful
Lewis & Short Latin Dictionary. This time we investigate the word
causa and discover a rather complex entry. Immediately we see that its spelling shifted from
causa (in the time of Cicero) to
caussa in the time of Quintillian
. In its basic meaning it is “that by, on account of, or through which any thing takes place or is done; a cause, reason, motive, inducement; an occasion, opportunity.” By extension it comes to mean other things, such as a judicial proceeding (“case” or “cause”) or a business undertaking.
Praesto is another complex word with a vast range of meanings. Initially we see it signify, “to stand before or in front” and thus it is “to stand out, be superior, to distinguish one’s self, to be excellent, distinguished, admirable.” It comes to mean also, “to become surety for, to answer or vouch for, to warrant, be responsible for, to take upon one’s self” and even “to fulfill, discharge, maintain, perform, execute”. Thus, it seems to have in some contexts a juridical connotation. We had juridical language in
causa as well. In the context of our prayer today, it seems most likely to mean “to show, exhibit, to prove, evince, manifest” or “to give, offer, furnish, present, expose.”
In this super oblata we are heaping joy upon joy in a growing crescendo of exultation. We acknowledge that already God has given us every reason to be glad in the resurrection of His Son which we celebrated on Easter Sunday. Now we are deepening that same joy and extending it into the future. We are clearly linking our present and future hopes and happiness to the resurrection we will one day experience. The gifts we bring to the altar at this moment become in the hands of the priest the efficacious sign of our own rising to new life. Running the risk of pushing the vocabulary a bit far, we might even say there are nuances of a solemn bond between God and His Church, a legal covenant, in the use of juridical language.
ICEL:
Lord,
receive these gifts from your Church.
May the great joy you give us
come to perfection in heaven.
Where the Latin prayer has a repetition of concepts of joy (exsultantis…gaudii…laetitiae) which build in a kind of in a seemingly unending crescendo even through the eternal ages of heaven, our ICEL contribution gives us a single “joy” which is perfected. Since between God and man there will always be an infinite difference, even after the resurrection and we are admitted to the Beatific Vision, there will never be an ending, a final climax, of our joy. In heaven we will see God face to face. There will always, for eternity, be something new about Him to discover, something beautiful to contemplate. We will never get to the bottom of God. Our joy in knowing Him and loving Him will build without ending for all eternity, never decreasing, never failing or slowing, never being perfect in the sense of being brought to completion so that it needs nothing else. Our joy will perfected in the sense that we have finally found the perfect subject of consideration and the perfect motive for happiness. But our joy will not thus be brought to a pinnacle and then be forever without additional perfection. While the Latin prayer leaves me with a sense of ever more to come, the ICEL prayer does not.
On that note, let’s find a contrast in some feedback to WDTPRS for Easter Sunday concerning the various scandals we are experiencing today. Via internet someone with the nom de guerre “Sickened Badly” responds:
Priests are not human, at least not the ones who make the "mistakes". I’m sickened, absolutely sickened by these monsters. They should be locked away together, let them molest each other. Then, they should be forced to watch their own nieces, nephews, brothers and sisters be molested by other priests. Sick, sick, sick. Let them burn in hell. There is no place on earth, much less heaven for them.
I respond. When the Lord taught His disciples how to pray (the Lord’s prayer) the single point He went back over and explained… and He did it twice… is the absolute requirement that we forgive. If we do not forgive, we will not be forgiven. The Lord did not command us to "forget". He did not command us to be stupid, either. Second, it is interesting that this angry person would find some twisted justice in even more innocent children being hurt by priests…. fascinating way of thinking… no? This is the thinking of the “beasts” I referred to in WDTPRS that day. Moreover, I would point out that the writer of the above is a sinner, as we all are. Whoever you may be, friend, you are a sinner. And while we acknowledge without reservation that some sins are far graver than others, we also know that you have hurt people by your sins too. Any one of the mortal sins you committed deserves the everlasting punishments of hell… where the unforgiving are also destined to wind up (according the Christ). To avoid that bad end you will need to ask for forgiveness and give it as well. The Holy Father put this terrible situation in the proper perspective when he placed it all in the context of the mysterium iniquitatis and the mysterium crucis. So great is the love of God and the mysterious Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross that we know, without questioning, that forgiveness can even be given to the priests (not to mention all sinners) who have harmed children. Because of Christ, it possible for us to forgive greatly, not just receive forgiveness. This is part of God’s solution to the mysterium iniquitatis. In our Easter season we resound with the super oblata we examined: grant the fruit of perpetual rejoicing to whom Thou hast already furnished the motive of such a great joy… forgiveness for our sins and the hope of eternal life.