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

Bishop Slattery of Tulsa has posted a new contribution to his series on liturgical reform of his diocese.   This last piece resonated so much with what I have been writing for years that I must share it.  You can read the rest online (my emphasis):

Not only may these issues seem superficial, but I am also aware that some may perceive me as being overly concerned with rubrics and the details of the liturgy, even to the point of missing the larger picture, judging my pastoral concerns as the preoccupation of a liturgical curmudgeon. But if I must defend myself, let me say that I insist on these points for the simple but profound reason that I am concerned lest our people be denied what is their proper inheritance, their birthright as Catholics, that is, the complete and correct understanding of the Mass as a real sacrifice by which they are given access to share in the unique, unrepeatable and all sufficient historic sacrifice of Christ on Calvary.

Distractions, the loss of silence and the various liturgical imbalances of which I have spoken are all partly to blame for a whole generation of Catholics who have gradually lost their understanding that the Mass is the true Sacrifice of Christ. But these problems are not the only reason why Catholics no longer see that there is an intrinsic and necessary link between the Mass and their salvation. As critical as these problems are, even more critical to us as a diocese as we respond to the Synod’s call for a restoration of the Lord’s Day is recovering our sense of personal sin which many of us seem to have lost.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  5^th Sunday of Lent – Roman Station: Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2006

The WDTPRS internet blog (www.wdtprs.com) has been developing nicely, though it is a lot of work.  I have been doing a mini-version of these weekly articles each day during Lent for the Collect.  It is interactive, also.  Some sharp people are chiming in with comments, many of them disagreements!  It is quite interesting.

Some interesting feedback came this week from RM of VA (edited): “You are terrific in The Wanderer. … [O]ur Bishops …  won’t do anything about the abuses in the liturgy, conduct and demeanor at Mass, much less offer the ancient Mass on a wide and generous basis as directed by John Paul II’s Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei.  How does one form their conscience about obedience to them?  There really seems to be compelling reasons for membership in the American Catholic Church (it is as easy as membership in the Protestant churches; altar girls, sloppy rubrics, greeting and meeting).  I want to belong to the Roman Catholic Church in America (RCIA) loyal to the Holy Father and, yes, I like my Mass to be solemn and holy and QUIET, and at the same each time, not subjected to the Zig Zigler personality of the priest. Even the EWTN crowd seems a little too ‘group hug and sing Cumbaya to me! Any thoughts??’  Sure, RM.  I think it is terribly ironic that the same week you wrote this to me, His Excellency Paul Loverde, Bishop of Arlington (VA), designated two places in that diocese for celebrations of Holy Mass with the 1962 Missale Romanum according to the dispositions of Ecclesia Dei.  The trade off is, however, that he extended permission for female service at the altar to parish churches. 

Fr. DF has sent a nice message (somewhat edited): “I have enjoyed your articles for the last two years. Before I got my own subscription I’d read older copies from my brother but your column was too late to read. Now I’m hooked onto your column. … The opening comments of your column in The Wanderer (3/9/06) has finally moved me to this e-mail. Why?  In concelebrating with a given priest occasionally, I am still brought up when he responds to ‘And also with you’ with ‘Thank you!’  Another priest now deceased would always add the word ‘undue’ to the prayer for ‘all anxiety’ in the embolism. Small things! Yet they betray liturgical incompetence or ignorance.  My brother (72) and I (77) are priests… we were originally teachers: his field, Latin and Greek, mine Mathematics…. For decades he has complained about the ICEL translation and I agreed…. About 12 years ago, articles in Catholic World Report provoked me to look more closely at the ICEL translation. I did not like what I saw. Shortly after, the diocese asked if I would be willing to use the Tridentine rite for an Ecclesia Dei group. I’ve been doing so ever since, twice a month.  So you can see why I enjoy your writing. I just wish I had the expertise in Latin which you and my brother have.  So keep up the good works.”  Reverend Father, thanks for that.  Thanks also for your generous time with the people who, by their “legitimate aspirations” desire the use of the older form of Mass.  I think we have to brace ourselves for the fact that the new translation (if they EVER give it to us) will also be deficient in irritating ways.  There will continue to be priests who make it up as they go.  I often think that we ought simply all return to using mostly Latin and vernacular in some suitable occasions, which is what the Council Fathers intended.  But we have to work with what we have, and that work can be very good.

This Sunday is First Passion Sunday in the older, traditional Roman calendar.   Liturgically speaking, the Church is dying to herself.  At the beginning of Lent we gave up decorations, instrumental music, the Gloria, the Alleluia, and use penitential purple.  From this Sunday onward, statues and images would traditionally be draped in purple, the Iudica me was not recited in the prayers before the altar, the Gloria Patri was not said after the Introit.  The Church was imposing a deeper liturgical “fast” in preparation for Easter.  Our senses of sight and hearing were being deprived. 

SUPER OBLATA (2002MR):
Exaudi nos, omnipotens Deus,
et famulos tuos, quos fidei christianae eruditionibus imbuisti,
huius sacrificii tribuas operatione mundari.

Our prayer was not in the 1962 Missale Romanum.  The ancient Gelasian Sacramentary had it for the Secret of the 5^th Sunday of Lent at the “scrutiny” Mass when catechumens were examined before conversion at the Vigil of Easter.  In the ancient version we would have heard quos fidei christiane primitiis inbuisti….

The verb exaudio is a compound of ex- and audio (“to hear”) and means, according to the great Lewis & Short Dictionary, “to hear or perceive clearly.”   Some of you might not remember when litanies were sung more frequently.  We would sing “Christe, audi nos… Christe, exaudi nos…Christ, hear us… Christ, graciously hear us.”  We might also choose to say something like “harken/hearken” which is “to give respectful attention”.  Sound archaic to you?  In Liturgiam authenticam (LA), which established the norms for new translations, the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments laid down that there should be a sacral style, different from everyday speech.  Translators should consider traditions of the past when making word choices (cf. LA 47, 50 c, and esp. 27).  Purposeful archaizing would be very helpful in the new translations.

A famulus or famula is a household servant or handmaid.  This marvelous word gives the priest a delightful tongue twister in the Roman Canon (First Eucharist Prayer) when he says (or sings, now, in the Novus Ordo) in genitive plural forms famulorum famularumque tuarum.   This was one of the words singled out in LA for special mention:

53. Whenever a particular Latin term has a rich meaning that is difficult to render into a modern language (such as the words munus, famulus, consubstantialis, propitius, etc.) various solutions may be employed in the translations, whether the term be translated by a single vernacular word or by several, or by the coining of a new word, or perhaps by the adaptation or transcription of the same term into a language or alphabet that is different from the original text (cf. above, n. 21), or the use of an already existing word which may bear various meanings.

Let’s give attention to eruditio, which is basically “an instructing, instruction.”  Erudio, the verb, is “to polish, educate, instruct, teach".  These are compounds of rudis, the adjective for “unwrought, untilled, unformed, unused, rough, raw, wild”.  Someone who is rudis is “rude, unpolished, uncultivated, unskilled, awkward, clumsy, ignorant”.  We are brought out of this state by being polished.    St. Augustine of Hippo (+430) wrote a work called De catechizandis rudibus, “Concerning the unformed who are to be catechized”.  One of the redactors of the prayers of the Novus Ordo, Antoine Dumas, O.S.B., who edited the dictionary of liturgical Latin we call Blaise, wrote that eruditio designates the “culture” of a Christian, his spiritual formation and instruction in the truths of the Faith through the rudimenta fidei, rudiments of the Faith.  When I was a working musician I recall how percussionists practiced their “rudiments”, the basic patterns that they needed to be able to beat out with nearly automatic precision.  Some Latin synonyms for eruditio are doctrina, disciplina, scientia, intellegentia, cognitio.   

Imbuo means “to wet, moisten, dip, tinge, touch.”  By extension it comes to mean “to tinge, stain” and therefore “to inspire or impress early, to accustom, inure, initiate, instruct, imbue.”  Picture the thing being taught as leaving a mark on the person, a stain that becomes part of the person’s makeup, changing him.  Consider the stain wine leaves.  Anyone who has cleaned linen table cloths after a grand meal knows how troublesome this can be.  Perhaps some of the readers of WDTPRS have had the opportunity to crush grapes for wine in the ancient way: treading on them with the feet.  If one does this often and enough the feet are stained.  It is not uncommon to describe the effects of sin as a stain.  A word for “stain” in Latin is macula.  Thus, the Blessed Virgin Mary, sinless from the first moment of her existence by a singular grace, is Immaculata.  Something which is very clean by virtue of its being “unstained” is said to be “immaculate.”  In the Lenten hymn Attende, Domine we pray singing Ablue nostri maculas delicti… “Wash away the stains of our sin.”  We wish “to be cleansed” from the stains on our soul brought about by sin, which ruins the happy purity it received in baptism.  “To be cleansed” is the meaning of mundari which is the present passive infinitive of mundo “to make clean, to clean, cleanse” especially in later Latin in the spiritual sense. 

An operatio is “a working, work, labor, operation” and also “a religious performance, service, or solemnity, a bringing of offerings.”  In the Latin Christian authors Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius (fl. early 3^rd c. – in 6, 12) and Aurelius Clemens Prudentius (+ c. 405 in Psych. 573) it means “beneficence, charity.”  Remember that in the ancient Church offerings of money and food were brought forward and given to the bishop at the time of the offertory.  They were distributed to the poor through the service of the deacons and others who were instituted and consecrated in the different orders (consecrated virgins, widows, gravediggers, etc. – yes, gravediggers.).

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Hearken to us, O God Almighty,
and grant that Thy servants and handmaids, whom
Thou hast imbued with the formative tenets of the Christian faith,
be cleansed by the working of this sacrifice.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Almighty God,
may the sacrifice we offer
take away the sins of those
whom you enlighten with the Christian faith.

The Latin version of the prayer provides purposeful hints in the vocabulary at the ancient Church’s practice of training catechumens during this time of Lent in preparation for their baptism at Easter.  In many places where RCIA classes are in full swing, these last Sundays of Lent are designated for the “scrutinizes” of candidates.  This is why the first time I worked on this prayer for WDTPRS in 2002 I chose to translate imbuo as “initiate”, a legitimate meaning of the verb, rather than a more apparent word like “imbue”.  St. Augustine used eruditio in connection with words like correptio and admonitio in the sense of combating misconduct with reproaches and correcting admonishments.   Another way of rendering the middle section of the prayer could be “whom Thou hast instructed by the admonishments of the Christian faith” which is redolent of Christian morals. 

Translated in that way we are reminded that when we bring our gifts to the altar we must be, as good Christians, morally upright people and that the Sacrifice of Calvary, renewed on the altar, is how Christ obtained for us forgiveness of all our sins.  The ICEL prayer uses the word “enlighten” for imbuo which works for me, surprisingly.  ICEL leaves out entirely the concept of lessons, instructions or admonishments.  With the greater emphasis these days on the preparation for converts and reverts through a process like RCIA it strikes me that a more faithful adherence to the actual vocabulary of the Latin prayer will produce a far more evocative oration. 

ORATIO SUPER POPULUM (2002MR):
Benedic, Domine, plebem tuam,
et concede, ut, quod, te inspirante, desiderat,
te largiente perciperat.

It is hard to put this into English and keep the singular plebs, which refers to God’s holy “people” (think of the word “plebiscite”).  Plebs is singular and it takes singular verbs: desiderat…perciperat. This underscores the unity we have.  It ought to say “concede that what it desires… it will experience…”, but that rings odd in our English ears.  In English “people” is happily both singular and plural, so I think it is fair to play with it a bit.  We must also contend with two ablative absolute constructions.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Bless, O Lord, Your people,
and grant that what they desire, as You are inspiring them,
they will experience, as You granting it to them.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  5^th Sunday of Lent – Station: St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2005

Some of your feedback.  About the article on Latin studies now online on the website of The Wanderer, Fr. SB writes: “I recently read your article about learning Latin.  A couple of years ago I began teaching my youngest son (I am a priest of the Orthodox Church) Latin and after two years of study he loves it and is progressing well.  We are already looking ahead to his university studies and the likelihood of continuing with Latin and Ancient Greek, perhaps in a program of Patristic Studies.  We both would like to spend time in Rome in a program in which Latin is also spoken.”  Thanks, Fr. SB.  I wish that priests of the Latin Church had your zeal!  I bet you don’t have to cope with “for many” in the translations of the consecration form for the Precious Blood during your Divine Liturgy!  From Canada JB writes (slightly edited): “I want to thank you so much for the time you take to do the ‘What Does The Prayer Really Say’ section; it is an inspiration for me to continue to study Latin during my seminary formation. I was wondering in addition to the Sundays of Lent if you could also do Ash Wednesday.”  Sure, JB!  Just write to the editor of The Wanderer and ask them to give me a whole page and I will be able to get everything in.  Seriously, there just isn’t room for everything I would like to do or everything I could write on just one Sunday prayer at a time.  This speaks to the richness of the prayers, the deficiency of the present translations, and the importance of fidelity to the Latin.  Great Scott!  Sometimes I could fill a whole column with feedback I get in a week’s time!  However, Ash Wednesday is a good suggestion: send me your version and let’s see what happens. 

Traditionally this Sunday is called First Passion Sunday.  With the Novus Ordo we call Palm Sunday also Passion Sunday.  Today was the beginning of “Passiontide”.  It was also known as Iudica Sunday, from the first word of the Introit of Mass (from Ps 42/41) and sometimes Repus (from repositus analogous to absconditus or “hidden”) because this is the day when Crosses and other images in churches were veiled.  In the Church’s more traditional liturgy as of today the “Iudica” psalm was no longer said in the prayers at the foot of the altar and the Gloria Patri at the end of certain prayers was no longer said.   This pruning of the liturgy during Lent symbolizes how the Church experiences liturgical death before the feast of the Resurrection.   Regarding covering statues, here are the rules as least for the dioceses in the USA:  Crosses in church may (not must!) be covered from the end of Mass for Saturday of the 4^th Week of Lent until the end of the celebration of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday. Images (including statues) in church may be covered from the end of the Mass for Saturday of the 4^th Week of Lent until the beginning of the Easter Vigil.

This is a wonderful custom and very meaningful.  We lose things during Lent.  Music and flowers, the word Alleluia, the statues and images are draped in purple.  After the Mass on Holy Thursday the Blessed Sacrament is removed to another place the altar is stripped, bells are no longer rung and are replaced with wooden noise makers.  On Good Friday there isn’t even a Mass and at the beginning of the Vigil we are deprived of light itself!  The Church gloriously springs to life again at the Vigil of Easter, in the dark of night when a single flame spreads to the hands of whole congregation.  This liturgical death of the Church reveals how Christ emptied Himself of His glory in order to save us from our sins and to teach us who we are.  If we can connect ourselves in heart and mind with the Church’s liturgy in which these sacred mysteries are re-presented, then by our active receptivity we become participants in the saving mysteries of Christ’s life, death and resurrection.  To begin this active receptivity we must be baptized members of the Church and be in the state of grace.

Today’s Collect was not in previous editions of the Roman Missal.  It comes from the Liber Mozarabicus Sacramentorum.  The Mozarabic Rite, going back as far as the 6^th c. is the second best attested Latin Catholic rite in terms of surviving documents.  The Mozarabic Rite was suppressed in 1085 except for in six parishes of Spain.  In 1500 a Mozarabic Missal with some elements integrated from the Roman Rite was published and then approved by Pope Julius II (+1513).  Francisco Card. Ximénez de Cisneros (+1517) erected a chapel in Toledo and a college of thirteen priests whose task it would be to use the Mozarabic Rite even after the reforms of the Council of Trent and the imposition of the Roman Rite. A new edition of the Missale Hispano-Mozarabicum was published in 1991 and Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass with the Mozarabic Missal in 1992 and 2000.  I was there in 1992 and it was an great experience.

COLLECT - LATIN TEXT (2002MR):
Quaesumus, Domine Deus noster,
ut in illa caritate, qua Filius tuus
diligens mundum morti se tradidit,
inveniamur ipsi, te opitulante, alacriter ambulantes.

The only word in the Collect which might catch your eye as being a little odd is opitulante in that ablative absolute construction.  Opitulor is a deponent verb meaning, “to bring aid; to help, aid, assist, succor.”   Alacriter is an adverb from alacer, and means “briskly, eagerly”.  Coming from alacer it has an element of cheerfulness to it.    Trado signifies “to give up, hand over, deliver, transmit, surrender, consign.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O Lord our God, we beg that,
You assisting us, we ourselves may be found walking swiftly
in that selfsame sacrificial love by which Your Son,
loving the world, handed Himself over to death.

In some respects our Lenten Collects are similar to those of Advent.  There are images of motion, of pilgrimage.  We are moving toward a great feast of the Church but we are more importantly moving definitely toward the mysteries they make present to us. 

Taking a page from St. Augustine of Hippo (+430), we the baptized who are the Body of the Mystical Person of Christ, the Church, are on a journey with the Lord, the Head of the Church, toward Jerusalem: the Jerusalem of our own passion and the new Jerusalem of our Resurrection.  Christ made this journey so that we could make it and be saved in it.  In our liturgy the one, whole Mystical Christ is on a Lenten journey.  Each year in Lent Christ, in us, travels that road of the Passion, and we, in Him, travel the road marked out by Holy Mother Church and her duly ordained shepherds.  We must unite ourselves in heart, mind and will with the mysteries expressed in the liturgy.  Our passion, our road to Jerusalem, is in our examination of conscience and good confessions, our self-denial and works of mercy.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Father, help us to be like Christ your Son,
who loved the world and died for our salvation.
Inspire us by his example, who lives and reigns….

Commerical:  The relative value of some ICEL translations… $0.02.  A year’s gift subscription to The Wanderer… $50.  Helping a friend understand what the prayer really says… priceless.   

It irritates me that phrases like Domine Deus noster are reduced in the lame-duck ICEL version to “Father” (NB: none of those three Latin words means “Father”, but you probably knew that…).  Of course we are not so dense that we can’t figure out that this Collect is addressed to the First Person of the Trinity, i.e., “the Father”.  How stupid do they think we are?   

In the past I have taken the ICEL versions to task for the constant reliance on the word “help”, as in the quintessential parody of an ICEL prayer: “O God, you are so big.  Help us to be big like you.”  However, I used the word “assisting” in our WDTPRS version (cf. above – opitulor).  I could just as easily have use “helping”, as I did four years ago when we did this same prayer.  Therefore, we must make distinctions about the way WDTPRS uses “help” and the way ICEL usually uses it in their versions.   Please understand: I have no problem at all with the idea that God “helps” us.  What I want to avoid, and I am not convinced that the lame-duck ICEL prayers do, is suggest that we can really do what we are praying about on our own but it would be great if God would give us a hand now and then.  This is tantamount to the ancient heresy of Pelagianism.  I think sometimes the ICEL prayers are virtually Pelagian, or at least susceptible to a Pelagian interpretation.

Brief scholion: What is Pelagianism?  Pelagianism, bitterly fought off by, among others, St. Augustine of Hippo in the 4^th and 5^th centuries, was a heretical belief that Original Sin did not wound human nature and that our will is capable of choosing good or evil with no help from God’s grace. This would mean that the sin of our first parents to “set a bad example” for humanity to follow, but Adam’s sin did not have the other consequences imputed to Original Sin (wounding of the intellect and will, etc.). For Pelagians, Jesus sets a good example which counteracts Adam’s bad example. We can choose to follow it and choose, on our own, with the help of Jesus’ perfect example.  Therefore, according to Pelagians, we humans retain full control and full responsibility for our own salvation.  Now read the ICEL version again.

The Latin Collects avoid even the slightest tint of Pelagianism when talking about God’s “help.”  In today’s Latin Collect we read (in a starker version), “in that love by which your Son, loving the world, gave himself over to death.”  In the Latin we pray about caritas, charity, sacrificial love, which is in by us God’s free gift of grace.  Caritas is the theological virtue enabling us to love God for Himself and our neighbors as ourselves.  In the present ICEL version we want to be “inspired by his example.”  It seems to me that the ICEL prayer stops there and doesn’t take the next necessarily Catholic step.  Sure, Christ and His love is our perfect “example.”  But the Latin Collect connect us far more intimately with that love, to the extent that God’s “help” is actually God providing that we do all we do in a deep unity with Christ’s own love.  We are so much in unity with Him that we become Christ-like in our love.  His love lives and works in and through us.  It is ours and we are Its. That is more than an example for imitation. 

Our Lenten discipline continues.  Persevere in prayer, fasting and almsgiving and, especially, in your full, active and conscious participation in the sacred mysteries of Holy Mass.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 5th Sunday of Lent (First Sunday in Passiontide) – Station: St. Peter in the Vatican

Every once in a while I receive feedback from critics (usually people on a parish “worship committee” somewhere and sundry brainwashed clerics) suggesting that my weekly examination of discrepancies between the ICEL translations and the original Latin liturgical texts is overly picky. Indeed, some opine that our translations “really don’t make that much difference”, in the final analysis. What really makes a difference is that people are “gathering together, sharing, going forth in unity” blah blah blah. Yes, those things are important. But the reflective reader of WDTPRS will instantly respond that the way we pray has a reciprocal relationship with what we believe (lex orandi lex credendi). Change how we pray and what we believe will change. Similarly, what we believe shapes how we pray and even what we pray about, whether alone or “gathered”. Should anyone question if having better translations at Mass is really that important, consider this interesting item I ran across in my current deep background reading about a non-liturgical issue, the so-called “just war doctrine” (JWD).

At the time of this writing, the warriors of a US led coalition are engaged in lethal combat in Iraq for the sake of freeing and oppressed people and restoring the “tranquility of order”. I am deeply concerned for them. I have told you readers of a young Marine captain for whom I ask your prayers. (Side note: you recall I gave him a rosary of knotted cords before he deployed. I just heard a story on the news about how one of the American POW’s now held in Iraq, the African-American woman, begged her mother to get her rosary to her before she deployed). These military servants of peace prosecute war so that among nations the fundamental rights of peoples (which is the foundational aim of legitimate government) may be fostered and guaranteed. As I listen to the debates about the moral justification for this war, I turn to the Church (as distinguished from her present prelates) for guidance and insight to help me sort through the issues. The JWD is the cornerstone of our Catholic, and indeed all well-informed reflection on the present war. What the Church has really said through the ages, and not what some people think the Church says, is therefore extremely important to us right now.

What has this to do with translations? In George Wiegel’s exhaustive Tranquillitas Ordinis: The Present Failure and Future Promise of American Catholic Thought on War and Peace (Oxford: OUP, 1987) I found a fascinating footnote about how a nuance in an early English translation of a Vatican II document profoundly influenced present American Catholic thought on the morality of war and peace. Weigel describes the influence the Council’s final document on the Church and the modern world Gaudium et spes (GS) on the Church’s teaching concerning peace and war. At one point he focuses GS 80 and its English translations. One was prepared by Joseph Gallagher in The Documents of Vatican II, Walter Abbot and Joseph Gallagher, eds. (New York: America Press, 1966) and the other by Austin Flannery in Vatican II: The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents, Austin Flannery, general ed. (Northport: Costello Publishing Co,. 1975).

The context is the presentation of the Council Fathers’ view in GS is that this age of ours constitutes “an hour of supreme crisis” (GS 77). The problems of interdependence between nations and the development of weapons of mass destruction have made the problem of war more urgent now than ever before. War and peace can thus no longer be a matter of consideration merely for statesmen and experts, but rather it is a matter for “each person”, now under a moral obligation to be devoted “with renewed dedication to the reality of peace.” Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is not simply the balance of power between enemies. It cannot be forced by dictatorship. It is, rather, “an enterprise of justice” (GS 78). This is discernable from the natural law. It is a Gospel imperative.

The original Latin of the sentence in GS 80 that interests us is: Quae omnia nos cogunt ut de bello examen mente omnino nova instituamus. Flannery renders this as: “All these factors force us to undertake a completely fresh appraisal of war” (p. 989 – emphasis added). The key phrase here is nova omnino mente. Gallagher says: “with an entirely new attitude.” Flannery’s version is, arguably, a bit more accurate in that mens is presented as an intellectual exercise and careful consideration, etc. There is a significant difference between “a completely fresh appraisal” and “entirely different attitude”. But it was Gallagher’s phrase “with an entirely new attitude”, and not Flannery’s, which captured the attention and shaped the thought of American Catholics prelates and scholars on the morality of peace and war. After Vatican II it might be possible to identity a partial break (at least partial) in American Catholic attitudes at the highest levels with the continuous development of the JWD during the decades following the Council. It may be that some of the confusion we now witness among highly placed Church figures on the actual content of the JWD, now that this useful body of thought is being widely reclaimed and reopened, might result in some part from the translation choices made in key passages of the influential Gaudium et spes, which ends with a section on “The Fostering of Peace and the Promotion of a Community of Nations”. My point? If anyone is wondering if the translations that Catholics are hearing each and every week at Holy Mass really have made any difference in our attitudes about the whole range of issues they touch in our Christian lives, our very identities, and the choices we make as a result, consider how the translations of the Council documents affected your lives. I might mention as well the widespread misunderstanding of what the Council really meant by “active participation”, but you have no doubt already thought of that.

This Sunday is also called the First Passion Sunday in the older, traditional Roman calendar. The Church begins to die to itself, liturgically speaking. At the beginning of Lent we were to give up decorations, instrumental music, the Gloria, the acclamation Alleluia, and dress in penitential purple. Our senses of sight and hearing were being deprived. From this Sunday onward, statues and images would traditionally be draped in purple, the Iudica me was not recited in the prayers before the altar, the Gloria Patri was not said any longer after the Introit. The Church was imposing a deeper liturgical “fast” in preparation for Easter. This would deepen even more after Palm Sunday. On Holy Thursday we would no long ring bells and would use “clackers” instead. On Good Friday we would merely have the chance to receive Communion with no Mass. The priest would even lose his shoes when he venerated the Crucifix! We are deprived even of light before the Vigil Mass as well as the church building itself, since the Vigil properly begins at midnight and outside.

POST COMMUNIONEM
LATIN (2002 Missale Romanum):
Quaesumus, omnipotens Deus,
ut inter eius membra semper numeremur,
cuius Corpori communicamus et Sanguini.

This prayer seems to have precedents in the Veronese and Gelesian Sacramentaries but it was not in the 1962MR, the so-called “Tridentine” pre-Conciliar Missale Romanum.

We all know what “communicate” means… or do we? Let us consult the detailed Lewis & Short Dictionary to find out what it means in the Church’s language, Latin. Communico is a verb meaning “to divide something with one, whether in giving or receiving.” So, this verb indicates a two-way street and thus a relationship of some kind including status. In some contexts it means “to have intercourse with an inferior.” It conveys the meaning “to divide a thing with one, to communicate, impart, to share; especially and frequently of imparting in discourse.” This also applies to receiving, not just giving. However, it is also, “to join to an equal part, to unite.” In early Latin Christian contexts, this word was assumed and giving new shades of meaning. St. Augustine uses it, for example, in an anti-Donatist letter (ep. 162 sometimes numbered as 43) with altari Christi and other ways to speak of the unity of Christians in a Church partaking of the Eucharist at a common altar.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
We implore, Almighty God,
that we always be counted among the members of Him,
of whose Body and Blood we communicate.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Almighty Father,
by this sacrifice
may we always remain one with your Son, Jesus Christ,
whose body and blood we share.

With the advent of the newest edition of the Roman Missal the Church restores the use of the Lenten blessing “prayer over the people” which before the Council was always given at the end of Mass on weekdays only. Now it is to be used on Sundays as well.

ORATIO SUPER POPULUM (2002MR):
Benedic, Domine, plebem tuam,
et concede, ut, quod, te inspirante, desiderat,
te largiente perciperat.

MY LITERAL RENDERING:
Bless, O Lord, your people,
and concede that what they desire while you are inspiring,
they will experience as you grant it to them.

It is hard to put this into English and keep the singular plebs, which refers to God’s holy “people” (think of the word “plebiscite”). Plebs is singular and it takes singular verbs: desiderat…perciperat. This underscores the unity we have. It ought to say “concede that what it desires… it will experience…”, but that rings odd in our English ears. We must also contend with two ablative absolute constructions.

Many of the comments you kind readers send reflect the reason why we are involved in this WDTPRS project. They touch on the real meaning of the Mass. For example, GS writes via e-mail about the columns I wrote two years ago on the collects (they are archived in the internet): “Thank you for the translations of the Opening Prayers for Mass. We’ve come to expect the worst from ICEL, and they never disappoint us! Good prayers pray us, they transform us. Your translation of these rich and time honored prayers is much appreciated. Unfortunately, some offerings today are more about conforming to the world rather than being a Gospel catalyst to transform the world for the glory of God.” Yes, GS. The problem today in many places is that people have not been adequately catechized regarding the liturgy. In the sacred action of the Mass, the real actor is Christ. Mass is not so much about what we do for God but what He does for us. When the baptized enter Christ’s action in the liturgy, He takes our voices and makes them His own. When the priest speaks to the Father, Christ the Head speaks. When the people speak, the Body raises its voice to the Father. Together they are one Christ, Christus totus. Worldly food is changed into what we are, but the Eucharist is food, unlike earthly food, that changes us into what It is. So too the prayers of Mass transform us by their content. How important is it for us to have what the Church really says? To what extent can we change them? When we enter the holy precincts of a church and, by our baptism, become Christ’s own hands and voices in His saving action of Mass, what will be the content of the prayers which simultaneously express our innermost aspirations and also shape us into who we are meant to be?

Do not forget, in your daily offerings and sacrifices, to remember the intentions of our chief servants, the bishops, who collectively are responsible for providing us with the nourishment of accurate and beautiful liturgical translations. They face now a great deal of difficult and usually thankless work and the clock is ticking. They will be exposed to tremendous pressure from all sides to conform the prayers to special interests (usually worldly interests). They need courage and strength, patience and insight, inspiration and perseverance in this mandate.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  Fifth Sunday of Lent– Station:  St. Peter in the Vatican

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2002

This Sunday is called the First Passion Sunday in the older, traditional Roman calendar.  From this Sunday onward, statues and images would be draped in purple, the Iudica me was not recited in the prayers before the altar, the Gloria Patri was not said any longer after the Introit.  The Church was imposing a deeper liturgical “fast” in preparation for Easter.  This would deepen even more after Palm Sunday.

It has been sometime since we led off WDTPRS with an excerpt from the Congregation for Divine Worship’s document Liturgiam authenticam.   (Aside: In last week’s edition of The Wanderer there was an article on a recent conference in Carmel, CA where I was reported to have given a talk on Liturgiam Authenticam.  I really gave a presentation on Liturgiam authenticam.  Properly, the “a” of the second word should be lowercase).   I consider some recent e-mail feedback very timely.   MD of WY queries, “… from LA #61:  What are the "modern editiones typicae"…?  Do the Graduale Romanum and the Graduale Simplex belong to these "modern editiones typicae"?” Let’s look at the relative paragraph:

61. Texts that are intended to be sung are particularly important because they convey to the faithful a sense of the solemnity of the celebration, and manifest unity in faith and charity by means of a union of voices. The hymns and canticles contained in the modern editiones typicae constitute a minimal part of the historic treasury of the Latin Church, and it is especially advantageous that they be preserved in the printed vernacular editions, even if placed there in addition to hymns composed originally in the vernacular language. The texts for singing that are composed originally in the vernacular language would best be drawn from Sacred Scripture or from the liturgical patrimony.

“The texts for singing that are composed originally in the vernacular language would best be drawn from Sacred Scripture or from the liturgical patrimony”… hmmm…. I guess that leaves out the modern liturgical ditty Gather Us In.  Keeping always in mind that the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council had every intention that Latin should remain the primary language of the Latin Rite and that Gregorian chant be given pride of place, it seems to me that the books MD mentions (above) would be essential components of any authentic post-Vatican II liturgical renewal.  The Graduale Romanum is a publication of the monks at the monastery of Solesmes in France and, though it has the complete approbation of the Holy See, is not a Vatican publication.  As such it does not bear the label editio typica.  A book that contains “hymns and canticles” would be another Solesmes publication, the Liber Hymnarius.   MD mentions the Graduale Simplex which came out in 1967.  This is a Vatican publication and it carries the subtitle in usum minorum ecclesiarum…  “for use in smaller churches.”  Ironically, the first place it was used was St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.  This ghastly little book was produced over the objections of real and competent Church musicians because forms of music were corrupted and misapplied: texts for graduals were forced into melodies originally intended for Magnificat antiphons, and so forth.  Being neither fish nor fowl, it never got anywhere… mercifully.  Another slim little Vatican book was Iubilate Deo containing a selection of bits and pieces of Latin chants.  Since those in charge of liturgy at the time it was put out had effectively usurped the necessary role of legitimate musicians (music is pars integrans in the liturgy), and since it seems that they hated anything having to do with Latin, Iubilate Deo never had any success around the world.  Neither this not the Graduale Simplex have the label editio typica.  At any rate, I have no idea what books LA 61 is talking about in saying “editiones typicae” in this specific paragraph.  Maybe someone else does and will kindly fill us in.

SUPER OBLATA:

LATIN (1970 Missale Romanum):

Exaudi nos, omnipotens Deus,
et famulos tuos, quos fidei christianae eruditionibus imbuisti,
huius sacrificii tribuas operatione mundari.

Our prayer has no precedent in the 1962 Missale Romanum but some elements were from ancient sources.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Graciously hearken to us, O God Almighty,
and grant that Thy servants and handmaids, whom
Thou hast initiated by the instructions of the Christian faith,
may be cleansed by the offering of this sacrifice.
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The verb exaudio is a compound of ex- and audio (“to hear”) and means, pace the great Lewis & Short Dictionary, “to hear or perceive clearly.”   When it was still somewhat more common to hear public recitation of litanies, exaudio was often translated as “graciously hear” as in Christe, audi nos… Christe, exaudi nos…”Christ, hear us… Christ, graciously hear us.”  It seems to me that “gracious hear” is a good translation.  One might also say something like “harken.”  There is a basic principle established in LA that in translations there should be established a sacral style, somewhat different from everyday speech.  The translators should also consider traditions of the past in a given culture when making word choices (cf. LA 47, 50 c, and esp. 27).  The ex- in the compound intensifies the verb.   This is directed to God, for whom we show respect even while we petition Him with the boldness of children and co-heirs of Christ.   A famulus or a famula is a household servant or handmaid.  This marvelous word gives the priest a delightful tongue twister in the Roman Canon (First Eucharist Prayer) when he says (or sings, now, in the Novus Ordo) in genitive plural forms famulorum famularumque tuarum.   This was one of the words singled out in LA for special mention:
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53. Whenever a particular Latin term has a rich meaning that is difficult to render into a modern language (such as the words munus, famulus, consubstantialis, propitius, etc.) various solutions may be employed in the translations, whether the term be translated by a single vernacular word or by several, or by the coining of a new word, or perhaps by the adaptation or transcription of the same term into a language or alphabet that is different from the original text (cf. above, n. 21), or the use of an already existing word which may bear various meanings.

Eruditio is “an instructing, instruction.”  Some Latin synonyms are doctrina, disciplina, scientia, intellegentia, cognitio.  Imbuo means “to wet, moisten, dip, tinge, touch.”  By extension it comes to mean “to tinge, stain” and therefore “to inspire or impress early, to accustom, inure, initiate, instruct, imbue.”  Picture the thing being taught as leaving a mark on the person, a stain that becomes part of the person’s makeup, changing him.  Consider as well the stain that wine can leave.  Anyone who has cleaned linen table cloths after a grand meal knows how troublesome this can be.  Perhaps some of the readers of WDTPRS have had the opportunity to crush grapes for wine in the ancient way: treading on them with the feet.  If one does this often and long enough the feet are stained.  Consider also the other kind of stain that we experience.  It is not uncommon to describe the effects of sin as a stain.  A word for “stain” in Latin is macula.  Thus, the Blessed Virgin Mary, sinless from the first moment of her existence by a singular grace, is Immaculata.  Something which is very clean by virtue of its being “unstained” is said to be “immaculate.”  In the Lenten hymn Attende, Domine we pray singing Ablue nostri macula delicti… “Wash away the stain of our sin.”  We wish “to be cleansed” from the stain on our soul brought about by sin, which ruins the happy purity it received in baptism.  “To be cleansed” is the meaning of mundari which is the present passive infinitive of mundo “to make clean, to clean, cleanse” especially in later Latin in the spiritual sense.  An operatio is “a working, work, labor, operation” and also “a religious performance, service, or solemnity, a bringing of offerings.”  In the Latin Christian authors Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius (fl. early III c. – in 6, 12) and Aurelius Clemens Prudentius (+ c. 405 in Psych. 573) it means “beneficence, charity.”  Remember that in the ancient Church offerings of money and food were brought forward and given to the bishop at the time of the offertory.  They were distributed to the poor through the service of the deacons and others who were instituted and consecrated in the different orders (consecrated virgins, widows, etc.). 

ICEL:

Almighty God,
may the sacrifice we offer
take away the sins of those
whom you enlighten with the Christian faith.

If we go back to the Latin version of the prayer we can catch hints from the vocabulary of the ancient Church’s practice of training catechumens during this time of Lent in preparation for their baptism at Easter.  In many places where RCIA classes are in full swing, these last Sundays of Lent are designated for the “scrutinizes” of candidates.  This is one of the reasons why I chose to translate imbuo as “initiate”, a legitimate meaning of the verb, rather than a more apparent word like “imbue”.  Also, eruditio in the plural leaves us with the impression that the content of the faith is being impressed on those being instructed in a series of lessons.  In the writings of St. Augustine of Hippo eruditio is also used in connection with words like correptio and admonitio which, for Augustine, meant in a biblical sense “to combat misconduct with reproaches, to reprimand, reprove, warn, admonish” (cf. the very handy Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia.  Ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald, O.S.A., 1999).   Another way of rendering the middle section of the prayer could be “whom Thou hast instructed by the admonishments of the Christian faith” which gives a heightened tone of Christian morals.  Translated in that way we are reminded that when we bring our gifts to the altar we must be, as good Christians, morally upright people and that the Sacrifice of Calvary, renewed on the altar, is how Christ obtained for us forgiveness of all our sins.  The ICEL prayer uses the word “enlighten” for imbuo which works for me, sort of.  ICEL leaves out the concept of lessons, instructions or admonishments.   With the greater emphasis these days on the preparation for converts and reverts through a process like RCIA it strikes me that a more faithful adherence to the actual vocabulary of the Latin prayer will produce a far more evocative oration. 

Do not omit, faithful reader, to say a prayer for our bishops and those in charge of preparing translations of our liturgical books.  Bishops have very difficult roles in the Church.  I imagine that it would be easy for them, constantly under fire from many quarters, to put something like new translations or revisions on the back burner.  This must not happen.  We must be encouraging, respectfully insistent, and unwaveringly positive in addressing ourselves to them in this issue of critical importance for the ongoing life of the Church in this new millennium.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? Fifth Sunday of Lent – Station: St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2001

Now called simply the Fifth Sunday of Lent, this day is traditionally called First Passion Sunday.  Those who use the newer calender know Palm Sunday as Passion Sunday. However, this was and remains the beginning Passiontide for those who observe the traditional Roman calendar.  It was also known as Iudica Sunday, from the first word of the Introit of Mass (from Ps 42/41) and sometimes Repus, an abbreviation of repositus, the equivalent of absconditus or “hidden” from the veiling of the Crosses and other images in churches on this day.  The veiling once took place during Mass at the words in the Gospel "Jesus hid Himself" but the veiling was later transferred to the evening before after Vespers. In Germany this day was called Schwartzer Sonntag...Black Sunday.  Traditionally in the Church’s liturgy several things took place on Passion or Iudica Sunday: the “Iudica” psalm was no longer said in the prayers at the foot of the altar and the Gloria was no longer said.  In an earlier offering I mention how during Lent the Church experiences deepening liturgical deprivation and finally death.  We loose things all during Lent.  Music and flowers disappear.  The “A Word” is not said before the Gospel.  Today the statues and images are draped in purple and there is no more Gloria said at the end of prayers such as collects (at least traditionally).  After the Mass on Holy Thursday the Blessed Sacrament is removed to another place and the altar is stripped.  Bells are no longer rung and are replaced with wooden noise makers.  On Friday there isn’t even a Mass.  And the whole Church comes back to life gloriously at the Vigil of Easter, in the dark of night.  This whole process reveals how Christ emptied Himself of His glory so as to save us from our sins.  But He did this also to teach us who we are.  We must learn to connect ourselves with the Church’s liturgy in which these sacred mysteries are given to us once again.  By our baptism and active receptivity we become participants in the saving mysteries of Christ’s life, death and resurrection.

COLLECT:
LATIN (1970 Missale Romanum):
Quaesumus, Domine Deus noster,
ut in illa caritate, qua Filius tuus
diligens mundum morti se tradidit,
inveniamur ipsi, te opitulante, alacriter ambulantes.

The final assonantal cadence of this collect is very nice: alácriter ambulántes.

 
LITERAL TRANSLATION:
We ask, O Lord our God,
that in that love by which your Son,
loving the world, gave himself over to death,
we may ourselves be found to be walking swiftly while you help us.

 Our vocabulary today is not terribly challenging, with the possible exception of optiulor in that ablative absolute construction.  The indispensable Lewis & Short Dictionary informs us that optiulor means “to bring aid; to help, aid, assist, succor.”   Also, a reminder about ablative absolute is not without merit.  Remember that an ablative absolute is a tricky thing to render in English.  There are five main kinds of ablative absolute: with present, future and perfect participles and with adjectives or nouns.  Where did this construction come from?  It gets back to our constant problem of Latin lacking forms/endings.  Lack of forms means that words/endings must fill many different functions. In Latin, for example, there is no present participle “to be” ... sum (i.e., the equivalent of English "being").  If it existed it might look like essens, essentis (actually, this developed in Medieval Latin in some philosophical writing, but that doesn’t concern us here). Sum also has no perfect participle futus, a, um.   Perfect participles are passive and it is impossible to construct a passive of the verb "to be".  For example, you can say “I am happy” in the active present, but you can’t say "happy is being been by me".  You can get around this lack of present participle by omitting sum and using ablative absolutes.  Most people translate an ablative absolute with some construction like (in the case of the one in the collect today) “with you helping”.  Although this can be done, I avoid that “with”: it can be confused with the use of ablative for accompaniment or instrumental means.  I prefer using a finite verb paraphrase and a word like “after, since, because, when.”  This grammar business is no doubt electrifying for most of you.  Look at it is a lenten penance and keep reading.  I give you this to show that putting these Latin prayers into a smooth English requires some thought and effort.  If your working ability to use Latin actively and well is thin or shaky, the result will be clunky or errant translations.  We need good and experienced Latinists to produce an English Sacramentary (can’t we call it a Missal?) based on the new Latin edition of the Roman Missal which is coming soon.  They must be skilled and faithful.  Pray for that!  But let us leave our riveting grammar for the time being.

 In our collect, similar to those of Advent, we have again an image of motion, of a pilgrimage.  The Church is on the road.  Taking a page from St. Augustine, it could be said that we the baptized, the Body of the Mystical Person, journey constantly with the Lord, the Head, toward Jerusalem: the Jerusalem of our own Passion and the New Jerusalem of our Resurrection.  One whole Mystical Christ is on a lenten journey.  Christ in us and we in Him again travel that road marked out each year by Holy Mother Church and her duly ordained shepherds.  We must strive to unite ourselves in heart, mind and will with the mysteries expressed in the liturgy.

 In his Lenten Message for this year our Holy Father wrote:

 
“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem” (Mk 10:33). With these words, the Lord invites the disciples to journey with him along the road that leads from Galilee to the place where he will complete his redemptive mission. The road towards Jerusalem, which the Evangelists present as the crowning point of Jesus’ earthly journey, is the model for the Christian who is committed to following the Teacher on the Way of the Cross. Also to the men and women of today are asked by Christ to “go up to Jerusalem”. He insists on this, particularly in Lent, a propitious time for self-conversion and for finding full communion with Him, intimately taking part in the mystery of his death and resurrection.

 Lent, therefore, represents for believers the opportune occasion for a profound re-examination of life. In the contemporary world, alongside the generous testimonies of the Gospel, there are baptised who, in the face of the demanding appeal to set out “up to Jerusalem”, offer indifferent resistance and sometimes even open rebellion. There are situations in which the experience of prayer is lived in a somewhat superficial way, in a way that the word of God does not penetrate into life. Even the Sacrament of Penance itself is thought by many to be insignificant and the celebration of Sunday Liturgy only as a duty to be fulfilled.”

 
Later in that same message, the Pope cites the great Father of the Church, the “golden-mouthed” St. John Chrysostom, who “commenting on the teaching of Our Lord on the way to Jerusalem, recalls that Christ does not leave the disciples ignorant of the struggles and sacrifices that awaited them. He underscores that to renounce the “I” is difficult. However it is not impossible when one is able to count on the help of God granted us “through the communion with the person of Christ” (PG 58, 619 s).”

 
ICEL:
Father, help us to be like Christ your Son,
who loved the world and died for our salvation.
Inspire us by his example, who lives and reigns….

It gets a little tiring to see phrases like Domine Deus noster reduced to “Father”.  Okay… we know that this collect is addressed to the First Person of the Trinity.  But, could they not perhaps have let us think it through? 

 For weeks I have griped a bit about ICEL’s constant use of “help”.  In our collect today we clearly refer to God helping us.  I have no problem at all with the idea that God “helps” us.  What I want to avoid, and I am not convinced that the ICEL prayers do, is the suggestion that we can really do what we are praying about on our own but it would be great if God would give us a hand now and then.  I think the Latin collect avoids what some might consider even a slight Pelagian tint when talking about God’s “help.”  In the Latin we read “in that love by which your Son, loving the world, gave himself over to death.”  In the ICEL prayer we want to be “inspired by his example.”  It just seems to me that the ICEL prayer does not go far enough.  Sure, Christ and His love is our perfect “example.”  But the Latin prayer seems to connect us far more intimately with that love, to the extent that God’s “help” is Him providing that we do all we do in a deep unity with Christ’s own love.  We are so in unity with Him that we become Christ-like in love.  His love lives and works in and through us.  It is ours and we are Its. That is more than an example for imitation. 

Another friend has come through with an addition to the growing collection of translations of the "Internet Prayer".   Today we bring to you the verion in Kinyambo, one of +120 languages spoken in Tanzania.  About 400,000 people speak Kinyambo.  The priest who translated this for my, consulted with other priests and shared it with them.  Who knows?  Perhaps this will be popular in Tanzania.

KINYAMBO (spoken in Tanzania)

Mungu owabushobola natalihwaho,
eyatutonzile Omurususo lwawe
kandi eyayenzile katuhiga byona ebili birungi, ebya mazima nebili  kusemela,
nangu kulabila Omumwana Wawe wenka Omugonzibwa, Omukama weitu Yesu Kristu,
nitukusaba otubele,
kulabila omunsara zo Mutakatifu Isidore, Omwepiskopi na Daktari,
omurugendo lwaitu olwe intaneti
tutwale emikono yeitu hamo nameiso omubintu ebili kusemela ahali Iwe
kandi tubakolele ne ngonzi hamwe nokwetohya abantu abotulikutanganwa nabo.
Kulabila omuli Kristu Omukama weitu.