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

An Easter sermon.

It was an honor to have been able to help out at my home parish in the USA during the Triduum.  I was celebrant for the Holy Thursday Mass, led the Stations on Friday evening, and during the Vigil sang the Exsultet.  I will post some audio of that eventually.  During this time I was privileged to have been able to hear a couple hundred confessions and distribute a couple thousand Holy Communions.  This was a good week.

Father is very tired now and needs a nap.

Happy Easter to all of you!  

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  The Vigil of Easter – Station:  St. John Lateran

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2006

My invitation for news about “the wearing of the rose” in your parishes brought some good feedback.  Fr. TJ wrote via e-mail (edited): “We used rose colored vestments at my parishes; but unfortunately they are actually more of a hot pink, and I only have two rose vestments to share among three parishes. ...  (I)n the spirit of wishing to adhere to the traditions of the historic Latin rite in the wearing of a ‘festive’ color on Laetare and Gaudete Sundays, I use them.”  Thanks, Father.  I am sure your flock also thanks you for the opportunity to partake of these traditions and also learn from the explanations you gave them about the custom.  No doubt you had to overcome the initial repugnance for “hot pink”, which abuses the senses rather than the rubrics.  Let this be a spur to you to obtain vestments of a more noble shade. 

While the invitation to send feedback is always open, some of you took my invitation as a chance to let me in on some of the liturgical abuses you have seen. For example, JD of GA shared this via e-mail (edited): “Sorry to report … there were no roses in my church, only thorns.  The drummer in the choir band walked around with his usual cup of coffee in the choir area that is behind the altar.  Our priest said the opening salutation in the baptistery and then processed to the altar.  He neglected to recite the Penitential Prayer (we do not recite the Confiteor in our church).  He neglected to recite the Nicene Creed.  In a ceremony commissioning those who assist with the distribution of the Precious Body and Blood he referred to them as Ministers of the Eucharist and then correcting himself he said, Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist.”   

That coffee cup bearing percussionist interests me.  This could be really useful on Sundays when coffee and donuts are available, as they are in many places.  As a matter of fact I am reminded of a visit I made to a controversial parish in my native place.  They had coffee and donuts also, but in the church during Mass, rather than afterwards in the hall.  So, that coffee mug would have been useful.  It is so hard to juggle the donut, the missalette and a little bio-degradable paper cup all while sticking your hand out for the “bread” from the “Eucharistic Minister”. 

Concerning the title of lay people who help the priest and deacons distribute, I could write reams of material.  Suffice to say that the proper term is “Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion”.  The bishop, priest and deacon are the only “Ministers of the Eucharist”.  Lay people are never “Ministers of the Eucharist”, but they can be, in case of genuine necessity, a great help in distribution of Communion, either in church or to the homebound, and so forth.   It is helpful to review what the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments wrote in its document Redemptionis Sacramentum about the participation of lay people involving the Eucharist (my emphasis):

[156.] This function is to be understood strictly according to the name by which it is known, that is to say, that of extraordinary minister of Holy Communion, and not “special minister of Holy Communion” nor “special minister of the Eucharist”, by which names the meaning of this function is unnecessarily and improperly broadened. “extraordinary minister of the Eucharist”

[157.] If there is usually present a sufficient number of sacred ministers for the distribution of Holy Communion, extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion may not be appointed. Indeed, in such circumstances, those who may have already been appointed to this ministry should not exercise it. The practice of those Priests is reprobated who, even though present at the celebration, abstain from distributing Communion and hand this function over to laypersons.

[158.] Indeed, the extraordinary minister of Holy Communion may administer Communion only when the Priest and Deacon are lacking, when the Priest is prevented by weakness or advanced age or some other genuine reason, or when the number of faithful coming to Communion is so great that the very celebration of Mass would be unduly prolonged. This, however, is to be understood in such a way that a brief prolongation, considering the circumstances and culture of the place, is not at all a sufficient reason.

To “reprobate” something is the juridical/technical way of forbidding something so that not even long established custom can allow it to go on.  I think we have to admit that some priests invite lay people do take over duties and ministries which properly belong to the priest and deacon because they want to make people feel good, or give them a sense of being actively involved.  I do not fault the good motive these priests usually have.  I do fault their neglect of continuing priestly formation, by which they ought to have known better than to do these things.  If the priest truly understands who he is in the Church, he will not do these sorts of things.  Thus, priests need to stay abreast of documents from the Holy See and continue to reflect on the meaning of the complimentary roles of priests and laity in the Church.

Our forty day Lenten journey has brought us to the ultimate festal day of the whole liturgical year.  Hopefully we have all participated in the Sacred Triduum ceremonies of Thursday and Friday.  We saw the priesthood and Eucharist instituted at Holy Thursday.  A glimspe of Easter glory was given us with the singing of the Gloria.  The priest responded to Christ’s priestly command to serve by washing the feet of males only (viri).  Christ in the Blessed Sacrament was reposed and the altar was stripped.  On Friday the Passion was sung and the Cross kissed.  We could receive Communion but we “fasted” from Mass.  On “liturgical” Saturday, that is until sundown, we had neither Mass nor Holy Communion, and thus we arrived at the nadir of the year in our preparation for Easter.  Suddenly with the Vigil, flowers, instrumental music, and white and gold vestments return.  The Church springs back to life like Christ from His tomb.

Since in earlier years of the series we have already looked at the Collect, Super Oblata and Post Communion of Easter Sunday’s Mass, it seems appropriate to turn our attention to the Vigil of Easter, the most important day of the entire liturgical year.  You might remember that in 2004 we looked at the Exsultet sung by the deacon in honor of the Christ Candle lighted from the fire kindled at the beginning of the liturgy.

Remember that at this point, the liturgy began in darkness.  The priest kindled the fire and prepared the candle.  Light began to spread through the church from hand to had as the smaller candles held by the faithful were lit.  The deacon sings three times Lumen Christi ... The Light of Christ, three times as the sacred ministers process to the sanctuary.  The Christ Candle is set in place, incensed, and Exsultet is sung.  The liturgy of the word begins, and after each reading there is a Collect.  The 2002 Missale Romanum presents 11 different prayers.  We shall examine the final Collect, which follows the singing of the Gloria and the lighting of the candles on the altar during the ringing of the bells.

FINAL COLLECT (2002MR):
Deus, qui hanc sacratissimam noctem
gloria dominicae resurrectionis illustras,
excita in Ecclesia tua adoptionis spiritum,
ut, corpore et mente renovati,
puram tibi exhibeamus servitutem.

This is adapted from the prayer in the 1962MR situated in the same moment of the Mass.  The 1962 prayer was the same as that found in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O God, who illuminate this most holy night
by the glory of the Lord’s resurrection,
rouse up the spirit of adoption in Your Church,
so that, having been renewed in mind and body,
we may render You our unstained service.

There is a reading from the New Testament, the first Alleluia of the season and the Gospel proclaimed in usual way.  There follows the baptismal rite with the singing of the Litany of Saints, blessing of Easter water, and the conferral of the sacraments with a confession of Faith.   When the Eucharistic part of the Mass begins, in the usual way, the priest sings the

SUPER OBLATA (2002MR):
Suscipe, quaesumus, Domine, preces populi tui
cum oblationibus hostiarum,
ut, paschalibus initiata mysteriis,
ad aeternitatis nobis medelam, te operante, proficiant.

This is identical to the corresponding prayer in the Gelasian and also Secret of the Mass in the pre-Conciliar Missale Romanum.  A note about pascha and its various forms.  This word concerns all things Easter: the first Passover and passage of the Jews from slavery to freedom, the Jewish rites of the sacrificing the lambs at Passover or, in the Christian sense, the Passion and Resurrection of the Lamb of God, and the subsequent renewal of these mysteries both in Holy Mass and each year in the Triduum and Easter.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Receive, O Lord, we beg you, the prayers of Your people
with offerings of sacrifices
so that the things initiated in the paschal mysteries,
may, You causing it, avail for us unto the remedy of eternity.

Holy Mass continues as normal to the consecration, during which the priest says the words pro multis (“for the many”), and thence to the most perfect form of active participation, the distribution and reception of Holy Communion.  For many who have been brought into the full embrace of Holy Church, this will be the first time they have received the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of the Risen Christ.

POST COMMUNIONEM (2002MR):
Spiritum nobis, Domine, tuae caritatis infunde,
ut, quos sacramentis paschalibus satiasti,
tua facias pietate concordes.

This prayer was not in the Gelasian but is to be found in the Veronese Sacramentary in the month of November, though it has uno caelesti pane rather than sacramentis paschalibus.  It was also the corresponding prayer in the 1962MR and earlier editions.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Infuse in us, O Lord, the Spirit of Your charity,
in order that in Your compassion You make one in mind
those whom you have satiated with the mysterious paschal sacraments.

Please accept my prayerful best wishes to you and yours for a fruitful and holy Easter season.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  Easter Sunday – Station: St. Mary Major

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2005

Regular correspondent HE writes via e-mail: “Your Easter 2004 column on the Exsultet strikes me as perhaps your most beautiful single WDTPRS offering.”  Thanks, HE.  That article is archived on the WDTPRS website.  There are downloadable audio versions of the Exsultet.  Imagine: some (most?) people have never heard the Exsultet sung in Latin.

The acerbic Diogenes of Catholic World News recently quipped on the web (Off The Record 5 March): “Let’s not forget the rarest and most stingily endowed of all aesthetic gifts, that of making beautiful prose translations from ancient languages. The 16th century Anglicans had it in freakish abundance, but there are no Coverdales or Cranmers in the intervening years. Here and there you’ll find a melodious passage in the contemporary English renderings of the Bible or the Mass, but for the most part hearing them proclaimed is like eating dry spackle with a spoon, and the new Lectionary has clunkers that cause real pain—vivid, biting-on-a-bad-tooth pain. Ironically, liturgical and biblical translations are not only the commonest aesthetic failures but also the hardest of all aesthetic failures to undo. A blessed hour might see a terrorist with a car bomb erase an architectural eyesore, but an ICEL Sacramentary, alas, is a gift that keeps on giving.”  And it looks like ICEL’s wretched lame-duck Sacramentary is going to give for a while longer.  Mr. John L. Allen, Jr., the ubiquitous fair-minded Rome correspondent of the left-leaning National Catholic Reporter was told by Chicago’s Archbishop Francis Card. George, a member of the Vox Clara Committee and also of the retooled ICEL, that the translation will need another three years.  (Insert “drumming fingers” sound here). 

Meanwhile, you will regurgitate that the champion of liturgical license and inclusive language His Excellency Donald W. Trautman, Bishop of Erie (aka “the Erie Bishop”) was elected chairman (chairperson? chairunit? chairone?) of the Bishops’ Committee on Liturgy.  The editor of First Things Fr. Richard John Neuhaus opines (February 2005) about that election making the same points WDTPRS is wont to make: “The liturgy committee, like most committees of the conference, has little real power, but Trautman’s election signals a direction, and the committee can obstruct and delay Roman reforms. Between those who in public prayer prefer the formal ‘We humbly beseech you, Almighty God’ and those who prefer the ever-so-spontaneous ‘Lord, we’re just here to tell you,’ and between those who think the Mass is about the Real Presence of Christ and those who accent deeply meaningful interactions among his Really Awesome People, the bishops wanted to find a middle ground. So they went with the spontaneously klutzy and deeply meaningful.” 

In sharp contrast, the marvelous website for active and retired Marines, oo-rah.com, has a nice bit about what Semper fidelis means.  On the surface, the motto refers to the fact that the Marines have never mutinied as well as the fact that they are fiercely loyal to each other.  However, after talking about the usefulness and universality of Latin, oo-rah also notes that Latin makes the motto more meaningful (slightly edited): “What is left unsaid in the motto is also notable.  The phrase is ‘Always faithful’.  It isn’t ‘Sometimes Faithful’.  Nor is it ‘Usually Faithful’, but ‘Always’. It is not negotiable. It is not relative, but absolute. Who is always faithful, though, and to what, exactly are they faithful? Interestingly, the simplicity of the phrase and the calculated neglect to specify its parameters seems to strengthen it. Marines pride themselves on their straightforward mission and steadfast dedication to accomplish it. Things do not need to be spelled out for them; they know what it means and what to do about it.”  Folks, the norms provided by the Holy See in Liturgiam authenticam require that the translations be beautiful, accurate and faithful.   But in order to determine what the Latin really says, the translators must themselves be faithful!  I want the Marines to take over ICEL.  “Get on that deck you translator and give me twenty-five Collects!”  Maybe Marines could spell things out while drilling them in the First Declension. OO-RAH! 

We have come to the high point of the Church’s liturgical year.  Each year the Church sacramentally re-presents the history of our salvation from creation to Second Coming together with the earthly life of the Lord from conception and birth to death, resurrection and ascension.  Our baptism makes us capable of participating at Mass with active receptivity for everything being done for us by Christ, the true principle actor in the in Holy Mass.  Lent prepared us.  The Sacred Triduum was observed: the priesthood was celebrated, the Eucharistic Christ was reposed and the altar stripped, the Passion was sung and the Cross kissed.  Our liturgical death was complete.  Then in the evening, in some places even at midnight, the solemn Vigil began.  Flowers, instrumental music, white and gold vestments return after a long drought of ornamentation.  The Exsultet rings out next to the Christ-like Paschal candle, burning bright in the shadows.  Baptismal water is blessed.  We once again sing Alleluia.  Catechumens are received or baptized, some also being confirmed.  The receive Christ for the first time in the Eucharist.  On Easter day we hear the Sequence Victimae paschali laudes about Christ the “Victor King” and His duel with Death.  The Church and her children are renewed in the promise of the resurrection.  Since Christ has risen, we may also rise.

COLLECT - LATIN TEXT (2002MR) ad Missam in die:
Deus, qui hodierna die, per Unigenitum tuum,
aeternitatis nobis aditum, devicta morte, reserasti,
da nobis, quaesumus,
ut, qui resurrectionis dominicae sollemnia colimus,
per innovationem tui Spiritus in lumine vitae resurgamus.

Today’s Collect, which has roots in the Gelasian Sacramentary, starts out like the Latin Collect in the 1962MR, but finishes differently.  I like the repeated sounds of the re- as in reserasti…resurrectionis…resurgamus.  Also, in the first part of the prayer, there is a repeated er sound: hodierna… per... aeternitatis… reserasti.  In the second part listen to the assonance on the vowel i, pronounced like the English double “e” as is see. 

And now… precious moments with the Lewis & Short Dictionary.  Aditus, us is “an approach” or “going to” in the sense of movement, but it is also leave or permission to approach as well as the place through which one approaches.  Reserasti is a shortened form for reseravisti.  That a tells us that this is not resero, sevi (“to sow or plant again”) but is rather from resero, avi, atum meaning “to unlock, open, disclose, reveal”. My version of “unbarring the gate” is a bit more poetic than “open the way” but this is a rather solemn moment.  Colo is complicated.  It means “cultivate” in a huge variety of meanings such as, “to cultivate, take care of a field”, “abide, stay in a place, dwell”, “bestow care upon a thing”, “to dress, clothe, adorn”, “to cherish, seek, devote one’s self to”, “to regard one with care, i.e. to honor, revere, reverence, worship.”  The core idea of “taking great care” gives us our meaning of cultivation, in the sense of agricultural care as well as cultural care.  This is where we get our Latin word cultus, meaning “worship” as in English “cult”.  The Vatican Congregation is called “pro Culto Divino … for Divine Worship”.  Sollemnia is neuter plural of sollemne and refers to something rare and therefore important.  Sollemne comes from sollus, that is, totus-annus, something that takes place every year.  Its first meaning is thus “yearly, annual”.  Hence it means solemn annual religious rites and festivals.  Innovatio is defined in L&S as “a renewing, an alteration, innovation.”  Dominicus, a, um is an adjective, “lordly, pertaining to lord”.   The Latin term for Sunday is dies dominica, “The Lord’s Day” while in Italian it is domenica and in French dimanche.  So, in our Collect resurrectio dominica literally means “lordly resurrection” but in English we say “the Lord’s resurrection.” 

LITERAL TRANSLATION:

O God, who today, death having been conquered,
unbarred for us the gateway of eternity through Your Only-begotten,
grant us, we beg,
that we who are reverently observing the solemn annual rites of the Lord’s resurrection, may through the renewing of Your Spirit rise again in the light of life.

Since ancient times at Easter we Christians renew our profession of faith as one transformed people.  We have passed through death to new life in the waters of baptism. In the ancient Church catechumens had a long period of preparation before their admittance to the sacred mysteries of the Mass.  They were permitted to attend the reading of Scripture and sermon but they were sent out before the Eucharistic part.  At the Easter Vigil the catechumens “give back the faith” by reciting their profession of faith standing before the congregation.  Then the doors were opened to them.  Anointed, baptized and clad in white linen robes, they were permitted to stand within the sanctuary, the cancelli or “closed off” area, reserved to the bishop and priests.  They participated in the Eucharistic part of Mass for the first time. 

The newly baptized were called infantes, for they were like new born children in the Church.  St. Augustine (+430) used everyday imagery when comparing that sacred area, the sanctuary, to a threshing floor.  The fatherly Augustine, so concerned about the meanings of the mysteries, taught the white-robed infantes that not only are the bread and wine transformed, people are too.  Many kernels of wheat are made into one loaf, many grapes one wine.  Grain and grapes are changed by us.  Wine and bread are changed by God.  We are changed by them when we receive them back.  Using agricultural images Augustine taught these new Christians about mysteries during the whole period from Easter to Pentecost.  He was especially concerned that they see themselves as a transformed people deeply, intimately connected to the Eucharist: “Estote quod videtis, et accipite quod estis... Be what you see and receive what you are” (s. 272,1).  He would compare the new Christians to wheat – grown, harvested, ground, formed, baked through the agency of others, prepared for the Eucharist.  Who we now are requires a new way of living: God plants new Christians to be wheat sprigs (spicas) not thorns (spinas).  Augustine told the newly baptized they were now new tender shoots in the fields of God, “irrigated by the fountain of Wisdom, drenched with the light of justice.”  Our Collect today also refers to our future when we will be drenched in the “light of life”, in the very sight of Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

How we need a Church-wide liturgical catechesis!  We urgently need Mass celebrated in such a way that we can sink into it, grow from it, rest in it, be nourished by the mysteries the Church sacramentally re-presents in it for us.  Mass not just play-acting or simple remembering: it is about Life itself.   Everything we do and say during Mass has meaning.  The words and actions shape and teach us.   What we do and say must conform to the Church’s guidelines, not our own whims or imaginative gimmicks.  How we pray has a reciprocal relationship with what we believe.  So, reading this, say now a prayer of gratitude to God for Holy Mass.  Pray for bishops and priests.  And pray also for the speedy preparation of a faithful English translation.

May you and yours have a blessed and grace-filled Eastertide.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  Easter Sunday – Station: St. Mary Major

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2003

Some brief comments from you esteemed readers of WDTPRS: WLM offers by e-mail: “You and the Wanderer are terrific! How blessed we are to have all you in these critical times.”  I am not sure that everyone would agree with you, WLM.  You might need to engage in some persuasion and put copies of what you find so great into as many hands as you can and get a wider consensus going.  Thanks for your kind words.   I have also received in the last few days about half a dozen requests to translate Latin things/texts.  I regret that I have only so many column inches and so few hours in the day.  I appreciate your confidence in my abilities all the same. 

We have come through our forty day Lenten observance, with its penance and self-examination with conversion, to the pinnacle feast of the entire liturgical year, the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord.  The ceremonies of the Sacred Triduum, conceived as one ongoing liturgical moment stretched over three days, helped us to enter into Christ’s love for us manifested in the Last Supper with the institution of the Eucharist and Holy Orders, manifested in His Passion and death, and then the victory which He shares with us as He now rises from the tomb.  The final tints of contrast were painted on Good Friday and Holy Saturday: Christ was taken from the altar and reposed in another place.  The altar was completely stripped.   The holy water fonts and stoops are emptied.  The Passion was sung and the Cross kissed on Good Friday.  We had no Mass, though we could at least receive Communion, on Good Friday.  Where the Vigil Mass of Easter begins at midnight, which is the more authentic way to celebrate the Vigil, the Church would not even have had Communion on the whole of Holy Saturday.  It is as if the Church herself dead in the tomb, waiting in the tomb with Jesus.  Thus we plumb the nadir of our liturgical lives in a final deprivation before coming back to life again.   With the Vigil and Sunday morning, abundant flowers, instrumental music, our finest white and gold vestments return.  The Exsultet is chanted before the brightly burning Paschal candle. Again we sing out Alleluias and ring our bells.  The new Baptismal water is blessed and poured back into the stoops throughout the church and from the penitential Asperges me we change to the chant Vidi aquam.  Catechumens are received and baptized, some also being confirmed.  They are admitted to the Body and Blood of the Christ for the first time, and we seasoned Catholics together with them after our brief “fast” from the Eucharist on Holy Saturday.  On Easter during the day we hear the Sequence Victimae paschali laudes about Christ the Victor King’s duel with Death and His ultimate triumph.  Scimus Christum surexisse a mortuis vere:  Tu nobis, victor Rex, miserere!..  We know that Christ has truly risen:  O Thou victor King, have mercy on us!  Amen.  Alleluia!

POST COMMUNIONEM

LATIN (2002 Missale Romanum):
Perpetuo, Deus, Ecclesiam tuam pio favore tuere,
ut, paschalibus renovata mysteriis,
ad resurrectionis perveniat claritatem.

This rather brief Post communion prayer appears to be a new composition for the 1970/75MR, the so-called Novus Ordo of Paul VI.

We have several old friends in our prayer this week, which we should review.  First, you will no doubt have already remembered that the early Latin Fathers used sacramentum to translate Greek mysterion, and so they are often interchangeable.  In this case the phrase “paschal mysteries” extends not only to the mysteries of the life, suffering, death and resurrection of the Lord, but also to how all those realities are contained within our own renewal of those events when we celebrate the Eucharist. The adjective pius, -a, -um is more than simply “pious” as we usually use that in commonly spoken modern English.  In Latin it carries with it a strong sense of “duty”, implying a strong relationship and obligations.  Thus, it can stand for a range of concepts from “patriotic” to “filial” depending on the nature of the relationship.  I hesitate always to imply that God has any sort of “duty” toward us.  However, given our confidence in the promises He extends to us in the covenant He initiated, we can speak to a certain extent of Him being true to His word as “dutifulness”, but always understood that God can never be obliged by us.  Claritas and gloria in many early Latin texts and liturgical contexts refers to a divine characteristic which, in the life to come, God will share with us.  Through His sharing His own gloria with us, we will forever and ever be transformed by Him into brighter and better icons of God.  That said, we turn to our valuable Lewis & Short Dictionaries in a search for the verb tueor which produces the form tuere which, among other things, is an imperative.   Tueor basically means, “to see, look, gaze upon; to watch, view” and hence by logical application “to look to, defend, protect”.   A few years ago the Holy Father signed on 28 May 1998 an Apostolic Letter Motu Proprio, Ad tuendam fidem, by which new norms were added to the Code of Canon Law for the Latin Church and also into the Code of the Eastern Churches.   The letter defends the content of the Church’s faith from attack and erosion by establishing a profession of faith and establishing sanctions.  The first part of that letter reads,

“To protect the faith of the Catholic Church against errors arising from certain members of the Christian faithful, especially from among those dedicated to the various disciplines of sacred theology, we, whose principal duty is to confirm the brethren in the faith (Lk 22: 32), consider it absolutely necessary to add to the existing texts of the Code of Canon Law and the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches new norms which expressly impose the obligation of upholding truths proposed in a definitive way by the Magisterium of the Church, and which also establish related canonical sanctions.”

Placed in the Code we now have:

c. 750 – 1. Those things are to be believed by divine and catholic faith which are contained in the word of God as it has been written or handed down by tradition, that is, in the single deposit of faith entrusted to the Church, and which are at the same time proposed as divinely revealed either by the solemn Magisterium of the Church, or by its ordinary and universal Magisterium, which in fact is manifested by the common adherence of Christ’s faithful under the guidance of the sacred Magisterium. All are therefore bound to avoid any contrary doctrines.
2. Furthermore, each and everything set forth definitively by the Magisterium of the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals must be firmly accepted and held; namely those things required for the holy keeping and faithful exposition of the deposit of faith; therefore, anyone who rejects propositions which are to be held definitively sets himself against the teaching of the Catholic Church.

Those who violate this canon and who persist in doing so after being admonished are to be punished with a just penalty.   Laws that bear no consequences for those who would ignore or violate them are no laws at all.  For there to be good order in any society, which the Church also is, there must be sanctions and censures, penalties and punishments.  This is a matter of charity for all, so that the common good of the Church’s membership may be fostered and protected.  When dissenters and heretics break the unity of the Church and harm her members and thus “die” and endanger others as well, they are given strong incentive through censures to return to the source of life and grace.   Excommunication and other sanctions are remedial, they are tools of love, not of vindictiveness.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:

Look to Thy Church, O God, with unending dutiful good will,
so that, having been renewed by means of the paschal sacramental mysteries,
it may attain to the glory of the resurrection.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):

Father of love,
watch over your Church
and bring us to the glory of the resurrection
promised by this Easter sacrament.

It is through contrasts that we come to greater joy in our Easter celebrations.  Without the stark and penitential season of Lent, we do not see the true splendor of Easter.  We human beings must fast before we feast so that the feast is that much more festal.  There is an old adage amongst musicians and actors: “Everything is nothing.”  That is to say, when the volume is always turned up without variation, when everything is either too dark or too bright or the whole set is painted green without relief, and so forth, then after a while we get bored and tune it out.  When everything is always at the same level, it becomes as nothing in our hearts and minds.  Do we not say that “variety is the spice of life”? 

In our prayer today we recognize the “renewal” that we as a Church have experienced.  Like grains of wheat we fell and died during Lent.   We rise now to life and bear fruit.   Just as we prune flowering bushes and certain trees and they then burst into even more abundant blossoms and fruit, we too are pruned back in Lent.  And not only in Lent, but constantly during the year.  Each Friday is a little Lent when we are all required by law to do penance.  Each Sunday is a little Easter when we rise to new life.  Each week is a chance for us to bear great fruit because of the ongoing cycle of dying and rising.

As I write this I am watching the rising of a whole people to new life.   After years of terror and oppression, poverty and anxiety, after a short few weeks of conflict and blood, an ancient people gathered around the very ground where our First Parents may have emerged from the Garden of Eden into a new world after their terrible fall we are witnessing a kind of resurrection.  Certainly they have now a great deal of suffering, sacrifice and rebuilding to accomplish, but they are now free to suffer, sacrifice and rebuild.  And they are free to do so because of the suffering and sacrifice of always faithful Marines and soldiers of a country whose motto is “In God we trust”.  Together with many allies another blow was dealt to the original dealer of death, the enemy of our souls.   When each of us die to self and rise to new life in the confessional and in the living sacred mysteries of our faith, made possible by our Easter character through baptism, the Devil and prince of this world is dealt a great defeat by our King.  The Devil and his minions will always attack us even though if causes them agony: their malice overcomes their fear of holy souls and the pain they endure from sacred things and Holy Mother Church.   But, with God, in whom we can trust, always “dutiful” in our regard and true to His promises, renewed in the mysteries of dying and rising surely we will attain to the final transforming glory of heaven.  In Christ, our humanity already sits at the Father’s right hand, waiting for us all to join Him.  Easter Sunday and the signs of the times in recent events in the world are clear signposts that we have inched ever closer to that great and final victory.

May God bless you and yours during this holy and sacred Easter season.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  Easter Sunday – Station:  St. Mary Major

ORIGINALLY PRINTER IN The Wanderer in 2002

News flash: apparently the new, third Latin edition of the Roman Missal has been formally presented to the Holy Father.  This means that this new Latin Missal will soon be released.  Stay tuned!

Once again the great cycle of the Church’s liturgical observance brings us through the forty day Lenten journey to the ultimate festal day of Easter, the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord. Hopefully we have all participated in the Sacred Triduum ceremonies.  We saw the priesthood and Eucharist instituted at Holy Thursday.  Christ in the Blessed Sacrament was reposed.  The altar was stripped.  The Passion was sung and the Cross kissed on Good Friday.  Though we could receive Communion, we “fasted” from Mass.  And since, technically, the Vigil Mass of Easter begins properly at midnight, the Church does not partake of Holy Communion for the entirety of Saturday: we thus arrive at the nadir, our final deprivation, in our preparation for Easter.  With the Vigil, the flowers, instrumental music, white and gold vestments return.  The Exsultet is intoned before the Paschal candle, burning bright in the shadowy church representing the Risen Lord.  Alleluias ring out and the bells return from their silent exile.  Baptismal water is blessed and Catechumens are received and baptized, some also being confirmed.  For the first time they are given the Body and Blood of the Lord.  On Easter during the day we hear the Sequence Victimae paschali laudes about Christ the Victor King’s duel with Death. 

SUPER OBLATA:

LATIN (1970 Missale Romanum):

Sacrificia, Domine, paschalibus gaudiis exsultantes offerimus,
quibus Ecclesia tua mirabiliter renascitur et nutritur.

This prayer was originally in the 1962 Missale Romanum as the secret of the fourth day of the Octave of Easter.  It had a precedent in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Exultant in joys of Easter,
O Lord, we are offering now the sacrifices
by which Thy Church is wondrously reborn and nourished.

The faithful Lewis & Short Dictionary brings back to mind that the verb exsulto in its roots has to do with “jumping” or “leaping”.  It means “to spring vigorously.”  So, by extension it means “to rejoice exceedingly”.  Hearing it in our prayer reminds us of the singing of the Exsultet during the dark of the night when the Christ Candle was kindled.   One can envisage Christ leaping from the tomb, the new Adam, gloriously renewed – as we hope to be someday.  Also, nutrio (and the deponent nutrior – here I think it is not deponent) has a meaning that goes beyond the mere “to nourish.”  There also can be a moral quality of loving and cherishing in it that is the motivation for giving the life-sustaining food and drink. 

ICEL:
Lord,
with Easter joy we offer you the sacrifice
by which your Church is reborn and nourished.

There is nothing hard about this simply constructed prayer.  The vocabulary is easy.  The syntax is clear.  Thus, I am a little puzzled about why the ICEL translators chose not to render more precisely the numbers of the nouns.  Gaudiis paschalibus is clearly plural, as is sacrificiis.  Okay… I can see how we can view the two sacrificial elements of bread and wine as one sacrifice. On the other hand, I prefer to underscore with the plural the fact that we have many reasons to rejoice in the Resurrection.  I grant that this is not a huge thing to quibble about.  Still, I think we need to give some attention to the fact that the Latin prayer could have said Sacrificium, Domine, paschali gaudio exsultantes offerimus… but it doesn’t.

Perhaps because of the incessant drumbeat being raised against the Church and her clergy in the media these days, I am struck by the imagery of the prayer in a special way this year.   Our prayer clearly harkens to the Lenten fast that the Church has endured some weeks.  Remember how Christ went into the desert and fasted for forty days and nights.  “And when those days were over, he was famished” (Luke 4:2; Matthew 3:2)   Consider how the Lord was sorely reduced by His fast.  Already lean from a life of labor and perfect control of appetites for food, after forty days of eating virtually nothing, He must has been little more than skin and bones, and very weak.  And all that time “He was with the wild beasts” (Mark 1:13).  Jesus’ condition was grave enough from His fast that, after Satan had tempted Him, the Father sent His Holy angels to minister to Him (Mark 1:13; Matthew 4:11). 

The Church is being forced into a new kind of fast through the scandals caused by wicked clergy.  It is bad enough that the people of God have been cheated of their heritage for decades through a poor or even maliciously false implementation of the liturgical reforms mandated by the Second Vatican Council.  It is bad enough that catechetics have been neglected or subverted.  It is bad enough that seminaries were hijacked by ideologically driven dissenters.  Now we are being brought as a Church to pay for the sins of bishops and priests who commit the abomination of sexual abuse of children and minors.  While I loathe the way the media exaggerates the charges and inflates the numbers of men involved, I cannot help but be grateful in a reserved way.   Jackals clean the land of rotting flesh, after all. They cull the sick of the herd.  I think that we have at last now the chance to clean our house with a real spring cleaning.  Just as Lent (which means “spring”) is our spiritual preparation through penance and mortifications and Easter is our Resurrection, so too as a Church we must now go into the desert and fast and suffer and pray.  The enemy of the soul will tear at us, tempting us to vainglory, pride, desire for material comfort. We must go out to be “with the wild beasts” and watch the secular media tear at our ankles and flanks.   In Robert Graves’ great historical novel of ancient Rome I, Claudius, the aging and moribund emperor, disgusted by the uncontrollable corruption around him finally croaks out, “Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out.”  And with the added incubation of the serpentine media they are indeed hatching out now like venomous cockatrices crawling from shells long guarded beneath episcopal feathers.  Still, is it not ironic to the extreme that the liberal-leaning media pundits who scourge the Pope whenever he disciplines a bishop or theologian for straying into dissent or heteropraxis or whenever he clearly teaches Catholic doctrine without compromise now are yowling that he should hammer the cardinals and bishops who engaged in years of cover-ups of clerical misdeeds?  Even most Catholic pundits, who invariably react negatively when the Pope acts like an old-fashioned Pope and teaches the hard messages of perennial truths of Catholic faith and morals, now mercilessly want John Paul II to be an old-fashioned Pope only long-enough to punish and castigate.  Surely we are now among the wild beasts of the desert.  I only wish people were more consistent.  If one is going to yammer for the Pope to be a disciplinarian in the matter of clerics sexually abusing minors, to be consistent one ought also demand that the Pope swiftly and unswervingly discipline clergy who teach heresy and permit it to be taught in pulpits and universities.  But for many, fickle people and pitiless press, the Pope may be Pope only when it serves their immediate tastes.  We are truly among the beasts.

But Christ has Risen from the dead and His Bride, in Him, is spotless and pure.  We sinners who are the members of this Church, who is Christ’s Mystical Body, cast ourselves upon His mercy.  The sin of the priest and the bishop does not negate or invalidate the sacrifices the Catholic people lay in hope upon the altar.  As Catholics we have the collective experience of two millennia.  We know that storms and quakes have rocked our Church.  Each time we emerge from the flotsam and jetsam we emerge stronger and more in love with Christ and His promises.   Yes, we mourn those lost to sin along the way.  We pray for mercy for the sinner and forgive him.  We continue to counsel the doubtful, console those who mourn and bear wrongs patiently.  And after our long fast in the desert, among the beasts, we will be attended by angels and nourished with the Bread of Life just as we have always been.  As we endure our present scandals and the virtual self-implosion of the Church today is it too much to hope that, once we reemerge on the other side, we will experience a rebirth and a nourishing of His Church the likes of which we have hitherto only dreamed?   At the offertory of the Mass, we should all be raising up to the Father our own sacrifices.  But a sacrifice needs to cost us something.  It must be dear to us.  Are we being asked, like Abraham, to lay at last the sharpened knife across the neck of what we love so dearly? 

It is hard, very hard indeed, to see our shameful troubles being gnawed on daily in the sight of the whole wide world.  It is onerous to clean house.  Maybe seminaries with long histories need to be closed until faculties worthy of the mandate can be found who will finally refuse to promote heresy and sodomy from within the ranks of feminized priests.  Schools may need to be shut down until instructors will adhere to Catholic teaching and be humbly obedient in following the Church, who is Mater et Magistra.  Were we to have a good, accurate, and beautiful translation of liturgical texts and careful attention to the rubrics, were we as a Church simply to do what the Church indicates in the sacred action, perhaps we might see the beginnings of authentic renewal at the grassroots.  Lacking good priests, perhaps parishes will be reduced. Maybe assets and holdings will need to be liquidated and our outward splendor reduced for a time.  Must our no-doubt precious chancery bureaucracies need to be cut down?  Should bloated diocesan budgets be reduced so that they no longer require vast flock-soaking capital campaigns and annual appeals? Perhaps instead of throwing money at “evangelization programs” may we can simply preach and live what is good and right and true, without watering down our doctrine and practices so that the world will like us more.  We need renewal and reform and it is going to hurt.

We are going to suffer a great deal before this period of purification is completed.  We must steel ourselves for humiliations and shameful revelations.  We must review and refresh our understanding of the true nature of the Church as “holy” and of her sacraments as the ordinary means of grace.  We now need to return to the basics and stay close to Christ’s feet, nailed to the Cross as they are.  We must be nailed there with Him.  And after this Cross and desert penance, the angels will put the beasts to flight and we will be reborn in anticipation of the Resurrection that Christ makes possible for us all.  But we must put our trust in Him and act accordingly.  Unlike the beasts we also must cling to Christ’s command to forgive, if not forget.  We must be merciful or we will be the beasts.

I pray that your participation in the Holy Week rites and the Holy Mass of the Lord’s Resurrection will bring you all hope, consolation, and happiness in this necessary time of renewal and purification.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? Easter Sunday- Station: St. Mary Major

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2001

At last we come to the culmination of the season of Lent and indeed the Church’s liturgical year.  Each year the Church sacramentally re-presents the whole history of our salvation from creation to Second Coming together with the earthly life of the Lord from conception and birth to death, resurrection and ascension.  By our baptism we can participate with active receptivity to everything being done for us by Christ, who is the principle actor in the liturgy.  The Sacred Triduum was observed.  The priesthood was celebrated, Christ was reposed and the altar stripped, the Passion was sung and the Cross kissed. In the evening in some places beginning at midnight, we observe the solemn Vigil.  Flowers, instrumental music, white and gold vestments return.  The Exsultet is intoned in honor of the Christ-like Paschal candle, burning bright in the shadows.  Baptismal water is blessed.  Catechumens are received and baptized, some also being confirmed.  They are admitted to receive the Real Presence of Jesus Christ for the first time.  On Easter during the day we hear the Sequence Victimae Paschali Laudes about Christ the Victor King’s duel with Death.  With Easter we say Alleluia again.  The Church and her children are renewed in the promise of the resurrection.  If Christ has risen, then so may we also.

COLLECT:
LATIN (1970 Missale Romanum):
Deus, qui hodierna die, per Unigenitum tuum,
aeternitatis nobis aditum, devicta morte, reserasti,
da nobis, quaesumus,
ut, qui resurrectionis dominicae sollemnia colimus,
per innovationem tui Spiritus in lumine vitae resurgamus.

I like the repeated sounds of the re- as in reserasti…resurrectionis…resurgamus.  Also, in the first part of the prayer, there is a repeated -er- sound: hodierna…per...aeternitatis…reserasti.  In the second part of the collect there is a very assonantal quality focusing on the vowel i, pronounced like the English double “e” as is see.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O God, who today, now that death has been conquered, unbarred for us the gate of eternity by means of your Only-begotten, grant us, we beg, that we who are reverently observing the solemn annual rites of the Lord’s resurrection, may rise again in the light of life through the renewing of your Spirit.

Today’s collect starts out like the Latin collect in the 1962 Missale Romanum, but it has a different ending: Deus, qui hodierna die, per Unigenitum tuum, aeternitatis nobis aditum, devicta morte, reserasti: vota nostra, quae praeveniendo aspiras, etiam adiuvando prosequere (by giving aid also bring to completion our prayers which you have inspired by anticipating them).

Let’s look at the lexical elements first.  Aditus, us is “an approach” or “going to” in the sense of movement.  By extension it is also leave or permission to approach as well as the place through which one approaches, an entrance or avenue.  Reserasti is a shortened form for reseravisti.  That a tells us that this is not resero, sevi (“to sow or plant again”) but is rather from resero, avi, atum meaning “to unlock, open, disclose, reveal”. I got slightly poetic there with the vision of unbarring a gate.  I might have said “open the way” but that would be stale and flat in such a solemn context.  Colo is a complicated word.  It has a range of applications from “to cultivate, till, tend, take care of a field” to “abide, stay in a place, dwell”,   “Bestow care upon a thing, take care of” , “to cultivate, attend to, dress, clothe, adorn”, “to cultivate, cherish, seek, practice, devote one’s self to”, “to regard one with care, i.e. to honor, revere, reverence, worship.”  This core idea of “taking great care” gives us our of cultivation, in the sense of agricultural care as well as cultural sophistication.  This is where we get our Latin word cultus, meaning “worship” as in English cult.  Sollemnia is neuter plural of solemne and is the object of colo.  This refers to something rare and therefore important.  Solemne comes from sollus, that is, totus-annus, something that takes place every year.  Its first meaning is thus “yearly, annual”.  Hence it means solemn annual religious rites and festivals.  Since innovatio looks like an English word, it is best checked out.  The precise and handy Lewis & Short Latin Dictionary defines it as “a renewing, an alteration, innovation.”  Dominicus, a, um is actually an adjective, “lordly, pertaining to lord”.   This is where we get our Latin word for Sunday, dies dominica, “The Lord’s Day”.  In Italian we have domenica and in French dimanche.  So, literally, we could say that resurrection dominica means “lordly resurrection.”  Clearly it means “the Lord’s resurrection.” 

ICEL:
God our Father,
by raising Christ your Son
you conquered the power of death
and opened for us the way to eternal life.
Let our celebration today
raise us up and renew our lives
by the Spirit that is within us.

ICEL’s translators clearly didn’t know how to fit that ablative absolute devicta morte comfortably into a smooth English sentence.  Also, they extrapolate “the way to eternal life” from aditus aeternitatis:  the Latin does not say aditus vitae aeternae.  “Celebration” seems a little anti-climactic after these many weeks of Lent on the most solemn day of the year.  Also, it is “we” who are celebrating the solemnities in the Latin.  We who are celebrating want to be raised up by God, not by the celebration.

We have in the Latin prayer today a very elevated style and vocabulary.  These two elements alone tell us that the day is special.

The collect has a Trinitarian dimension, making mention of all three Divine Persons.  Also, the collect emphasizes central importance of this day in our lives as Christians.  We are shaped by and destined for the resurrection.  This is an integral part of the faith we profess every Sunday in the Creed.  Since ancient times at Easter we renew our profession of faith as one transformed people.  In the ancient Church catechumens had a long period of preparation for their admittance to the sacred mysteries.  They were permitted to attend the liturgy of the Word and then sent out of the church for the Eucharistic liturgy.  At Easter time, they were required to “give back the faith” by standing before the congregation of the already baptized and recite their profession of faith.  At Easter the doors were opened to them and, anointed, baptized and clad in white linen robes and sandals, they beheld the Eucharistic dimension of Mass for the first time.  They were permitted to stand within the sanctuary, the cancelli, reserved to the bishop and priests.  Using everyday imagery St. Augustine compared that sacred area to a threshing floor.  The fatherly Augustine, so concerned about the meanings in the mysteries, urgently pointed out to the newly baptized (in Latin infantes) that not only are the bread and wine transformed, the people are too.  Many kernels and grapes are made into one loaf, one wine.  Wine and bread are changed.  We are changed by what we receive.  Using many different agricultural images Augustine would teach these new Christians about mysteries in the period form Easter to Pentecost.  He was especially concerned to help them see themselves as a transformed people.  As he said in a climactic Pentecost sermon , “Estote quod videtis, et accipite quod estis”... Be what you see and receive what you are (s. 272,1).  He would compare them to wheat, prepared for the Eucharist, grown, harvested, ground, formed, baked through the agency of others.  Who we are requires a new way of living as well.  God planted the new Christians, and us too, to be wheat sprigs (spicas) and not thorns (spinas).  Augustine said these newly baptized were now new tender shoots in the fields of God. They were “irrigated by the fountain of Wisdom, drenched with the light of justice.”  Our collect today also refers to our future when we will be drenched in the “light of life”, in the very sight of Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Do not forget to pray for our bishops and priests.  We need a new liturgical catechesis as well as a catechetical liturgy.  Mass is not primarily a didactic moment, which in some senses it has become since the Liturgical Movement and then the Council reforms.   Nevertheless, we still need urgently to have the liturgy celebrated in such a way that we can sink into it, grow from it, rest in it, be nourished by the mysteries the Church sacramentally re-presents in it for us.  This is not just play-acting or remembering.  This is about life itself.   Everything we do and say in the context of the divine liturgy has significance.  Actions shape and teach.  The words really do mean things.  Thus,  what we do and say must conform to the Church’s guidelines, not our own creativity or some isolated local expression.  How we pray has a reciprocal relationship with what we believe.  So, reading this, say a prayer of gratitude to God for the Church’s liturgy.  And pray also for a speedy release of the new Latin edition of the Missal and for exquisite English translations.