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

A letter of His Eminence Francis Card. Arinze to His Excellency Bishop Skylstad.  My emphasis:

2 May 2006

The Most Reverend William Skylstad
Bishop of Spokane
President, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Prot. n. 499/06/L

Your Excellency,

With reference to the conversation between yourself, the Vice President and General Secretary of the Conference of Bishops of which you are President, together with me and other Superiors and Officials when you kindly visited our Congregation on 27 April 2006, I wish to recall the following:

The Instruction Liturgiam authenticam is the latest document of the Holy See which guides translations from the original-language liturgical texts into the various modern languages in the Latin Church. Both this Congregation and the Bishops’ Conferences are bound to follow its directives. This Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments is therefore not competent to grant the recognitio for translations that do not conform to the directives of Liturgiam authenticam. If, however, there are difficulties regarding the translation of a particular part of a text, then this Congregation is always open to dialogue in view of some mutually agreeable solution, still keeping in mind, however, that Liturgiam authenticam remains the guiding norm.  (Fr. Z: Yah, like… if you can’t get this done in a reasonable period of time, we will do it for you?)

The attention of your Bishops’ Conference was also recalled to the fact that Liturgiam authenticam was issued at the directive of the Holy Father at the time, Pope John Paul II, to guide new translations as well as the revision of all translations done in the last forty years, to bring them into greater fidelity to the original-language official liturgical texts. For this reason it is not acceptable to maintain that people have become accustomed to a certain translation for the past thirty or forty years, and therefore that it is pastorally advisable to make no changes. Where there are good and strong reasons for a change, as has been determined by this Dicastery in regard to the entire translation of the Missale Romanum as well as other important texts, then the revised text should make the needed changes. The attitudes of Bishops and Priests will certainly influence the acceptance of the texts by the lay faithful as well.

Requesting Your Excellency to share these reflections with the Bishops of your Conference I assure you of the continued collaboration of this Congregation and express my religious esteem,

Devotedly yours in Christ,

+Francis Card. Arinze

Prefect, Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments

By way of an obiter dictum it occurred to me opportune to make an observation about some ecclesiastical appointments I heard about recently.  

Every once in a while a sequence of moves gives me the sense that something is "up", and I don’t mean term lengths.  A little something on the breeze, the flick of a scent or the hint of a sound, suggests something to the edge of my senses and I start paying attention in a new way to the traces and tracks I find in the dirt.

What do I mean?  Sometimes when you see a series of appointments, sometimes even high profile appointments, it might seem that the one in charge is himself getting ready for a move or, perhaps, something is going to change in his own status.  Sure, there are those men who will simply leave everyone where they are so that his successor can take care of things and won’t feel he has been saddled with problems created by 11th hour moves.  Sometimes "lateral" appointments are made so as to free the man up for some other, bigger task in the near future, which promotions can be, well, demotions.  Promoveatur ut removeatur.  Others will try to take care of their friends.  Others yet….  Well, you get the picture.  

Not to worry.  Every puzzle is easy… once you know the answer.

"But Father!  But Father!" you may be saying as you read this cryptic note, "What are you talking about?  Be plain!"

Sorry, this is an obiter dictum. 

And now, back to our regular programming….

In the grand Church of St. Augustine here in Roma, the attentive visitor will notice and read the inscription on the tomb of Onofrio Panvinio (1529 Verona – 1568 Palermo), Augustinian and scholar, admire (?) his countenance, and say a prayer for the repose of his soul.  He is the author of such page turners as the 1557 work Fasti et triumphi Rom. a Romulo rege vsque ad Carolum V. Caes. Aug.:Sive epitome regum, consulum, dictatorum, magistror. equitum, tribunorum militum consulari potestate, censorum, impp. & aliorum magistratuum Roman. cum orientalium tum occidentalium, ex antiquitatum monumentis maxima cum fide ac diligentia desumpta.

In any event, it seems that this is the fellow who worked out the date of the founding of Rome, the dates we often see with the abbreviation A.U.C. (Ab Urbe Condita).  As you know that condita comes from condo condere cónditum and not condio condire condítum.  If not, we would be saying “From the (year) the City was pickled” rather than “From the (year) the City was founded”.  Yep, in Latin it is good to get the accents right.

Here is his monument inscription.  Go ahead and take a crack at it!

Here is an interesting footnote.  Today is the feast of St. Aurea, a martyr in Ostia in the 2nd century.  On the edge of the ruins of Ostia Antica, ancient Rome’s port, there is a little church dedicated to her.  It was there some children after WWII found the inscription stone of the burial place of St. Monnica, the mother of St. Augustine of Hippo, who died in Ostia when they were on their way back to N. Africa after Augustine’s baptism.  (I wrote about this in an article for Inside The Vatican last year.)  St. Monnica’s body is to be found now in the Church of St. Augustine in Rome, after it was transferred from the Church of St. Aurea in Ostia, in turned translated there from her original burial place.  Full circle!  Right?   And so we have deeper meaning to what Monnica, who had several last resting places, said before she died.

COLLECT:
Omnipotens aeternae Deus,
qui nobis regeneratione baptimatis
caelestem vitam conferre dignatus es,
praesta, quaesumus,
ut, quos immortalitis efficis iustificando capaces,
usque ad plentitudinem gloriae, te moderante, perveniant.

While this was not in a previous edition of the Missale Romanum it had precedents in the ancient Veronese Sacramentary and the Bergomense.

BRUTALLY LITERAL OPTION:
Almighty eternal God,
who in the regeneration of baptism
deigned to confer upon us heavenly life,
grant, we beg,
that they whom you make capable of immortality by justifying,
may, you being their guide, come through all the way to the fullness of glory.

Do you see the connection to Thursday’s and Friday’s prayer?  Thursday we also had justification language and yesterday we had in aptari the concept of being made fit, or suitable, or disposed for something.  Latin capax in the first place concerns the physical volume of something, but by extension it is “capacious, susceptible, capable of, good, able, apt, fit for”.  Here, capax has to do with the ability to receive something.  In juridical language capax applies to the ability to inherit.  Keep in mind that we are, in Christ, made by spiritual adoption co-heirs.   In Christian texts capax comes to mean “capable” or “disposed” to receive spiritual realities, such as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, or sacraments.  Even today capax is used when conferring a sacrament provisionally on someone.  For example, if a priest does not know for sure if a person has been validly baptized, he will confer the sacrament provisionally by saying, “si capax es, ego te baptizo… if you are capable (of receiving the sacrament) I baptize you…”.   

The sin of our first parents brought necessary death on the human race.  Some theologians are of the mind that before the Fall, in the their state of original innocence, perhaps man might still have died, but according to his own choice.  It was also perhaps possible that he did not need to die.  That is to say, man might have been able not to die.  After the Fall, of course, any choice or ability we might have had was lost.  Now, however, because of Christ we have the possibility of eternal life in a way that was never possible before.  Our humanity has been raised up in an indestructible bond with His divinity.  In the Resurrection, our resurrection was secured. 

One day we will all rise again.  Will we rise to the happiness of heaven or the agonies of hell?  God makes it possible, by justifying and sanctifying us in baptism, for us to rise to glory and eternal joy.  By His grace and merits we can make the choice which it will be and cooperate with His plan for our salvation.