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

What Does the Prayer Really Say? Sixth Sunday of Easter

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2001

This week brought a development relating very much to the purpose of WDTPRS .  The Holy See’s Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments issued a document over the signature of its Prefect, Jorge A. Card. Medina Estévez, entitled Liturgiam authenticam… on The Use of Vernacular Languages in The Publication of the Books of The Roman Liturgy.  It is the Fifth Instruction “For the Right Implementation of The Constitution on The Sacred Liturgy of The Second Vatican Council” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, Art. 36).

In the weeks to come we must look closely at this document’s indications to those who translate  liturgical texts.  In a nutshell, Liturgiam authenticam (LA) establishes clear norms.  LA also gives a theological “key” to understanding the norms: a proper understanding of both inculturation and “active participation.”  The Church is saying that the liturgy shapes her members.  Therefore, the Church must help them to “full, conscious, and active participation” for the sake of their “continual formation (LA 1)”  That said, “the Roman Rite itself is a precious example and an instrument of true inculturation”  The idea is this.  The Church shapes and forms people through the liturgy.  In order for that formation to accord with the mind of the Church, the vernacular texts must be faithful to the original content the Church has given.  Through the formation given to her members, the Church then gives the content of her teachings and spirituality to the whole of the world: inculturation. Inculturation is, of course, a two-way street: the Church and the world give to each other in a dynamic interchange. But for inculturation to be authentic, what the Church gives must be logically prior to what the world gives back to the Church, not the other way around.  While it is true that individual peoples and the geniuses of different cultures contribute magnificently to “enfleshing” the Church in this place or that epoch, even more significant is how the Church, and therefore Christ, first shapes that culture and the genius of that people.  Translations are therefore critically important.

This document is a true gift.  It firmly requires that translations of liturgical texts adhere faithfully and strictly to the meaning of the Latin original.  It speaks to the issues of inclusive language, vocabulary, a sacred liturgical “style”, saying and signing the prayers aloud, facilitating memorization of the orations for the sake of private prayer.  It underscores the usefulness of alliteration and assonance, imagery, parallelism, meter, rhythm, lyrical and poetic elements,...beauty.  In essence, if I may be so bold, this new document lays down in official form the principles which WDTPRS has been adhering to all along.  These principles were always clear.  But they are now clear in black and white.  Let’s go on to this week’s “oration” (cf. LA 5), a…

COLLECT:

LATIN (1970 Missale Romanum):
Fac nos, omnipotens Deus, hos laetitiae dies,
quos in honorem Domini resurgentis exsequimur,
affectu sedulo celebrare,
ut quod recordatione percurrimus
semper in opere teneamus.

Notice that we refer here to the Dominus resurgens, the “rising Lord.” The prayer says resurgentis (genitive case of the present active participle) rather than resurrecti (perfect passive participle).   Also, I love the rhythm of that very first line when sung.  We see here also the choice to put dies (“day”) in the masculine rather than feminine.  Dies can have either gender.  In the famous sequence for the Requiem Mass we hear Dies irae, dies illa (which is feminine). 

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Almighty God, cause us to celebrate these days of joy
which we have been accomplishing in honor of the rising Lord
with an zealous affection,
so that we may grasp in deed
what we are traversing in remembrance.

The great Lewis & Short Dictionary discloses that exsequor means “to follow to the end, pursue, follow” and also “to perform, accomplish, fulfill.”  Affectus means “A state of body, and esp. of mind produced in one by some influence, a state or disposition of mind, affection, mood: Love, desire, fondness, good‑will, compassion, sympathy.” Sedulus, a, um, the adjective, means “busy, diligent, industrious, zealous, careful, unremitting, solicitous, assiduous, sedulous.”  Another possibility is that we have here an adverb: sedulo.  That would give us something like, “cause us zealously to celebrate with affection”.  From what I understand, it is now sometimes considered “okay” to split infinitives.  This must be in keeping with the shift in lexicographical theory in the last decades that now commands dictionaries to be descriptive rather than prescriptive.  At any rate, splitting an infinitive would be handy in a case like this: we are trying to get the impact of an adverb – “cause us to zealously celebrate with affection.”  That split infinitive thing makes me shiver a bit, but I digress ….  Percurro means “to run through, hasten through; to pass through, traverse, run over, pass over or along.”  It has two possible perfect forms: the reduplicated form percucurri and percurri.  Thus, here we have either the indicative in the present or the perfect.  Given that we still have some time to go before Ascension, I am giving this a present meaning.  Teneo has connotations of “to grasp” both in the physical and intellectual senses.  Recordatio is “a recalling to mind”.  It is related to the verb recordor, “to think over, call to mind, remember.”  Literally, it connotes bringing something back to the heart (cor). 

ICEL:
Ever-living God,
help us to celebrate our joy
in the resurrection of the Lord
and to express in our lives
the love we celebrate.

In the ICEL version just what we are “celebrating”  (which we do a lot – here we have that same word twice), is not entirely clear.  We are celebrating the “our joy” and then later “our love.”  The Latin says we are celebrating “days of joy in honor of the rising Lord.”  In Latin we celebrate with sedulus affectus (or at least affectus sedulo (adv.)).   Also, the aspect of “remembering” has been expunged.  While there is none of the poetry of the original in this rendition, it does however get at the dimension of expressing concretely what we are celebrating.  This is important.  Doing something because of what Christ did is clearly important in both versions of the prayer.  I regret that ICEL forgot the memory aspect: it is important in understanding what the prayer really says. 

The concept of memory could stand a bit of examination.  Allow me to get a bit theological.  Last week our collect explored the logical sequence of redemption and its resulting freedom culminating in our adoption as God’s own children and thus being admitted to an eternal inheritance (redemptio – libertas – adoptio – hereditas).  In this week’s collect, we seem to have a response on our part, as children, to the great God who freely did all that for us.  In a way, we might say we have a kind of narrative going on from week to week in the collects, each week’s Mass announcing certain aspects of what is central to this liturgical season.  In our collect we now call all these things, these gifts from God, to mind (heart – cor).  These gifts are so important that they must also summon forth from us a concrete response in the here and now.  I call to mind the lines of T.S. Eliot in “Little Gidding” from the Four Quartets:

                                                This is the use of memory:
For liberation – not less of love but expanding
Of love beyond desire, and so liberation
From the future as well as the past.

St. Augustine explores memory (memoria) in different ways.  He makes a connection between memoria and recordatio in a letter to his childhood friend and fellow convert Nebridius (ep. 7).   In classical literature Cicero identified memory as something that set us apart from beasts (Tusc. disp.).  For Augustine, memory was a place of encounter between the self and God in what he calls beata vita, the “blessed life” (which can refer to the happiness that comes from unity with God in this world and in the next).  When looking for ways to explain and explore the Trinity and see its reflection mirrored in man himself, Augustine hypostasizes memory, intellect and will, making memory to correspond to God the Father.  For the great Doctor, memory was also the locus of the self as well as the faculty that connects the here and now with the past and future.  In this sense memory is a sort of “vanishing point”, constantly slipping away into the past.  But it also where the self and God and are found together.  In way, God is the only one who keeps us from vanishing into something even less than a memory.

When we are at Mass, we as a Church do at the command of Christ what Christ commanded us to do: do this in memory (commemoratio) of me.  Through Christ, who is Alpha and Omega, living and glorious yesterday, today and tomorrow (as the priest declares when preparing the Paschal candle at the Vigil and which burns in the sanctuary when this prayer is being sung), the Passion and Resurrection of the Lord are really and truly present sacramentally in the here and now even though they took place at a specific point in time many centuries ago.  At Mass the Lord is not only risen, but He is also (sacramentally) rising: we receive the Dominus resurgens.  Because Christ is the principle actor in the liturgical action, our liturgical commemoration is more than a simple “remembrance of things past.”  The rising of the Lord (which some say is symbolized by the reuniting of the Body and Blood when the priest drops the small particle broken from the Host back into the chalice) means that we also, while we journey toward Him in this earthly life, are rising in Him.  We are living in a state of “already but not yet.”  We are risen, rising, and about to rise all at the same time.  When we celebrate the Easter cycle of days commemorating these mysteries, in gratitude we seek to bring by the power of this Christ-informed faculty of “calling to mind” a new dimension to all that we do and say here and now.  Our good works, performed by the baptized in charity and willed, conscience unity with Christ, are simultaneously our acts and His acts.  Christian “commemoration” is enfleshed in many ways.  So, placing ourselves at Christ’s service in the service of others (hopefully doing the same but most often not), we find a kind of freedom from past, present, and even the future that is not otherwise humanly attainable.

Thus, we celebrate the mysteries of Easter sedulo affectu…with zealous, industrious affection… with busy love.

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.

I attended today the funeral of H.E. Mons. Raffaello Funghini (R.I.P!), who had been the Dean of the Rota here in Roma, and with whom I lived.   He worked in the ambient of the Church’s juridical arm for nearly 50 years. 

His funeral was just plain normal. 

It was held in the beautiful Basilica of San Lorenzo in Damaso, which is attached to the Palace of the Cancelleria Apostolica, which houses the Church’s highest tribunal, the Sacra Penitenzieria, the Church’s Supreme Court or Segnatura, and the Church’s highest marriage tribunal, the Rota (so called from the round table they would sit at).  The celebrant for the funeral was H.E. Agostino Card. Vallini.  H.E. Francis Card. Stafford was present in choir dress. Many bishops concelebrated and around 60 priests.  Latin was used for the Mass, with the excception of the readings and the commendation at the end.  The music was in Latin, Gregorian chant, using the normal chants for a Requiem.  Some of the psalm verses after the antiphons were sung in a very good falso bordone. Holy Water and incense were used at the end. 

Sounds normal, right?  Well… it was.  Setting aside the splendid surroundings and lofty figures involved, the book was followed, the Church’s own language was used, people sang chant, which has pride of place in the Church’s liturgy. 

It occurred to me during the Mass that any of the kids who go to the St. Agnes Schools would have been perfectly comfortable with the ceremonies and the music and the language.  They would have been able to participate easily, even though they were from another country.

THAT is a truly normal Mass!

Communication of the Holy See Press Office

In reference to the news in circulation about the person of the Founder of the Legionaries of Christ, Rev. Fr. Marciel Maciel Degollado, the Holy See Press Office communicates the following:

From 1998 onward, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith received accusations, some of which are already public, against the Rev. Marciel Maciel Degollado, founder of the Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ, for delicts reserved to the exclusive competence of the Dicastery.  In 2002, Rev. Maciel published a declaration to deny the accusations and to express his displeasure for the offense offered him from some former Legionaries of Christ.  In 2005, for reasons of advanced age, the Rev. Maciel retired from the office of Superior General of the Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ.

All these elements were the object of mature examination on the part of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and, according to the norm of the Motu Proprio "Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela" promulgated on 30 April 2001 by Servant of God John Paul II, the one-time Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, His Eminence Joseph Card. Ratzinger, authorized an investigation into the accusations.  In the meantime, there occurred the death of Pope John Paul II and the election of Cardinal Ratzinger as the new Pontiff.

After having submitted the results of the investigation to close study, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, under the direction of the new Prefect, His Eminence William Card. Levada, has decided, taking into consideration the advanced age of the Rev. Maciel as well as his delicate health – to renounce a canonical process and to invite Father to live a life reserved to prayer and penance, renouncing any kind of public ministry.  The Holy Father approved these decisions.

Independent of the person of the Founder, the well-deserved apostolate of the Legionaries of Christ and of the Association Regnum Christi is recognized with gratitude.

I found an interesting site.  Someone took the time to examine carefully the draft translation of the GIRM way back when.  Perpend:

Observations on the English Language Study Translation of the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani July 2000 [hereinafter IGMR2000] by the Secretariat for the Liturgy of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops [hereinafter SL]

The following observations do not address issues of style (e.g., inconsistency in capitalization) or nuance of translation. They simply point to omissions and (in the opinion of this writer) over-translations in the SL text. They are based on a comparison of the Latin text of the IGMR2000 as found at the BCL website and the English study text published by the SL. For convenience article numbers from IGMR2000 will be given with comparison to page and line numbers from the SL text.

COLLECT:
Tribue, nobis, quaesumus, Domine,
mysteriis paschalibus convenienter aptari,
ut quae laetanter exsequimur
perpetua virtute nos tueantur et salvent.

In the Veronese Sacramentary a precedent of this prayer is found in the month of September, which you veteran readers of WDTPRS know was a fast time in the early Church.  And, as you might guess, the new version of the prayer eliminates the penance language.  Here is the old version: Tribue, quaesumus, domine, fidelibus tuis, ut ieiuniis pascalibus convenienter aptentur, et suscepta sollemniter castigation corporalis ad fructum cunctis transeat animarum.  See the differences and similarities?  In the ancient Gelasian, however, the prayer was a little different: Da, quaesumus, domine, fidelibus tuis ieiuniis paschalibus convenienter aptari, ut suscepta sollempniter castigation corporalis cunctis ad fructum proficiat animarum.  Yes, that was “sollempniter”.  I suppose you are just aching to know what the Sacramentarium Bergomense has… maybe another time.

The trickiest part of this is to make the right choice for exsequor.  According to the great Lewis & Short Dictionary this means “to follow to the end, to pursue, follow” but also “to follow up, prosecute, carry out; to perform, execute, accomplish, fulfill”.   If we turn to Blaise/Dumas we read that exsequor means those things, to be sure, but also “accomplir, célébrer (les mystères)”.  In fact, exequor, which gives us English “execute”, also applies to concepts like ministry and carrying our the commandments.  What to do?  We run into a bit of the same problem with virtus.  Is this virtus in the sense of “virtue” or in the sense of “force, might”.  Again, Blaise/Dumas is helpful in showing that virtus in the plural can refer to manifestations of God’s might, even the working of miracles (operatio virtutum).  I think it is fair to stick to that dimension of its meaning in our

VERY LITERAL VERSION:
Bestow it upon us, we beg You, O Lord,
suitably to be made disposed for the paschal mysteries,
so that those things which we are joyfully fulfilling,
may protect and save us with an unending manifestation of divine might.

There are two layers of this prayer which, to my mind, are both in play at the same time.  First, what we are doing right now, in this moment in the church while we are hearing this prayer sung.  Second, what we are doing outside of the church in our daily lives.

In the first case, we want to be properly disposed to receive (convenienter aptari) joyfully (laetanter) the graces offered us (mysteriis) during the sacred action (exsequimur) of the Mass.  In the second case, we are praying to be made fitting and proper (convenienter aptari) for the resurrection of the flesh and the happiness of heaven after a good judgment (mysteriis paschalibus) and that in the meantime we can carry out (exequimur) with joy (laetanter) our vocations on earth, perform works of mercy, etc.

Holy Mass is a great source of strength for everything else which we do in the course of our (hopefully) busy lives.   Being properly disposed at Holy Mass is the key.  There is physical disposition (observing the Eucharistic fast, being suitably dressed, etc.) and spiritual disposition (being in the state of grace, paying attention, etc.).   The impact of Holy Mass resounds through the rest of our week, or day in the case of you daily Mass participants.

I don’t think I posted this one earlier.  Enjoy!   I think I might have the best place in Rome to watch the fireworks when they are near San Pietro.  As a matter of fact, folks have come to sit in my bathroom for the view!




If you were watching the Z-Cam tonight, you would have seen fireworks behind the dome of Sant’Agnese!

You’ve seen them before… shots of Roman evenings and sunsets. I guess I just can’t help myself.

You can see the swallows swooping around as they love to do in the mornings and evenings.

COLLECT:
Deus, cuius gratia iusti ex impiis
et beati efficiamur ex miseris,
adesto operibus tuis, adesto muneribus,
ut quibus inest fidei iustificatio
non desit perseverantiae fortitudo.

This prayer was not in pre-Conciliar editions of the Missale Romanum.  It had a precedent in the Sacramentarium Bergomense.  There are elegant parallels here as well as snappy rhythmic phrases.  This is a delight to pronounce.

SUPER LITERAL VERSION:
O God, by whose grace we are made
just people out of impious and happy people out of wretches,
be present with Your works, be present with gifts,
so that the fortitude of perseverance will not be lacking
to those in whom there is the justification of faith.

SMOOTHER VERSION:
O God, by whose grace we are made
into just people after having been impious and blessedly happy after being miserable,
be present to us now with your works, be present with Your gifts,
so that the strength of perseverance will not be lacking
to those in whom there is the justification of faith.

God, who created the universe and everything in it out of nothing, makes justified people out of the wicked and the sinner.  He makes those who are wretched and miserable into joyous children of God.  

One of the things that popped into my mind as I translated this prayer today was the verse of the awful Amazing Grace.   "Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound) / That saved a wretch like me!"  The idea is that we are wretches before and remain always wretches, "wretch" being a description of our totally corrupt nature which remains corrupt even after baptism.

Catchy tune, of course, but that is not Catholic teaching.

Let’s have some catechism.

In the Fall of our First Parents the whole human race contracted original sin and our human nature was wounded.  On our own we are incapable of repairing the damage, for it is simply disproportionate to man’s powers to do so.  The one who is both man and God, however, was proportioned to this work and He repaired the breech.  When we are incorporated into His Person, we benefit from the merits of the Sacrifice He made on our behalf.  The way we are integrated into Him is, fundamentally, the sacrament of baptism.

In the sacrament of baptism we are at once both justified and sanctified.  We are justified in the sense that the debt we owed on account of our sins (including Original Sin).  God cleanses us of the guilt of those sins and we are just in His sight.  At the same time, we are also made holy by the indwelling of the Trinity.   We are cleansed and made pleasing at the same time.  Classical protestant teaching says that baptism justifies but we still remain filthy in our nature.  We are justified but not sanctified.  We remain interiorly corrupt
 no matter what we do, but Christ interposes Himself between us and the Father so that we appear to be clean even though we are not.  This is not Catholic teaching, of course.   For Catholics sanctification and justification are two sides of the same coin.   

Spinning this out a little more, as an example I recall from Lutheran doctrine that a justified person remains forever a sinner because of concupiscence, which is not removed by baptism.  Concupiscence describes the disordered desires and difficulty we have in controling our appetites we have because of the wounds to our will and intellect.  The baptized person is described by Lutherans as simul justus et peccator ... righteous and sinner at the same time.

On the other hand Catholics know that concupiscence is not in itself a sin.  Justification in baptism removes sin but not concupiscence.  Lutherans think concupiscense itself is sin.  Thus, they separate justification and sanctification from each other.  For them, concupiscence itself makes people sinners.  Concupiscence makes us guilty before God and it is never removed from us.  This was and is contrary to Catholic teaching.  The Council of Trent correctly taught that justification makes us righteous.  It condemned with an anathema the error that justification is only an "imputation" of Christ’s righteousness (which is at the heart of the Lutheran description of man as a heap of dung covered over with white snow).  Trent also condemned with an anathema the claim that concupiscence itself is sin.

We have been given great gifts by God, including sanctification.  Christ’s merits become our merits.   What we need to do is persevere in sanctity to the end of our lives.  It is difficult, this life of grace and sanctity, but it is possible.  This is part of what the late Pope was trying to show the world through the great emphasis he placed on beatifications and canonizations.  

I hear the movie is risible.

This from the NY Daily News.

Some quotes:

Most offered only lukewarm praise or shrugs of indifference.

Others laughed or jeered at parts of the nearly 2-1/2-hour thriller and dumped on star Tom Hanks’ performance as well as what they called a potboiler script.  ... "Nothing really works. It’s not suspenseful. It’s not romantic. It’s certainly not fun," according to Stephen Schaefer of the Boston Herald. ... The Cannes audience of critics – arguably the toughest in the world – clearly grew restless as the movie dragged on to a long sequence of anticlimactic revelations. ..."I kept thinking of the Energizer Bunny, because it kept going and going and going, and not in a good way," said James Rocchi, a film critic for CBS 5 television in San Francisco. ...One especially melodramatic line uttered by Hanks drew prolonged laughter and some catcalls, and the audience continued to titter for much of the film’s remainder.

I am going to rush out and see this one! 

COLLECT:
Deus, innocentiae restitutor et amator,
dirige ad te tuorum corda famulorum,
ut, quos de incredulitatis tenebris liberasti,
numquam a tuae veritatis luce discedant.

In the Gelasian Sacramentary this appeared on Saturday of the Octave of Easter.  However, The Redactors changed infidelitatis to incredulitatis.  A little "p.c." touch there, perhaps, and I don’t mean "post communionem".

LITERAL VERSION:
O God, restorer and lover of innocence,
direct the hearts of your servants toward You,
that, those whom you freed from the shadows of religious disbelief
may never deviate from the light of Your truth.

Obviously, incredulitas or "religious disbelief" as the superb Lewis & Short Dictionary reveals, could apply to just about any religion, and even more obviously in the context of this Collect the religion in question is Christianity.  Given the antiquity of this prayer, the original word infidelitas was a shot at the Jews and pagans still wandering in the shadows of errors.  

Let us not forget the document Dominus Iesus issued from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith over the signature of Cardinal Ratzinger in 2000.  Here is a nice part:

22.  With the coming of the Saviour Jesus Christ, God has willed that the Church founded by him be the instrument for the salvation of all humanity (cf. Acts 17:30-31). This truth of faith does not lessen the sincere respect which the Church has for the religions of the world, but at the same time, it rules out, in a radical way, that mentality of indifferentism “characterized by a religious relativism which leads to the belief that ‘one religion is as good as another’”. If it is true that the followers of other religions can receive divine grace, it is also certain that objectively speaking they are in a gravely deficient situation in comparison with those who, in the Church, have the fullness of the means of salvation.  However, “all the children of the Church should nevertheless remember that their exalted condition results, not from their own merits, but from the grace of Christ. If they fail to respond in thought, word, and deed to that grace, not only shall they not be saved, but they shall be more severely judged”. One understands then that, following the Lord’s command (cf. Mt 28:19-20) and as a requirement of her love for all people, the Church “proclaims and is in duty bound to proclaim without fail, Christ who is the way, the truth, and the life (Jn 14:6). In him, in whom God reconciled all things to himself (cf. 2 Cor 5:18-19), men find the fullness of their religious life”.

Canon 598 – § 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 Christian faithful 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.

Canon 1436 § 2 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, consequently, will receive an appropriate reference to canon 598 § 2, so that it will now read:

Canon 1436 – § 1. Whoever denies a truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or who calls into doubt, or who totally repudiates the Christian faith, and does not retract after having been legitimately warned, is to be punished as a heretic or an apostate with a major excommunication; a cleric moreover can be punished with other penalties, not excluding deposition.

§ 2. In addition to these cases, whoever obstinately rejects a teaching that the Roman Pontiff or the College of Bishops, exercising the authentic Magisterium, have set forth to be held definitively, or who affirms what they have condemned as erroneous, and does not retract after having been legitimately warned, is to be punished with an appropriate penalty.

I am thrilled to report that a friend of mine has provided us with a version of The Internet Prayer in Mandarin Chinese.  It took time and effort for him to put this together, so I would appreciate you’re saying a prayer for him. 

CHINESE (MANDARIN)   NB: This may not appear correctly if you do not have the proper fonts.
  LISTEN
浏览网际网络祈祷文 汉语（华语）

全能永生的天主，
是您照您的肖像创造了我们人类，
并赐给了我们您的独生子—耶稣基督，
帮助我们发掘生命中的真，善，美。
在教会圣师怡铎主教（Saint Isidore）的代祷下，求您护佑我们，
让我们在浏览网际网络时，
能够善用五官三思，只做讨您喜悦之事;
并让我们以恒久的爱心来关爱生活中遇到的每一个人。
以上所求，是靠我们的主基督。啊们。