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

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  Pentecost Sunday

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2006

Week after week I have presented facts and analysis regarding the Translation Wars.  You regular reader’s have learned about the campaign being waged by His Excellency Donald W. Trautman, chair of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) committee on liturgy, against the norms laid down in the document of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments (CDWDS) Liturgiam authenticam (LA) .  If you think “campaign” is an exaggeration, His Excellency has made public speeches far and wide to this effect and they are a matter of record.  Look them up and read them. 

There is a significant development.  The Catholic blogosphere’s master of snark “Diogenes” (on cwnews.com) along with the present writer and others divulged the text of a letter from His Eminence Francis Card. Arinze, Prefect of the CDWDS to His Excellency Most Reverend William Skylstad in his capacity as president of the USCCB.  The letter is a salvo, nay rather, a Normandy Invasion in the Wars.  Here’s the letter (emphasis mine):

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.

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.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

Where there are good and strong reasons for a change, as has been determined by this Dicastery in regard to the <supportLineBreakNewLine]—>

Soon after LA was issued there was a plenary meeting of the USCCB.  That is when the first skirmish took place between Bishop Trautman and others more interested in fidelity to the norms of the document.   The precise argument referred to by Card. Arinze in the letter above was used on the floor of that meeting: Golly, we have been using this translation for a long time now and the people are used to it.  The brilliant repost was fired by one of WDTPRS’s favorites His Eminence Francis Card. George, who said that argument was tantamount to a “Lefebvrism of the left”.   Savor the irony of painting the progressivists with the same brush they always use to tar the traditionalists.  Progressivists often claim that a thing shouldn’t be maintained just because it’s “old”.  Delicious.

Put news items like this on the internet and you get a spike in stats and a surge of comments.  One fellow opined on CWNews: “Maybe the fact that many people have become accustomed to texts that don’t correctly express the inner meaning of the Mass is part of a larger problem. What the ‘liturgists’ are saying is like a medical doctor saying to a patient, ‘Sir you are 97% blocked in four arteries because of your high fat diet. But since you’ve become accustomed to eating unhealthy food we don’t want to change it. Keep on eating the way you have been.’ What idiocy.”   

The American bishops will meet in plenary session in June.  They will vote on the draft translation.  They must approve the translation by a majority in order for it to be sent to Rome for approval.  Opponents of LA want to block sending the draft to Rome.  Their goal is simple: persuade half the bishops to vote against the draft.  Rain a torrent of emendations upon it.  Consider: delay or block the process for a few years and perhaps the CDWDS will relent or Pope Benedict will die and a more amenable Pope will be elected.  The revelation of Card. Arinze’s letter will impact every bishop going to the June meeting.  Here is the message of the Cardinal’s letter: Don’t even think of presenting for a floor vote texts or emendations that do not conform to LA.  Don’t waste our time anymore.  The delaying game is over.  You are holding up the rest of the English speaking world. 

In the meantime, His Excellency Bishop Trautman has already reacted to Card. Arinze’s letter saying, “I see this letter as a clarification and further restatement of criteria for translation previously authored by the Congregation in its document Liturgiam authenticam. This recent correspondence offers additional input for the deliberation of the Bishops.”  Additional input?  Interpretation: “Same ol’ same ol’ from Rome.  It’s just another bit to consider, one among many.”

SUPER OBLATA (2002MR):
Praesta, quaesumus, Domine,
ut, secundum promissionem Filii tui,
Spiritus Sanctus huius nobis sacrificii
copiosius revelet arcanum,
et omnem propitius reseret veritatem.

This week’s prayer, new in the post-Conciliar Missale Romanum, has roots in the 11^th century Sacramentarium Bergomense. 

We need a brief look at vocabulary.  In the Lewis & Short Dictionary we find that the adjective arcanus, a, um is something “closed, shut up.”  Thus, is it something that keeps a secret and means “hidden, concealed, secret, private”.  It can be used as a substantive: “secret”.  In English we have the cognate “arcane.” An arcanum can refer to a something sacred.  For example, in the Vulgate it describes God’s special sanctuary (Exodus 7:11) and His treasured place Jerusalem (Ezekiel 7:22).   In contrast to something arcane, mysteriously shut up and hidden, our prayer has the verb resero.   Be careful!   In your dictionary you will find resero, resevi which is a third conjugation verb meaning “to sow, plant” and also resero, resavi, resatum, a first group verb which is “to unlock, to open; disclose, reveal.”   Today we are dealing with resero, resavi, resatum.  During Holy Mass and the renewal of Christ’s Sacrifice God opens for us something that our sins long ago slammed shut and bolted closed: the gates of heaven.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord,
may the Spirit you promised
lead us into all truth
and reveal to us the full meaning of this sacrifice.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Attend, we beg You, O Lord,
that, according to the promise of Your Son,
the Holy Spirit will reveal to us more abundantly
the hidden sacred mystery of this sacrifice,
and will graciously unlock for us all truth.

This Latin prayer reminds me of Jesus’ promise (Filii promissio) to His disciples in John 16:1215:

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.  He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.  All that the Father has is mine.  For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 

The Sacrament of Confirmation, one of three sacraments of initiation, is rightly associated with Pentecost.  Just as the sacred mysteries of the Lord’s life from the Passion, Resurrection, Ascension and Decent of the Holy Ghost and all interrelated, so too are the sacraments of baptism, confirmation and Eucharist.  In ancient times when catechumens were brought into the Church, they were baptized, confirmed and given the Eucharist on the same night of Easter.  After Easter they were given further instruction concerning things kept secret from them as catechumens.  The policy of secrecy and the post-baptismal instruction of the newly initiated was called the disciplina arcani.  This was correctly thought to increase a catechumen’s interest, and longing for what was sacred.  As St. Augustine (+430) says, “The sacraments of the faithful are not divulged to (catechumens)…; that they may be more passionately desired by them, they are honorably concealed from their view” (Io. eu. tr. 96, 3).  This partly explains why the “orientation” of the altar and silent canon in the West as well as the iconostasis in the East were (and still are) so effective. 
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One thing kept secret from catechumens was the Symbolum, the Creed.  In the time of St. Augustine and St. Ambrose (+397) they were taught the Creed only two weeks before Easter.  They were tested on it by the bishop in the baptistery the week before Easter.  Here is Augustine in a sermon:

The creed is learned by listening; it is written, not on tablets nor on any material, but on the heart.  He who has called you to his Kingdom and glory will grant that, when you have been reborn by his grace and by the Holy Spirit, it will be written in your hearts, so that you may love what you believe and that, through love, faith may work in you and that you – no longer fearing punishment like slaves, but loving justice like the freeborn – may become pleasing to the Lord God, the giver of all good things (s. 212, 2 and cf. symb. cat. 1.1).

Learning tenets of the faith is not just a matter of memory, but also of the heart.  They must be part of who we are at the most intimate level, indeed, where the Holy Spirit makes us His temple.  Again Augustine: “Say it on your beds; ponder it in the streets, do not forget it during meals; and even when your body sleeps, keep watch over it in your heart” (s. 215, 1). 

This is all true regarding the Creed.  It is just as true for the sacred mysteries celebrated at Holy Mass.

A new English translation, faithful to the Latin originals according to the norms laid down by legitimate authority, will help to unlock the content of and thus love more deeply what Christ wants to give us through the Holy Church into which the Holy Spirit breathed life on Pentecost.  Pray for our bishops who very soon will make decisions that impact our faith for decades to come.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  Pentecost Sunday

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2005

I have been thinking a lot about the investiture Mass for His Holiness.  By now you have all seen the ancient form of the pallium that the Master of Pontifical Ceremonies Archbishop Piero Marini placed on Benedict XVI.  It was modeled on those depicted in ancient mosaics in Rome and one found in the tomb of the great St. Martin of Tours (+397).  This new old pallium had red crosses, was broader in width, and much longer.  Some years ago I put together a research piece on the pallium and got to know it pretty well.  The ancient pallium went to the ankles.  The pallium they put on Benedict XVI did not reach to his ankles.  Think about this: this new pallium had to have been prepared a long time before the death of John Paul II, sometime after Marini prepared the rites for the burial, Conclave and the first public Mass.  If the pallium used in the investiture Mass was supposed to go to the ankles (and that is the style) then it was obviously made for a Cardinal/future Pope shorter in height than Benedict XVI who, while he is a spiritual and intellectual giant, is not a very tall fellow.  After all, it is easier to shorten something than lengthen it.  On Benedict XVI the pallium lacked that element of its symbolic impact. On a taller man it would have looked stranger yet.  It is safe to guess that Archbishop Marini and the followers of his camp were behind this bit of “liturgical archeologizing” just as they were behind the introduction of innovations into the abovementioned rites.  I wonder which vertically challenged Cardinal they expected or hoped would be wearing that pallium one day?  On an unrelated note, during the TV coverage of the events in Rome in the past month did you notice how all the Cardinals towered over one of the huge front-runners, His Eminence Dionigi Card. Tettamanzi of Milan? 

In March I received a kind letter via snail mail from Fr. JT, SJ.  He wrote: “Thank you for your informative articles on the real meaning of prayers of the liturgy which the present translation has obscured.  I hope you will gather those into a book, leaving the details of the Latin meanings fully present, because this is the important basis for the illuminating comments.  Such a book (or books) would be a very useful permanent resource for laymen and clergy to enhance their understanding and appreciation of the theology and worship of the Church.  Since I know some religious seminarians are no longer required to learn Latin…, such a resource could motivate them – and their superiors – to appreciate a knowledge of Latin”.  Fr. JT then goes on to comment on a reference I made to Jesus’ use of “Abba” for God the Father being quite intimate, like a child’s use of “daddy”.  Fr. JT dismantled that point providing citations to articles in scholarly journals which I have subsequently looked up.  Guess what I found?  Our old friend Joachim Jeremias was a main figure in perpetrating this canard about Abba meaning “Daddy”.  The article Fr. JT cited pretty much took care of that theory.   Father then offered that “many” for pro multis in the Mass is a permissible translation and that some scholars have pointed out that it was a “Semitism”, etc.  Fr. JT even mentioned our old friend Fr. Max Zerwick, SJ whose work I cited in my four-part WDPTRS article on the consecration of the Precious Blood in the Roman Canon.  Thanks much, Fr. JT, but I am not convinced by the scholarship underpinning the mistranslation of pro multis.   I refer you back to the abovementioned four-parter, archived on the WDTPRS website.  Then Card. Ratzinger reacted well to those articles.  His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI has commented in his writings that the Latin texts of the liturgy must be respected as their own source. The work of liturgical translation is not equivalent to exegesis of Scripture.   More than any linguistic argument, that is the decisive argument and it is Benedict XVI’s.  

More about our Pope’s liturgical thought.  In his book Spirit of the Liturgy (Ignatius Press, 2000), Joseph Ratzinger wrote that he was trying consciously to contribute to the beginning of a new liturgical renewal, indeed a new liturgical “movement”, in the same way the first Liturgical Movement was stimulated by the homonymous book by the German theologian Romano Guardini who had such a big impact on His Holiness when he was young.  Surely our Holy Father will be looking carefully at how Mass is celebrated and what liturgical language ought to express.  In this light, perhaps we might look again at a paragraph of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments’ document Liturgiam authenticam which laid down the norms for liturgical translations: 

7. For these reasons, it now seems necessary to set forth anew, and in light of the maturing of experience, the principles of translation to be followed in future translations – whether they be entirely new undertakings or emendations of texts already in use – and to specify more clearly certain norms that have already been published, taking into account a number of questions and circumstances that have arisen in our own day. In order to take full advantage of the experience gained since the Council, it seems useful to express these norms from time to time in terms of tendencies that have been evident in past translations, but which are to be avoided in future ones. In fact, it seems necessary to consider anew the true notion of liturgical translation in order that the translations of the Sacred Liturgy into the vernacular languages may stand secure as the authentic voice of the Church of God. This Instruction therefore envisions and seeks to prepare for a new era of liturgical renewal, which is consonant with the qualities and the traditions of the particular Churches, but which safeguards also the faith and the unity of the whole Church of God.  (Emphases added)

 

LA is intended “to prepare for a new era of liturgical renewal”.  This is so much in keeping with what Benedict XVI thinks that I cannot help but think that he had a hand in its drafting.  I think we can dare to hope that he will not let the ball drop, nor will he allow pesky delaying tactics on the part of those who want to continue the sub-optimal status quo. 

COLLECT - LATIN TEXT (2002MR):

Deus, qui sacramento festivitatis hodiernae
universam Ecclesiam tuam
in omni gente et natione sanctificas,
in totam mundi latitudinem Spiritus Sancti dona defunde,
et, quod inter ipsa evangelicae praedicationis exordia
operata est divina dignatio,
nunc quoque per credentium corda perfunde.

Our Collect, rooted in the Gelasian Sacramentary, was not in editions of the Roman Missal before the Council.  Note that defunde and perfunde are linked by form and derivation.  This is useful for our work.  Now… it possible that we can find in the Latin something more than that which was provided to us by…

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):

God our Father,
let the Spirit you sent on your Church
to begin the teaching of the gospel
continue to work in the world
through the hearts of all who believe.

Lo these many years we have seen how sacramentum translates the Greek mysterion and sacramentum and Latin mysterium are interchangeable in many contexts.  Operata est could be from either the deponent verb operor or from the active opero.  Defundo means “to pour down, pour out” while perfundo means something more complex.  Perfundo means “to pour over, to wet, moisten, bedew, besprinkle” as well as “to steep, to dye” and also “to imbue, inspire.”  We have here imagery of gifts of grace as moisture, dew, flowing water, calling to mind our baptism in the name of the Triune God.   Think of the Collect response following antiphons in honor of the Holy Spirit: Sancti Spiritus, Domine, corda nostra mundet infusio (from infundo): et sui roris intima aspersione foecundet…”Let the infusion of the Holy Spirit cleanse our hearts, O Lord: and make fruitful our innermost selves by the sprinkling of His dew.”  Our Latin Dictionary of those distinguished Messers Lewis & Short tells us that dignatio is “a deeming worthy, respect, esteem; dignity, honor, reputation.”  Albert Blaise says in Le Vocabulaire Latin des principaux thèmes liturgiques (redone by Antoine Dumas, OSB) for dignatio, “condescendance (de Dieu)”.  However, Souter’s A Glossary of Later Latin to 600 A.D. (a complement to Lewis & Short) says that dignatio is “favour, grace of God”.   Here is grist for the mills of your mind as you think about the possibilities of this layered word.

Exordium is really interesting.  It means, a “beginning, the warp of a web,” and also it is a technical term for the introduction or preface of a spoken or written rhetorical piece or speech.  Let us look more closely at exordium.  This word brings up the image of selvage, that part at the edge of a piece of woven cloth intertwined in such a way that the rest of the weave will not fall apart.  It also brings to the prayer the technical language of oratory.  When the Holy Spirit was poured down on the Apostles they poured out of the upper room and began to preach, to make public speeches to people from every nation.  The Holy Spirit, in the rhetorical preaching of the Apostles, suddenly began on that first Pentecost to weave tightly together a selvage which would provide the stable edge of the rest of the fabric of the Church through the centuries down to our own day.   Pentecost was anti-Babel, the counter to man’s division from God manifested in division amongst men.  Since the reweaving of Pentecost, there may be tatters and rips in the Church’s fabric, schisms, but the warp and weft has held and cannot be undone though hell tears with all its deceiving might.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O God, who by the mystery of today’s feast
does sanctify Thy universal Church
in every people and nation,
pour down the gifts of the Holy Spirit upon the whole breadth of the earth,
and, because divine favor was at work
amongst the very beginnings of the preaching of the Gospel,
make them now to flow also through the hearts of believers.

Unity and continuity are keys to this Collect.  The Holy Spirit wove the early Church together through the preaching of the Apostles and their successors.  In the Church the Holy Spirit extends to our own time the preaching of the Apostles.  The Church’s unity has continuity, both diachronic as well as transnational.

The presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church guarantees our unity and continuity across every border and century.  The Holy Spirit gives the Church her life’s principle, pouring spiritual life into the Body of Christ.  The Spirit imbues and infuses, virtually tints and dyes the fabric of the Church as He flows through it.  Our hearts, which in our Collect we pray to be imbued by the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, are in a certain way microcosms of the Church.  The phrase cor ad cor loquitur, the motto on the coat-of-arms of Venerable John Henry Card. Newman, pertains to us in the Church: by the working of the Holy Spirit the Church’s heart speaks to our hearts, and vice versa, for in the Holy Spirit the faithful are of one heart.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  Pentecost – Station: St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2003

There was a real development for the whole issue of translations of liturgical texts last week.  On 24 May 2003 His Eminence Darío Card. Castrillon-Hoyos, Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy and President of the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” celebrated Mass using the 1962 Missale Romanum at the main altar of the Major Patriarchal “Liberian” Basilica in Rome, otherwise known as St. Mary Major.   Why is this important for translations?  Because it serves as a step toward reconnecting the way Mass is celebrated back into the Roman tradition.  I have long argued that we need wide-spread celebrations of Mass also using the 1962MR so that we can have in the Barque of Peter, to use nautical terminology, both an anchor and a rudder.  Anchors keep us from drifting into dangerous places we don’t want to be.  Rudders, by their attachment to where we have been, permit us to steer towards where we wish to go.  It is only through a thorough grasp of the Roman tradition of celebration that we can make progress toward an authentic liturgical practice in this Third Millennium of the Christian experience.  We must be connected to the past in order to pick a future.  Furthermore, if we have a solid grasp of the Latin Rite and the Roman tradition, everyone will benefit, non-Latin Catholics and non-Catholics alike, for it will also have an ecumenical impact: if Orthodox Christians see that we cannot respect our own Tradition and traditions – so important to them – how will they imagine that Catholics will respect their tradition should we take concrete steps toward unity?  Thus, I was quite pleased to hear that, in his homily, the abovementioned Cardinal celebrant said, “The old Roman rite preserves its right of citizenship in the Church and cannot be considered extinguished.”  I am guessing that the next logical step in the sequence of this campaign will be to have a Pontifical Mass in the Vatican Basilica of St. Peter, perhaps coram Pontifice.  I doubt that the Supreme Pontiff himself would offer it, but he might “preside” while another, perhaps Card. Castrillon-Hoyos, celebrates.  Surely the Master of the Pontifical Ceremonies, His Excellency Piero Marino would have a whole series of fits should any such outlandish thing be proposed.  I would pay money to be present when he opened the letter or received the phone call.

As far as the occasion of the aforementioned Mass itself was concerned, my spies tell me that it was a great event, though not without flaws.  For example, a priest friend wrote via e-mail: “It was obvious that it hadn’t been done in thirty years! Overall, the music was decent and the excellent MC (from Le Barroux) kept everyone basically in order. The homily quoted Vatican II twenty or so times just to make a point… whether to traditionalists or liberals I’m not sure. Five cardinals sat in choir and the church was packed. The real test will be the contents of the new disciplinary document this fall.”   Well, practice makes perfect.  As we say often in these WDTPRS offerings repetita iuvant.  And I agree, the forthcoming CDW document will indeed be the test not only of the journalists reporting on the putative content of that document but also of the resolve of both the more conservative side of the curial mandarins who must craft it and then get it through the necessary channels and also the more liberal side within the curia and without, whom we must assume are ready to fight with tooth and claw.

Today’s prayer, for the Mass in the day of Pentecost, not the Vigil, has no antecedent in pre-Conciliar editions of the Missale Romanum.  There seems again to be present an influence of the Veronese Sacrametary.

POST COMMUNIONEM

LATIN (2002 Missale Romanum – Ad Missam in die):
Deus, qui Eccelsiae tuae caelestia dona largiris,
custodi gratiam quam dedisti,
ut Spiritus Sancti vigeat semper munus infusum,
et ad aeternae redemptionis augmentum
spiritalis esca proficiat.

 The Lewis & Short Dictionary helps us with the verb vigeo which means, “to be lively or vigorous; to thrive, flourish, bloom; to be in honor, esteem, repute, etc.”  Largior is a verb deponent meaning, “to give bountifully, to lavish, bestow, dispense, distribute, impart”.   We have in English “largess”.   A donum is a “a gift, present” and can mean “present brought to a deity, a votive offering, sacrifice”.  A munus is fundamentally “a service, office, post, employment, function, duty (syn.: officium, ministerium, honos) but by extension means, “a present, gift”.   When put together as dona muneraque we have in classical contexts the overtone of “bribery”.  In our prayer today, while I do not want to rule out that munus can also be read as “office” or “duty” (give it a try), I believe that the author of the prayer simply wanted to say “gift” twice and thus used two different words, dona and munus for the sake of variety.

 Esca signifies basically “food, both of men and beasts”.   However, in a Christian, indeed liturgical, context, it carries with it layers and layers of connotations.  To be thorough, we could also explore the synonym cibus (“food”) go into the way Christ in John 6 describes Himself, His flesh and blood, as “real” food and drink, but space limits us.  Sticking with the more exact phrase in our prayer can yield something inexhaustible to chew on, however.  The phrase esca spiritalis is found in 1 Cor 10:1-3: “I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same supernatural food (escam spiritalem) and all drank the same supernatural drink (potum spiritalem).  For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ.”   Paul is pointing to the fact that the manna the People of God received in the wilderness was special food, and the water which sprang from the rock Moses struck with his staff near to the Promised Land, both a foreshadowing of would Christians receive in the “real” spiritual food of the Eucharist who is Christ.  In Romans 14 Paul talks of regular esca as a contrast to the spiritual ideal real Christians long for: “The kingdom of God is not food and drink (esca et potus) but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit; he who thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.”  The phrase “kingdom of God” or “kingdom of heaven” in Pauline works and in the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark Luke) usually contains also the overtone of the very Person of Christ, as when the Lord during His earthly life told parables such as “The kingdom of God is like…” (e.g., Mark 4) and when He, chastising, instructed the people: “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then is the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matthew 12:28).   When you hear that phrase “kingdom of God” or “of heaven” at Mass or in your own reading, try rereading it as “Jesus said, “I myself am like…”, etc., and see what you glean from it.  So, in our “spiritual food” there is a dimension of the “already but not yet” of our earthly Christian existence.  In the Eucharist we have truly with us the Real Presence.  In our reception of Holy Communion we anticipate the fullness of that Presence, which we will only have in the life to come, indeed at the end of the world.

 Sometimes we think we know what words mean.  As I considered how to render that ad aeternae redemptionis augmentum I decided to check out the massy L&S, since I was catching a hint of something interesting in the choice of the word.  (Aside for you critics of anything “new” like the “new Mass”: Clearly it was no slouch who wrote this prayer for the 1970MR, for it is obvious that he did his homework, checked his sources, and chose these words with great care.)  The substantive augmentum means, as you might guess, “an increase, growth, augmentation”.  It also means, in the language of religion “a kind of sacrificial cake”.   Augmentum is from augeo which means “to increase, to nourish”.  It is related to our friend vigeo, by the way.  By extension it also indicates, “to magnify, to exalt, to extol, embellish, to praise” and therefore (this is fun) “to honor, reverence, worship by offerings.” Think of the concept of Mary “magnifying” the Lord.  Different word, same concept.   So, augmentum would by a thing that “augments” in the sense of worship.  Still, lest we push our prayer a little too far, augmentum, or “increase”, is found in different contexts in Scripture, such as in Eph 4:15-16: “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth (augmentum corporis) and upbuilds itself in love” (cf. also Col 2:19). 

 LITERAL TRANSLATION:

O God, who generously bestow heavenly gifts upon your Church,
protect the grace which you have given,
so that the gift of the Holy Spirit having been poured out may always flourish,
and that the spiritual food may be advantageous unto
an increase of eternal redemption.

 That last phrase seems a little strange, an “increase in redemption”.  How does that work?  We are either redeemed or we aren’t, right?  Can we be more and more redeemed?  I suppose that we can consider this not merely in relation to ourselves as individuals (and we must do that at the time of Holy Communion) but also as a collective people or race: we want salvation to be extended to more and more people.  We want more and more redemption in the sense that more come to be saved through the single and wholly sufficient redeeming Sacrifice of Christ.   There comes to my mind the image of water being poured out on something and, spreading at the base, extends and expands to moisten an increasingly broad area.   By our baptism in water and the Spirit, we are cleansed and made Holy, the living temples of the indwelling Trinity, members of the Church which herself is informed and enlivened by the same Spirit, poured out at Pentecost.   We members of this mysterious communion cannot be complacent in the enjoyment of the Spirit.  We have the duty, which is simultaneously a gift (munus), to bring this membership to others, to build up the Body, the Church, in everyway.   Thus, we “expand” or “magnify” the Lord while on earth, which is in itself an act of praise.   When we come into contact with something that is wet, such as the seat of a wet chair, don’t we get wet also?  By our words and deeds, which ought to reflect the indwelling of the One to whom we are conformed in the Church, we should be “moistening” other people around us.

 What a marvelous overtone of meaning there is in that augmentum, the little “worship cake” of our Mass and of our Christian lives.  Sometimes as I consider many things happening in the Church today, and I see how may people are hard at work making God smaller and smaller for themselves and others.  The only thing I want, at least I hope and strive to want, is to “decrease” myself, not His work and gifts to the Church, and by doing so be “increased” in Him.  As St. John the Baptist said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).   

 Here’s a thought for the next time you visit the Blessed Sacrament exposed: look upon Him in that little augmentum “worship cake” as a magnifying glass for your soul.  Is He the one increasing you?  Are you properly disposed to be increased by Him in your next Communion?

 In our Holy Communion, burning within us while this prayer is being is being sung or recited, we have both the sign of the ultimate goal of the eternal “increase” and also the means to attain it.

 ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):

Father,
may the food we receive in the eucharist
help our eternal redemption.
Keep within us the vigor of your Spirit
and protect the gifts you have given to your Church.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  Pentecost

ORIGINALLY PRINTED  IN  The Wanderer in 2002

In light of the fact that there is now a third typical edition of the Latin Missale Romanum (2002MR) awaiting translation (not to mention the translation debacle with the 1975MR and the deficient 1970MR) we should review a paragraph of the Congregation for Divine Worship’s gift in form of a document entitled Liturgiam authenticam hereby new norms for translations went into effect in April 2001.  WDTPRS has neglected our old friend of late and we must amend that:

7. For these reasons, it now seems necessary to set forth anew, and in light of the maturing of experience, the principles of translation to be followed in future translations – whether they be entirely new undertakings or emendations of texts already in use – and to specify more clearly certain norms that have already been published, taking into account a number of questions and circumstances that have arisen in our own day. In order to take full advantage of the experience gained since the Council, it seems useful to express these norms from time to time in terms of tendencies that have been evident in past translations, but which are to be avoided in future ones. In fact, it seems necessary to consider anew the true notion of liturgical translation in order that the translations of the Sacred Liturgy into the vernacular languages may stand secure as the authentic voice of the Church of God. This Instruction therefore envisions and seeks to prepare for a new era of liturgical renewal, which is consonant with the qualities and the traditions of the particular Churches, but which safeguards also the faith and the unity of the whole Church of God.  (Emphases added)

As Catholics Christians, disciples of the Way, the Truth and the Life, and by baptism living temples of the Spirit of Truth, we want and need and deserve good translations of liturgical texts. This is all the more important if we are going to be denied the regular use of Latin in the liturgy, when we could have in hand any translation we preferred.  Without good translations, how are we to be formed and shaped?  How then can we fulfill our vocations in the world and in turn shape and form society around us, from our family homes to the public square?  Pray to the Advocate and Comforter that those who are in charge of finding translators will quickly move to give this critically important mandate to those who will with humble obedience do just what the Church has been asking for decades.

Now for this week’s prayer, which seems to be a new composition for the 1970MR with reference to the XI c. Sacramentarium Bergomense.

SUPER OBLATA ad Missam in die:

LATIN (2002 Missale Romanum):

Praesta, quaesumus, Domine,
ut, secundum promissionem Filii tui,
Spiritus Sanctus huius nobis sacrificii
copiosius revelet arcanum,
et omnem propitius reseret veritatem.
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Though WDTPRS has mentioned this many times before, it bears repeating.  You can guess from the onset that something is wrong when the translation is shorter than the Latin text.  So, what do you make if this?

ICEL:
Lord,
may the Spirit you promised
lead us into all truth
and reveal to us the full meaning of this sacrifice.

I am guessing that you are as curious as I to know what the prayer really says.  We need to look at some vocabulary using the mighty Lewis & Short Dictionary.   But first, an aside…

In March of 2002, when the third edition of the Latin Missal came out, the CDW issued a punishing rebuke of the translation that ICEL and the bishops had offered back in 1998 for the second Latin edition of the Missal issued in 1975 (read this on the internet – http://adoremus.org/CDW-ICELtrans.html).  In that letter of rejection many observations were made by the CDW about what was wrong with the translation. Among those comments was a mention of the word praesta, which comes from the verb praesto, meaning “to be at hand, to attend or wait upon, to serve, aid.” It is a way of begging God to be present, attentive and helpful.

The rich language of supplication found in the Latin texts is radically reduced in the translation [which ICEL submitted]. Words and expressions such as quaesumus, exoramus, imploramus, praesta . . . ut, dona, concede, etc., have been collapsed more or less into the terms "ask" and "grant," transferred almost always to the last line of the prayer, resulting in a corpus of prayers that is relatively monotonous and impoverished with respect to the Latin. In addition, these factors render the imperative verbs in the body of the orations somewhat abrupt and presumptuous in tone, so that the oration seems to be a command rather than a prayer addressed to God. Again, there is more than style at stake here.

It is refreshing to read from a source as authoritative as the CDW that what WDTPRS has been saying all along is indeed on the right track.  Leave words out and you change the theology, not just style.  We need to know what the prayers really say!

In L&S we find that the adjective arcanus, a, um is something “closed, shut up.”  Thus is it also, something that keeps a secret.  It means “hidden, concealed, secret, private” and it can be used as a substantive: “secret”.  By extension it is applied to a “sacred mystery” and in the Vulgate is signifies God’s special sanctuary, as in Exodus 7, 11 and even God’s treasured place Jerusalem in Ezekiel 7, 22.   In English we have the cognate “arcane.” In contrast to something mysteriously shut up and hidden, we have the verb resero.  Be careful.   In Latin we have both resero, resevi a third conjugation verb meaning “to sow, plant” and also resero, resavi, resatum a first group verb which is “to unlock, to open; disclose, reveal.” We know here that this is resero, resavi, resatum because the form of the verb in the prayer, reseret, is a contemporary or present subjunctive just like revelet in the line before (yes, yes, it could be a future indicative too, but we have a smoking gun in praesta…ut which wants a subjunctive).   The same form of the other resero would be reserat.  Sero the verb means “to fasten with a bolt, to bar.”  In the Mass, the renewal of Christ’s Sacrifice, we have opened for us something that our sins had slammed shut and bolted closed: the gates of heaven.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Attend, we beg you, O Lord,
so that, according to the promise of your Son,
the Holy Spirit will reveal to us more abundantly
the hidden sacred mystery of this sacrifice,
and will graciously unlock for us all truth.

As I hear the Latin prayer, several things come to mind.  First, I am reminded of Jesus’ promise (Filii promissio) to His disciples in John 16:12-15:

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.  He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.  All that the Father has is mine.  For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 

Confirmation, one of the sacraments of initiation, is rightly associated with Pentecost.  Just as the sacred mysteries of the Lord’s life from the Passion, Resurrection, Ascension and Decent of the Holy Ghost and all interrelated, so too are the sacraments of baptism, confirmation and Eucharist.  In the ancient Church when catechumens were brought into the Church, they were baptized, confirmed and given the Eucharist on the same night of Easter.  During the time that followed, especially the octave but also after, they were given further instruction concerning many things that had been kept secret from them as catechumens aspiring to membership in the Church.  This bond of secrecy and the post-baptismal instruction of newly initiated Christians was called the disciplina arcani.  This was correctly thought to sharpen and peak the catechumen’s interest, curiosity and longing for what was sacred.  As St. Augustine says, “The sacraments of the faithful are not divulged to (catechumens)…; that they may be more passionately desired by them, they are honorably concealed from their view” (Io. eu. tr. 96, 3).  This partly explains why the “orientation” of the altar and silent canon in the West and the iconostasis in the East were and are still so effective.  Recall that the super oblata was once called the “secret” prayer and that at this point in the Mass, in the older, traditional Roman rite, the priest would have just called down the Holy Spirit on the offerings: Veni, Sanctificator omnipotens aeternae Deus: et bene+dic hoc sacrificium tuo santo nomini praeparatum…Come, O Sanctifier, Almighty and eternal God, and bless + this sacrifice prepared for the glory of Thy holy name.

One of the things long held from the candidates was the symbolum, the Creed.  They would be taught the Creed two weeks before Easter. Then they were tested on it by the bishop, at least as Augustine and probably Ambrose did it, in the baptistery the week before Easter.  Augustine in a sermon admonished them saying,

The creed is learned by listening; it is written, not on tablets nor on any material, but on the heart.  He who has called you to his Kingdom and glory will grant that, when you have been reborn by his grace and by the Holy Spirit, it will be written in your hearts, so that you may love what you believe and that, through love, faith may work in you and that you – no longer fearing punishment like slaves, but loving justice like the freeborn – may become pleasing to the Lord God, the giver of all good things (s. 212, 2 and cf. symb. cat. 1.1).

These are matters of the heart, as well as of the head or simple memory.  They must be part of who we are at the most intimate level, indeed, where the Holy Spirit makes us His temple: “Say it on your beds; ponder it in the streets, do not forget it during meals; and even when your body sleeps, keep watch over it in your heart” (s. 215, 1).  If this is all true regarding the Creed, how much more true is it of the sacred mysteries celebrated at Mass?

What Does the Prayer Really Say? Pentecost Sunday (Mass during the day)

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2001

Again, a glance at a paragraph of the Congregation for Divine Worship’s new document Liturgiam authenticam establishing norms for liturgical translations. 

7. For these reasons, it now seems necessary to set forth anew, and in light of the maturing of experience, the principles of translation to be followed in future translations – whether they be entirely new undertakings or emendations of texts already in use – and to specify more clearly certain norms that have already been published, taking into account a number of questions and circumstances that have arisen in our own day. In order to take full advantage of the experience gained since the Council, it seems useful to express these norms from time to time in terms of tendencies that have been evident in past translations, but which are to be avoided in future ones. In fact, it seems necessary to consider anew the true notion of liturgical translation in order that the translations of the Sacred Liturgy into the vernacular languages may stand secure as the authentic voice of the Church of God. This Instruction therefore envisions and seeks to prepare for a new era of liturgical renewal, which is consonant with the qualities and the traditions of the particular Churches, but which safeguards also the faith and the unity of the whole Church of God.  (Emphases added)

 

Note well that this document mentions emending already existing translations!  Do we dare to hope?  Also, notice that this document in consciously offered with a great purpose in mind: to prepare for a new era of liturgical renewal.  Even though this is a work of the Cong. for Divine Worship, I cannot help but ask myself if the Prefect of the Cong. for the Doctrine of the Faith, Card. Ratzinger, did not wander across the street once or twice while Liturgiam authenticam was being written.  In his book Spirit of the Liturgy (Ignatius Press, 2000), Ratzinger says that he is trying very consciously to contribute something to the genesis of a new liturgical renewal, indeed a new Liturgical Movement, in the manner of what Romano Guardini’s homonymous book promoted.  Truly, the face of the English speaking liturgical world needs renewal.  Pray that this will be received positively by all the bishops and that they will give it the attention and energy due to such a vital area of our lives as Catholics.

COLLECT:

LATIN (1970 Missale Romanum):
Deus, qui sacramento festivitatis hodiernae
universam Ecclesiam tuam
in omni gente et natione sanctificas,
in totam mundi latitudinem Spiritus Sancti dona defunde,
et, quod inter ipsa evangelicae praedicationis exordia
operata est divina dignatio,
nunc quoque per credentium corda perfunde.

Defunde and perfunde clearly are linked by the similarities of form.  This might give us a key for translating a tricky part of the collect.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O God, who by the mystery of today’s feast
sanctifies Thy universal Church
in every people and nation,
pour down upon the whole breadth of the earth the gifts of the Holy Spirit,
and, because divine worthiness was at work
amongst the very beginnings of the preaching of the Gospel,
make them now to flow also through the hearts of believers.

It is probably not without merit to remind that sacramentum translates the Greek mysterion.  Indeed, sacramentum and mysterium can be interchanged in many contexts.  Operata est could be from either the deponent verb operor or from the active opero.  Defundo means “to pour down, pour out” while perfundo means something more complex.  It means “to pour over, to wet, moisten, bedew, besprinkle.”  It means, “to steep, to dye” and also “to imbue, inspire.”  We have here imagery of grace as moisture, dew, flowing water.  This calls to mind our baptism, in the name of the Triune God.  This also recalls the beautiful chant Rorate caeli desuper et nubes pluant iustum: “Drop down dew, you heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down the Righteous One: let the earth be opened and sprout forth a Savior.” Think also of the response to the collect following antiphons in honor of the Holy Spirit: Sancti Spiritus, Domine, corda nostra mundet infusio: et sui roris intima aspersione foecundet…”Let the infusion of the Holy Spirit cleanse our hearts, O Lord: and make fruitful our innermost selves by the  sprinkling of His dew.”  Our Lewis & Short Latin Dictionary tells us that dignatio is “a deeming worthy, respect, esteem; dignity, honor, reputation.”  Exordium means, a “beginning, the warp of a web,” and also it is a technical term for the introduction or preface of a spoken or written rhetorical piece or speech. 

Let us look more closely at exordium.  This word brings up the image of selvage, that part at the edge of a piece of woven cloth intertwined in such a way that the rest of the weave will not fall apart.  It also brings to the prayer the technical language of oratory.  When the Holy Spirit was poured down on the Apostles they went out and began to preach, to make public speeches amongst people from every nation.  The Holy Spirit, in the rhetorical preaching of the Apostles, suddenly began on that first Pentecost to weave tightly together a selvage which would provide the stable edge of the rest of the fabric of the Church through the centuries down to our own day.  There may be rips and tears, and schisms from time to time, but the fabric holds and does not come apart.

Unity and continuity are keys dimensions of this collect.  The Holy Spirit woven together the early Church through the preaching of the Apostles.  The Holy Spirit keeps us attached to that same preaching of the Apostles.  The Holy Spirit created unity among diverse peoples and nations in that time and does the same today.  But the Holy Spirit creates unity between the people He unified into One Body back then, and the people unified into one Body now.  Unity is also found in continuity: diachronic as well as transnational.

The presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church guarantees our unity and continuity across every border and century.  The Holy Spirit gives the Church her life’s principle, pouring spiritual life into the Body of Christ.  The Spirit imbues and infuses, virtually tints and dyes the warp and weft of the Church as He flows through it.  Our hearts, which in our collect we pray to be “imbued” by the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, are in a certain way microcosms of the Church, even of the Church’s Sacred Heart.

ICEL:

God our Father,
let the Spirit you sent on your Church
to begin the teaching of the gospel
continue to work in the world
through the hearts of all who believe.

Today at the Church S. Maria ad Martyres, otherwise known as the Pantheon, an annual event much beloved of the Romans took place. At the end today’s Pentecost Mass red rose petals were let to fall in great abundance through the oculus or "eye" of the dome, which is open to the sky. The dome is actually a foot wider than the cupola of St. Peter’s Basilica. At the end of Mass fireman from Rome’s fire department did the honors and let fall the petals.

Here are some photos of the event. Various folks were tricked out.