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

I am pleased to report that a new language version of the well-known "Internet Prayer" has just arrived.  Behold, we now have FINNISH.   I would love to get some more audio files of these prayers read aloud.

Kindly say a prayer, right now, for those involved with translating the prayer.  I know there is great interest in Latin in some quarters of Finland. 

I am told that the prayer in the Finnish version has viva voce approval of the Bishop of Helsinki.  Here is is folks! 

Rukous ennen internetiin kytkeytymistä:

Kaikkivaltias, iankaikkinen Jumala,
sinä teit meidät kuvaksesi
ja asetit meidät etsimään kaikkea,
mikä on hyvää, totta ja kaunista
erityisesti ainosyntyisen Poikasi,
meidän Herramme Jeesuksen Kristuksen
jumalallisessa persoonassa.
Me pyydämme sinua:
suo, että me pyhän Isidoruksen,
piispan ja opettajan, esirukousten kautta
selaisimme internetiä
ohjaten käsiämme ja silmiämme vain siihen,
mikä miellyttää sinua,
ja osoittaisimme kaikille verkossa kohtaamillemme ihmisille
rakkautta ja kärsivällisyyttä.
Tätä pyydämme Kristuksen, Herramme, kautta. Aamen.

Take this for what it may be worth.  Some years ago I was told this story by an elderly, retired Papal Ceremoniere or a Master of Ceremonies who (according to him) was present at the event about to be recounted.

You probably know that in the traditional Roman liturgical calendar the mighty feast of Pentecost had its own Octave.  Pentecost was a grand affair indeed, liturgically speaking.  In some places in the world such as Germany and Austria Pentecost Monday, Whit Monday as the English call it, was a reason to have a civil holiday, as well as a religious observance.

The Monday after Pentecost in 1970 His Holiness Pope Paul VI rose bright and early and went to the chapel for Holy Mass. Instead of the red he expected, there were green vestments laid out for him. 

He queried the MC assigned that day, "What on earth are these for?  This is the Octave of Pentecost!  Where are the red vestments?"

"Santità," quoth the MC, "this is now Tempus ‘per annum’.  It is green, now. The Octave of Pentecost is abolished."

"Green? That cannot be!", said the Pope, "Who did that?"

"Holiness, you did."

And Paul VI wept. 

COLLECT:
Deus, cuius providentia in sui dispositione non fallitur
te supplices exoramus,
ut noxia cuncta submoveas,
et omnia nobis profutura concedas.

Blaise/Chirat indicates that dispositio is “disposition providentialle”.  It has to do God’s plan for salvation.  Fallo is an interesting word.  It means basically, “to deceive, trick, dupe, cheat, disappoint” and it has as synonyms “decipio, impono, frustror, circumvenio, emungo, fraudo”.  Fallo is used to indicate things like simply being mistaken or being deceived.  It can apply to making a mistake because something eluded your notice or it was simply unknown.  In our Latin conversation it is not uncommon to say nisi fallor, “unless I am mistaken…”.    If you look for submoveo you may have to check under summoveo.  Find profutura under prosum.  Don’t confuse noxia with noxa.

LITERAL VERSION:
God, whose providence in its plan is not circumvented,
humbly we implore You,
that you clear away every fault
and grant us all benefits.

There is no getting around or circumventing God’s plan.  Why, given who God is and who we are, would we want to try?   God knows who we are and what we need far better than we can ever know ourselves.   Foreseeing all our sins and many faults, all that we say and do is embraced in He eternal plan.  He has so disposed to make glorious things result from the evils for which we alone are responsible.

It is good for us each day never to forget to make an Act of Faith, which is a good Trinitarian prayer.

O my God, I firmly believe that Thou art one God in Three Divine Persons, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. I believe that Thy Divine Son became Man, and died for our sins, and that He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches, because Thou hast revealed them, Who canst neither deceive nor be deceived.

Everyone knows that the posts that really drive traffic up on these blogs have to do with the Tridentine Mass and Latin liturgy.  But I am going to return to an issue that affect far more people.

I’m sure you all remember with anxiety my post on the tax imposed by the Chinese on disposable wooden chopsticks.  Here is a follow up. (emphasis mine).

THE diplomatic wrangling between Beijing and Tokyo has spilt on to dinner tables, forcing Japanese to contemplate the unthinkable: eating their food the way China wants them to.

From the ramen noodle bars of Hiroshima to the gyudon beef bowl restaurants of Sapporo, a sharp Chinese tax hike on disposable chopsticks is starting to bite. And some Japanese are wincing at a taste they have learnt to despise: plastic, reusable chopsticks.

For more than two decades Japan’s addiction to disposable chopsticks has been the ultimate indication of its success. What other Asian nation, runs the unspoken boast, can afford to throw away 25 billion pairs of wooden chopsticks every year after only a single use? The use of disposable chopsticks, or waribashi, surged in the late 1970s and through the 1980s. They were a symbol of national growth that meant people were eating out more frequently, and of a culture that was wealthy enough to pander to an obsession with hygiene.

Even during tougher times in the 1990s, Japanese continued to throw away their eating utensils after using them only once. Recession might have curbed other luxuries, but the throwaway white birch chopsticks have, until now, remained sacred.

About 93 per cent of those 25 billion pairs are produced in China, and Beijing, citing the environmental concerns of deforestation, has slapped a heavy duty on chopstick exports, and is planning more increases.

Beijing is reportedly considering an end to all chopstick exports in 2008. High oil prices have also inflated waribashi costs. Where Japanese restaurants and convenience store chains used to be able to source the chopsticks at about one yen (½ p) each, they are now approaching twice that.

With the economics of waribashi becoming more difficult to sustain, and other sources such as Vietnam unable to match the old prices, Japan is turning to plastic — an investment that is likely to pay for itself in about a year.

Marché, a chain of more than 760 izakaya Japanese restaurants in the Osaka area, has switched to plastic chopsticks, which are washed and reused in all its branches.

A spokesman said that in recent weeks the company had been flooded with requests from restaurants, convenience stores and makers of bento lunchboxes asking to know what customers’ reaction had been.

Kokusai Kako, the Japanese company that makes plastic chopsticks, has had some very lean years but has doubled production to 2 million pairs a year, and is anticipating an increase in sales if Japanese can overcome their prejudice about using chopsticks that have been in other people’s mouths. “There are going to be people who object even when they know the chopsticks have been washed properly,” a spokesman said. “It’s a sort of mental problem.”

Other restaurant chains and convenience store operators are looking for other ways to feed the disposable chopstick addiction. Chopsticks made of domestically grown bamboo, and even ones crafted from recycled paper, are among the options being considered.

17th Anniversary of the Tiananmen protest already.  I picked this story up from AP:

EXCERPT:

Hong Kong leader Donald Tsang, while in China’s southwestern Yunnan province to attend a regional cooperation conference, urged his fellow citizens to look at the Tiananmen crackdown practically.

"Mainland China has undergone a level of change that has gained the world’s attention in the past 17 years. These changes have brought much prosperity to Hong Kong … so Hong Kong people can make an objective judgment," Tsang said.

Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen, a fierce democracy advocate, disagreed with Tsang.

"How can we let it go? Should we just let it slide, forgive, pretend nothing happened? This is irresponsible. The successors of those responsible for the June 4 incident should give an explanation,’’ Zen said.