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

"Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger."  (Exodus 16:3 RSV)

Fleshpots?  Pots??!  What??? Not "precious chalices"?!

"Then the LORD said to Moses, "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law or not. (Exodus 16:4 RSV)

"And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as hoarfrost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, "It is the bread which the LORD has given you to eat.  (Exodus 16:14-15 RSV)

"When the dew fell upon the camp in the night, the manna fell with it." (Numbers 11:9 RSV)

Christ explains its significance as foreshadowing Himself.  

"Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’" Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven; My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world." (John 6:31-33 RSV)

And also

"I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is My flesh." (John 6:48-51 RSV)

Ambrosiaster wrote: "Manna autem typus est escae spiritalis, quae resurrectione domini ueritas facta est in eucharistiae mysterio."  (q. 85,3 CSEL 50 p. 169).  "Manna is the type (foreshadow) of spiritual food, which by the resurrection of the Lord became the Truth in the mystery of the Eucharist."

On 16 June 2006 the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI taught about the Eucharist as "bread from heaven".

"The Host is the manna with which the Lord nourishes us, it is truly the bread from heaven, with which he really gives himself".

From the last book of the Bible:

"Repent then. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth.  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone which no one knows except him who receives it.’"  (Apoc 2:16-17 RSV)

Today is the summer solstice. This is the longest day of the year. And so it is that I made my way in the frying-pan heat to the Piazza of St. Peter’s Basilica for the one day of the year when I could shoot some interesting photos.

The obelisk casts a shadow on the stones of the piazza, of course, and the length of the shadow is measured by marble markers with dates and indications of the zodiacal signs. Most of the marks have two dates, since the shadow of the obelisk’s summit passes twice during the course of the year. Two of the markers have only one date. One is where the longest shadow of the year at the winter solstice extends and, as today, one where the shortest shadow of the year falls close to the obelisk itself.

I looked at the Vatican’s calendar today for the precise time of solar noon. Solar noon is not to be confused with "regular" noon. First, there is "daylight savings time" and then, the obelisk is some degrees east of the place with
"civil" noon occurs. The solar noon time on the calendar, which alway includes interesting astronomical information, gave the time for the solstice as 13:26. Knowing the Vatican, however, I decided to go early, both so as to fight through the hordes that were at the general audience and also to have time to clear chairs away from the marker if necessary. There were a couple other fellows there with cameras as well! It was good at I went, since solar noon actually occured at around 13:11. The Vatican calendar was wrong, which didn’t surprise me at all.

Here we go!

I am sure you are really scratching your head about what “dew” could possibly mean in the Second Eucharistic Prayer:  “Hæc ergo dona, quæsumus, Spiritus tui rore sanctifica, ut nobis Corpus et Sanguis fiant Domini nostri Iesu Christi... literally… Therefore, we beg, sanctify these gifts by the dew of Your Spirit, in order that they become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  I am sure that were you to hear this in church, you might just have a nervous breakdown.  It would be far too taxing.  We are pretty stupid, after all.  We need baby-talk language that sounds just like the way we talk everyday. Everyone except, perhaps, patristibloggers.

But once upon a time, there was a shepherd of souls who thought he could explain things like “dew” and the Holy Spirit and the Eucharist to his flock.  We might not all be at the level of St. Augustine of Hippo (+430), but we can aspire nevertheless to do our best while standing on his titanic shoulders.  
<supportLineBreakNewLine]—>
Augustine delivered a sermon to his flock on these very things.  It was probably uttered during Augustine’s later years, so it dates more than likely after 420 and it seems to be a Pentecost sermon.   

In this sermon there is a connection between the Holy Spirit and His descent on the 120 who were gathered, dew, and the Eucharist.  Note the language of journeying and a homeland.  We are pilgrims in this life, far from our homeland, which is the joy of heaven with God.  We become marvelously wealthy on our journey away from home because the Spirit enriches us.  The riches He gives us, however, are like dew.  This wealth of precious dew, which is an “advance”, “an earnest”, ought to make us long for the fountain we will have in heaven.  In our sermon there is a distinction made between a pignus and a arrha… a pledge and an earnest  (cf. ss. 23,8 and 156, 16).  Augustine also connects dew (ros) and the Holy Spirit in other sermons, such as s. 23 where he also employs the image of the pignus and the arr(h)a (cf. s. 23, 8ff).

The language of “pledges” and “earnests” also makes us think of the Eucharist Itself.  We know the Eucharist as a “futurae gloriae pignus… a pledge of future glory”.  The Eucharist is also known as “viaticum… food for the journey”.   The Eucharist, as viaticum and pignus nourishes our faith, hope and charity here and at the same time opens up for us the possibility of heaven in the future and fulfillment of what the Eucharist promises: being face to face with God (cf. STh III, 79, 2, ad 1). With the Angelic Doctor we pray: O sacrum convivium, in quo Christus sumitur: recolitur memoria passionis eius; mens impletur gratia et futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur.

Sermon 378 is very short, and so we may as well read the whole thing.  Let us listen to the great Doctor of Grace, a bishop with a deep zeal for souls, explain what “dew” means in the context of the Eucharistic liturgy of Pentecost.  The bishop and congregation would have listened to the readings which were sung.  Then he would have taken the scroll of the Scriptures onto his lap and taught the people as he sat in his chair (emphasis mine).
<supportLineBreakNewLine]—>

        1. God takes pleasure in a solemn festivity which is an expression of active piety and of fervent charity.  That is, after all, the effect of the presence of the Holy Spirit, as the apostle teaches us when he says, The charity of God has been poured in our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us (Rom 5:5).  So the coming of the Holy Spirit filled a hundred and twenty men and women gathered together in one place.  When the Acts of the Apostles were read, we heard that there were gathered together in one place one hundred and twenty persons, holding on to the promise Christ had made.  He had said, you see, that they should stay in the city until they were vested with power from on high.  For I, he said, will send what I have promised upon you (Acts 1:4; Lk 24:49).  Faithful in his promises, generous in keeping them (Fidelis promissory, benignus dator.).  After ascending into heaven, he sent what he had promised while on earth.
            We now have a pledge of eternal life (pignus futurae vitae aeternae) to come and of the kingdom of heaven.  He didn’t cheat us of what he had so recently promised, and is he going to cheat us of what we are looking forward to in the future?  When people enter into a business contract, and wish to have their minds set at rest by financial guarantees, they all, for the most part, receive or give an earnest (arrha).  And the earnest given creates confidence that the property of which an earnest has already been handed over will in due course follow.  The earnest Christ has given us is the Holy Spirit.  And the one who could not possibly cheat us has all the same given us security, when he gave us this earnest; even if he hadn’t given it, he would most certainly grant us what he has promised.  What has he promised us?  Eternal life, as the earnest of which he has given us the Holy Spirit.  Eternal life is the possession of those who have reached home; the earnest is the reassurance of those who are still on the way there.
            You see, it is better to call it an earnest than a pledge.  I mean, while these two things seem to be much the same as each other, there is still a difference between them that is not to be ignored.  Both when a pledge is given and when an earnest is given, the reason it’s done is to ensure the fulfillment of a promise; but when a pledge is given, you give back what you have received, once the matter has been settled for which you received the pledge (pignus); when an earnest (arrha) is given, though, it isn’t taken back, but is added to for the matter to be settled.
           So we have an earnest; let us thirst for the very fountain from which the earnest comes.  As an earnest (arrha) we have a kind of dew-fall in our hearts (aspersio … in cordibus nostris) of the Holy Spirit; if any are aware of this sprinkling, they should long for the fountain (fons).  Why, after all, do we have an earnest, if not to save us from fainting from hunger and thirst on this journey?  We are hungry and thirsty, you see, provided, that is, we acknowledge ourselves to be travelers.  Those who are traveling, and know they are traveling, long to reach home (patria); and because they are longing for home, they find traveling irksome.  But if they love traveling, they forget home, and don’t want to go back.  Our true home is not such that we should put anything else before it.
            Sometimes, you see, while people are traveling, they get rich.  They were needy at home, they travel and become rich, and don’t want to go back.  As for us, we were all born traveling a long way from our Lord, from the moment when he breathed the breath of life into the first man.  Our home country is in heaven, its citizens the angels (Patria nostra in caelis est, cives angeli).  Letters (= Scriptures) were sent to us from our home country, urging us to return, and they are read out every day in our congregations.  May the world grow cheap in our eyes, may we learn to love and prefer the one by whom the world was made.

 

In the entry on the old Augustinian adage "He who sings prays twice", someone asked about a phrase which I hadn’t heard before: "A Christian should be an Alleluia from head to toe" which, according to the inquiry, is also attributed to Augustine.  I did a very rapid check and found only one thing that seemed to me anywhere close to that.  Maybe another patristiblogger can do better.  Anyway, here it is:

In Sermon 362,29 (PL 38:1224) I found "tota actio nostra, amen et alleluia erit"... "Our entire activity will be "Amen" and "Alleluia".
  However, Augustine is in that paragraph talking about what our lives will be like in heaven.  He explains that all that we do will be encompassed in "Amen" and "Alleluia" before the throne of God and how this will never become boring for us, even though it is all we do. 

Augustine speaks to the fact that we will in heaven have "rest" and "leisure" (requies), that is, time without pressing worldly matters that take us away from the contemplation of heavenly things.  Augustine in his whole life as a bishop talked about the tension of otium ("leisure, freedom from pressing cares") and negotium ("business to take care off, pressing matters").  He was ever trying to find a balance, to find his otium in negotio, "freedom from cares for contemplation within the daily duties of life".  This was a constant theme for the busy bishop, who wanted more than anything to be able to have peace and quiet so that the hours could be filled with study of the deeper questions rather than busy pressing things of the world that came from his burdensome state in life as a bishop. 

For Augustine, this was all part of his understanding of the active and and the contemplative life, which are in tension as long as we are in this world.  Augustine in his preaching will contrast pairs of figures, such as Peter (the apostles who love Jesus more than the others) as a symbol of the active life and John (the apostle whom Jesus loved more than the others) as a symbol of the contemplative life.  While there is a distinction between them in this life, there is not division between them in heaven, where our activity is simultaneously contemplation without any tension between the two dimensions. 

In a fragment of a sermon, Augustine brought the words requies, otium and Alleluia together.  Here is the Latin by itsself.  I will try for a translation later when I have a little more time:

 

quae erit ergo actio nostra? amen, et
alleluia. hic enim agimus aliud, ibi aliud, non dico die et nocte, sed die
sine fine: quae modo potestates caelorum Seraphim sine taedio dicunt:
sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, dominus deus sabaoth [Is 6,3]. hoc dicunt
sine taedio. numquid modo fatigatur pulsus uenae tuae? quamdiu
uiuis, pulsus habet uena tua. aliquid facis, et fatigando fatigaris, et
requiescis, et redis ad opus, et uena tua non fatigatur. quomodo uena
tua non fatigatur in salute tua, sic lingua tua et cor tuum non fatigatur
in laudibus dei, in inmortalitate tua. audite testimonium negotii
uestri. quid est negotii uestri? hoc negotium, otium est. otiosum
negotium, quid? laudare dominum.

Perfect! 

[Added later]

So, what will our activity be?  "Amen" and "Alleluia".  For here in this world we are doing one thing, and there we will be doing another, not day and night, so to speak, but during the day which has no end: which is way the heavenly powers the Seraphim are saying without wearying of it: Holy Holy Holy, Lord God Sabaoth.  They say this without weariness.  The pulse of your veins doesn’t wear on you, does it?  As long as you are alive, your bloodstream has a pulse.  Do something, and you tire yourself out in your slogging and you rest, and you get back to work, and your course of blood isn’t worn down.  How is it that your bloodstream isn’t over-taxed in the matter of your health, and just so your tongue is over-wearied and your heart stressed out in the praises of God, in your immortality?  Listen to the testimony of your own pressing job.  What is your pressing job?  This job is a state free from pressing business.  Leisurely careless pressing care?  What is that?  Praising God.