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

I finally found my good photo of the church in Rome where the body of the Apostle St. Bartholomew is buried.  This is S. Bartolomeo on the island in the Tiber.

The Mass of Saint Gregory by Ysenbrandt

There is a lot of chatter in the bloggosphere about (sacramentally) ordaining women.  Today in the Roman Martyrology we find an entry for St. Phoebe, spoken of in Romans 16:1.  She is often pointed to by the confused as a precedent for deaconesses.

Here is the entry and translation:

2. Commemoratio sanctae Phoebes, ancillae Domini inter fideles Cenchrenses, quae beato Paulo Apostolo multisque astitit, ipso testante in epistula ad Romanos.

The commemoration of Saint Phoebe, handmaid of the Lord among the faithful of Cenchreae, who assisted the Blessed Apostle Paul and many others, as (Paul) himself testifies in the letter to the Romans.

Let’s look at Romans 16:1-2.

(RSV): 1: I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deaconess of the church at Cen’chre-ae, 2: that you may receive her in the Lord as befits the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a helper of many and of myself as well.

RSV calls her a "deaconess".  So what does that mean?  

In the early Church, even the primitive Church, certain trustworthy women were appointed to care for the poor, especially poor women, and for widows and orphans.  They were especially useful when women were to be instructed in the faith so that scandal could be avoided.  They helped with the mechanics of the annointing at the time of baptism as well.  When Paul speaks about Pheobe as a deaconess he is talking about a still very undefined set of ministries, which would much later take on greater definition.  For example, the Council of Nicea that women who were serving in ministries (deaconesses) did not receive ordination and that they were not clerics. 

When in Romans 16:1 we find the Greek word diakonos for Phoebe, this means merely "in the service of the Church", which is precisely how St. Jerome rendered it in the Vulgate: "quae est ministra Ecclesiae".  

Another problem comes from the fact that the later words diaconissae, presbyterae, presbytides, episcopae and episcopissae, were used as honorary titles for the wives of deacons, priests and bishops.  This is certainly the case with the famous mosaic in Rome in the Basilica of St. Praxides.

For many centuries, some women were entrusted with certain concrete ministries, especially focusing on helping other women, and they were even recognized with a ceremony closely resembling ordination.  However, it is clear that those ceremonies, even the one mentioned in the Apostolic Constitutions, did not confer the sacrament of Holy Orders.

Can anyone doubt the essential and indispensible service women give to the Church?  Of course not.  However, in the all the ages of the Church, from its very beginning, this service, without which the Church would never have grown as it did, does not mean that they shared in Holy Orders.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2003

JR of KY writes: “I really enjoy your weekly WDTPRS column in The Wanderer, especially the first few paragraphs.  I am 56, a former altar boy, and an amateur Latin enthusiast and devoted to the Latin Mass.  One thing I rarely hear but know to be true, certainly in my case, is that I actually, genuinely look forward to attending the Latin Mass and for the first time in my life I don’t look at it as just a way to meet my Sunday obligation.  Thank you for your wonderful ministry!”   JR, thanks for the great note.  It is a goal of these articles to spur people to greater love of what Almighty God, through the Church, wants to give to us in Holy Mass.

POST COMMUNIONEM
LATIN (2002 Missale Romanum):
Pane mensae caelestis refecti, te, Domine, deprecamur,
ut hoc nutrimentum caritatis corda nostra confirmet,
quatenus ad tibi ministrandum in fratribus excitemur.

This prayer is an entirely new composition for the Novus Ordo Missae of 1970.   Whoever wrote it had a sense of style, for he provided us both with a spiffy alliteration on the “k” sounds of  “caritatis corda nostra confirmet, quatenus" and (when you pay attention to the lengths of the syllables) with a snappy cadence at the end: in frátribus éxcitémur.  That quatenus lends to this prayer a bit of an exotic sound, for it is not a high frequency word in liturgical prayer so far as I can tell.  As a matter of fact, when I saw it I suspected that this week’s prayer might be of new composition, as least in part.  We will cope with quatenus later.

True to form we reach for that delightfully comprehensive volume, the big blue Lewis & Short Dictionary for help with our vocabulary.   We have some old friends today, which we may greet briefly before looking at some newer words.   Reficio is the verb which gives us refecti (and also “refectory”, a room where meals are taken in monasteries).  Reficio means “to make again, make anew, put in condition again; to remake, restore, renew, rebuild, repair, refit, recruit” and thence refectus, a, um, is “refreshed, recruited, invigorated”.   The deponent verb (having a passive form but an active meaning) deprecor signifies “to avert, ward off (from one’s self or others) by earnest prayer; to deprecate; also to pray, to intercede for the averting of any evil, or to obtain pardon for any transgression” and also “to pray for, intercede in behalf of (that which is in danger)”.
    
L&S says that nutrimentum means “nourishment” and, by extension, “support”.   In the plural, it can signify “a bringing up, rearing”.   Ministro in its basic meaning is “to attend, wait upon, serve, esp. at table, to serve up, pour out, hand food or drink” and thus also “to take care of, manage, govern, direct; and, in gen., to provide, furnish, supply, give, afford.”   This verb takes a an accusative or a dative object (it is dative in our prayer today – tibi).   Quatenus can have a range of meanings.  This adverb is fundamentally (when used in indirect questions), “until where, how far”.  In a transferred sense it is “how far, to what extent” and also “where”.  Excito means “to call out or forth, to bring or send out, to wake or rouse up”.

Notice in the last line what I call a verbal nd, the major clue for recognizing gerunds and gerundives.   The Latin gerund is a form of a verb functioning as a noun and it is declinable.  So, the gerund of amare (“to love”) has the typical nd element and then an ending indicating case and number.  The singular gerunds from amare are the genitive amandi (“of loving”), dative amando (“by, for (etc.) loving” and accusative amandum (something like “the act of loving”).  So, ars scribendi  is the “art of writing”.  A gerundive is a verbal form used as an adjective.  Thus, a man who amandus is “a man to be loved”.  A woman might be name Amanda.   Gerundives are also used as passive verbal adjectives.  They can form purpose constructions since they imply a sense of necessity or obligation.  Thus during the autumn of 30 B.C. when the defeat of Anthony and Cleopatra was announced in Rome, the poet Q. Horatius Flaccus (“Horace” – 65 to 8 B.C.) wrote in the first line of Ode I.37: “Nunc est bibendum…Now it is time to drink!” or, in a far more colloquial way, “It’s Miller time!”  Literally this is something like “drinking is now to be done (nobis…by us)” and therefore we say more smoothly “Now we must drink!”   By the way, did you know that the perhaps the most recognizable product images/character in the world, the bulging white pile of tires referred to as “The Michelin Man”, is named Bibendum?

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Having been refreshed by the bread of the heavenly table,
we beseech You, O Lord,
that this nourishment of charity strengthen our hearts
to the point that we are roused up to serve you in our brethren.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord,
you renew us at your table with the bread of life.
May this food strengthen us in love
and help us to serve you in each other.

Allow me to say that I often hear some traditionalists attack the Novus Ordo on the grounds that there are new (and thus automatically bad) prayers in the 1970 Missale Romanum.  Though our prayer today is of new composition there is nothing second rate about it.   We have at the heart of this prayer an urgent petition by the priest that the people who have just received Holy Communion will be so transformed by its graces that they will become active in the performance of concrete works of charity for the sake of others.  Caritas, charity, is at the very center of this Post Communion.   The Eucharist itself is called the nourishment of sacrificial love, the sort of love which always concerns itself with the good of the other and which calls forth even heroic acts of self-denial or self-oblation.  The perfect model of effective charity is Our Lord upon His Cross, which sacrifice we will have just renewed moments before this prayer is uttered.   This petition by the priest today is framed in terms of meal and eating vocabulary: panis (bread), mensa (table), reficio (to refresh), nutrimentum (nourishment) and finally ministro (to serve food and drink at table).    Even though the practice of the “family meal” has broken down in recent times, this is still a good image for the sort of cooperation, interaction, division of roles, and good manners that we need to employ as Christians in this modern world.   I am reminded of the beautiful ancient Chinese custom of lifting with chopsticks the choicest morsels of food from the serving bowls and platters on the table and placing them in the eating bowls of the people nearby.  Such gestures demonstrate a respect for the dignity of those with whom you are eating.  You are seeing to their needs before your own.

Just as what we are given at Holy Communion has given us what we need, we in turn must be conscious and active in going out and making sure that others have what they need.   So, knowing how hard this can be, the Church in the priest asks God to strengthen and toughen people all the way to the point that they are roused up, perhaps even shaken up out of their laziness and lethargy, to actually act according to sacrificial love for loved one and stranger alike and truly minister.   The word “minister” is probably over used in the Church today.  It seems today as if there are “ministers” of just about everything.  This is creating, to a certain extent, a bit of confusion in the Church at large about who has what role in the Church.  Turning everyone into a “minister” of something or other effectively waters ministry down to nothing. 

Application of the term “minister” to many different people functioning in service roles, in the context of liturgy or not, is contributing to a blurring of the way in which the ordained priest is a minister by virtue of his ordination and the way all Christians are ministers by reason of their baptism.  Use of the term and confusion of roles have not gone unnoticed in Rome.  We must always remember that all authentic ministries in the Church are gifts of the Holy Spirit.  They are directed to and they complete each other.   They all have dignity, but they are not all the same.  In his 1988 encyclical Christifideles laici the Pope taught about how the Holy Spirit “lavishes diverse hierarchical and charismatic gifts on all the baptized, calling them to be, each in an individual way, active and coresponsible” (CL 21) and that “in a primary position in the Church are the ordained ministries” given “to form and to rule the priestly people” (CL 22).   The ministry of the ordained is one of service.  

Lay people have ministries of their own.  As the Holy Father teaches, “because of their Baptismal state and their specific vocation, in the measure proper to each person, the lay faithful participate in the priestly, prophetic and kingly mission of Christ.”   This means that pastors of souls ought “to acknowledge and foster their ministries, the offices and roles of the lay faithful that find their foundation in the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, indeed, for a good many of them, in the Sacrament of Matrimony.”  (CL 22).   When necessity truly requires, “pastors, according to established norms from universal law, can entrust to the lay faithful certain offices and roles that are connected to their pastoral ministry but do not require the character of Orders. (CL 23)  However, the exercise of such tasks does not make the lay faithful into pastors: in fact, a person is not technically a minister simply by performing a task, but through sacramental ordination.  However, in supporting and fostering their legitimate ministries any “clericalization” of the lay faithful is to be avoided.
 
This has not always been attended to, however.  The Holy See has tried to apply correctives.  In 1997 nine dicasteries (offices) of the Holy See issued a document entitled Instruction on Certain Questions Regarding the Collaboration of the Non-Ordained Faithful in the Sacred Ministry of Priests.  This document seeks to uphold the dignity of lay people by making the proper distinctions about ministries and especially liturgical roles of the ordained and those of the baptized in general.   I suspect that the next document coming in October will do the same.

I think it is important to emphasize that when the Vatican or most decent priests make distinctions about what lay people can or cannot do, say in the context of Mass or in the realm of moral theology, they are not simply being mean or oppressive.  The principle at work is this.  Lay people have a great dignity of their own.   To uphold that dignity, sometimes it is necessary to say “no”, and it is not “clericalism” to say it.  When the inherent dignity of lay people is underappreciated the mistake is often made of imposing on them a false dignity by “clericalizing” them.   Much of the clericalization of lay people has come from a truly “clericalistic” attitude.  It is a common error to think that priests (and religious) are the “real” members of the Church and therefore, in order to bring lay people up the ladder of dignity, they need to be made be act like ordained priests and do the things priests do.  Some priests have shuffled off their own proper roles onto the shoulders good-hearted willing volunteers whom Father is seeking to actualize.  This does untold damage to both lay people and priests alike, since by this process neither of them are able properly to attend to their true vocations.  At the same time it must be recognized that many of the things that priests are being required to do today are often best handled by lay people.  The extremes of Father doing everything and Father abandoning even his own roles must both be avoided.   And if people make the mistake sometimes of thinking that priests, etc., are the real Church, similarly we must avoid the error of thinking that priests don’t belong to the Church.  The Church is both lay and ordained, each complementing and building the other.

Our prayer today reminds us that being a real minister of sacrificial love, according to our proper vocations, is tough business requiring the most potent of help.   For us to do what we must do, we need all the refreshing and strengthening that the Eucharist can provide, and we must be willing to suffer.  We must be willing even at times to say “No!” and hear “No!” said to us.   As the English Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) once said, "Learn to say no. It will be of more use to you than to be able to read Latin."

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2006

Last week I mentioned that I had been in Camden, NJ, to preach at a Solemn Mass with the 1962 Missale Romanum on the occasion of the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  It was a splendid event.  The ceremonies and music were wonderful.  More wonderful yet were the fine people I met.  Readers of these columns and the WDTPRS blog on the internet kindly made an effort to greet me.  Their comments about these articles and what they see going on in the Church today, together with their hopes and aspirations, underscored in my mind the need not only for better translations of the Novus Ordo texts of Mass, but also for a renewal of Mass through a time of serious liturgical discipline.  

Virtually all of the people I spoke with in Camden were interested in attending Holy Mass in its older, pre-Conciliar form.   As such, I am sure they are not overly concerned on a daily basis about the issue of translations for the Novus Ordo, which is the main topic of this WDTPRS series.  On the other hand, they told me they enjoyed these weekly.  This is an affirmation of what I have long held to be true.  

A true Catholic spirit, an authentic Catholic sense of the Church as a whole, brings a person to understand that when one part of the Church thrives and is happy and holy, then everyone in the Church benefits.  It is much to the advantage to those who desire to attend Mass only with the 1962 Missale Romanum for the celebrations according to the 1970 Novus Ordo be reverent and faithful according to the rubrics and (if they really must be in the vernacular) good texts.  Similarly, people who attend the Novus Ordo and have zero interest in the older form of Mass, far from being stingy and resentful ought to be happy that others have the opportunity to participate in the more traditional form of Mass.  How can it not be good if people are participating at reverent and faithfully celebrated Masses, according to their respective books?  How is that not good for everyone?  

My experience in Camden convinced me of the benefits that each form of Mass, properly expressed, has for the other.  The priest in charge of the Mater Ecclesiae community in the Diocese of Camden, Fr. Robert Pasley, had been a guest of the famous Msgr. Richard J. Schuler at St. Agnes Church in St. Paul, where the Novus Ordo is celebrated with unparalleled splendor and reverence, especially in regard to sacred music.  Father learned from what Msgr. Schuler accomplished at St. Agnes and, when it he was called upon to serve at Mater Ecclesiae, he put into practice what he learned from the experience of a Novus Ordo parish that was, so to speak, firing on all its Roman cylinders.  Similarly, I know young priests doing wonderful work in parishes where only the Novus Ordo is used.  They didn’t grow up with the older form of Mass.  They aren’t burdened with aging hippie baggage or less than perfect memories.  Through their healthy curiosity about the older form of Mass and desire to learn to celebrate it, they come to know how better to celebrate the newer Mass.  In a sense, they root their understanding of all forms of Mass in an appreciation of the Roman Rite.  

The traditional Mass community all over the world has been subtly but powerfully influenced by the positive fruits of the Novus Ordo, even where it has been celebrated imperfectly or even badly.  I think that Holy Mass in its older, traditional form is being offered more beautifully these days than it was in the old days, precisely because of the intervening “dark” years of liturgical chaos.  Even in the times of real abuse of the rubrics and there were also many useful things to be learned.  In my opinion the Novus Ordo has a much brighter future because of more opportunities for celebrations of the older so-called “Tridentine” form.

Having celebrations of Holy Mass with the older form and the new form (in Latin or in the vernacular) can and should be seen as a Win-Win situation for everyone involved, so long as everyone involved is doing their very best and making their best effort to participate as Holy Church asks, that is, with “full, conscious, and active” participation and in the state of grace.  How can that be anything but good for everyone?

For these reasons, we should welcome a “universal faculty” for all priests to say also the older form of Mass, we should thank those generous bishops who are implementing what the late Holy Father asked, and we should embrace as well as a period of serious liturgical course corrections for the way the Novus Ordo is being celebrated far and wide.  We need more tradition and we need more discipline, always having our eyes on the good of the People of God.

With that, let us move along to this week’s “Prayer over the gifts” for the upcoming Sunday.

SUPER OBLATA (2002MR):
Benedictionem nobis, Domine, conferat salutarem
sacra semper oblatio,
ut, quod agit mysterio, virtute perficiat.

This prayer was in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary on the Sunday after the Octave of Easter.  Later, it became the Secret of the 2nd Sunday after Easter in the 1962MR.   So, this prayer goes back to the early experience of Christians in Rome.  Notice the nice alliterative sounds of the m’s and then s’s and then t’s.
 
Take a moment to recall what in the past we have studied in WDTPRS about the relationship of mysterium and sacramentum, which are nearly interchangeable.  One of Marcus Tullius Cicero’s (106 – 43 BC) favorite words confero, contuli, collatum (conferre) is “to bring, bear, carry together, to collect, gather” and therefore also “to collect money, treasures, etc., for any object, to bring offerings, contribute.”  With the dative it often means “to devote or apply something to a certain purpose, to employ, direct, confer, bestow upon, give, lend, grant, to transfer to.”  

The entry for ago in the admirable Lewis & Short is vast.  It primarily means “to put into motion, to move” and thus it means right off the bat “to lead, drive” about animals, “to drive, impel, lead” of men, and “to chase, pursue, press, or drive” of men or animals.  We then move into concepts like “to stir up, excite” and “to drive at something, pursue a course of action” which is to say, “to make something an object of action.”  The entry, as I said, is very long for ago and there are many meanings.  However, L&S indicates that ago in the sense of “to drive, impel, lead” is often constructed with the ablative (as it is in our prayer today: agit mysterio).  If we throw our net a little wider and look in our source for liturgical Latin which we call Blaise/Dumas we find that ago can also refer to celebration of the sacred mysteries of the Eucharist.  Remember that Mass is a sacred “actio… action” in which Christ the High Priest is the true “Actor”.  All these words derive from Latin ago.

Latin virtus is from the noun vir, “man” as in the male of the species, not “man” in general.  Thus, virtus means in the first place, “manliness, manhood” and so, in the Roman way of seeing things, the sum of all the corporeal or mental excellences of mankind, that is, strength, vigor, bravery, courage, aptness, capacity, worth, excellence, virtue, etc.  When applied to inanimate things it means “worth, value, power, strength.”  Thence by extension it signifies “moral perfection, virtuousness, virtue.”  

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
May this sacred offering, O Lord,
always confer upon us a salutary blessing,
with the result that It may by Its power bring to completion
what it is setting in motion by a mysterious sacramental action.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord,
may this holy offering
bring us your blessing
and accomplish within us
its promise of salvation.

A SMOOTHER WDTPRS VERSION:
O Lord, may this sacred offering
ever bring us the blessing of salvation,
so that what is begun through the mysterious sacrament
may in us be perfected by Its power.

The vocabulary of today’s prayer reminds me of the hymn by St. Thomas Aquinas we sing at Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament called Tantum ergo Sacramentum.  I think you all know it by heart and will remember the phrase “Salus, honor, virtus quoque / Sit et benedictio ….  In the prayer we have benedictio, salutis, and virtus.  In the case of Benediction we are singing praise in honor of the Blessed Sacrament, raising our song to God in thanksgiving.  In the case of our Mass this Sunday, we are petitioning God to give us a saving blessing, salvation itself, by the power of the Eucharist which brings to us the merits of Christ’s Sacrifice and, indeed, His own divine Person.  Our lives should have a constant rhythm of thanksgiving and petition, finding both their goal and origin in the Blessed Sacrament.

Holy Church desires that the sacred mysteries celebrated during Mass should have a concrete impact on our lives.  The true sign that the Eucharist is actually working and effective in us is the concrete example of our words and deeds.  When the sacramental graces of the Eucharist bear fruit in us, our lives reveal Its splendor.   The baptized have the task of shaping the world.  The Eucharist is the source and summit of Christian life.  So, what the Eucharist gives us must be brought into every corner of our lives, private and public.  I think it is for this reason that Holy Mass ends so abruptly with the command “ITE!... GO!”.  Now that we have been nourished and renewed through our sacramental participation in the sacred mysteries we are being shoved out the door into the world so we can get back to work.  

From the Second Vatican Council’s document on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium:

10. … [T]he liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows. For the aim and object of apostolic works is that all who are made sons of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of His Church, to take part in the sacrifice, and to eat the Lord’s supper.

The liturgy in its turn moves the faithful, filled with “the paschal sacraments,” to be “one in holiness”; it prays that “they may hold fast in their lives to what they have grasped by their faith”; the renewal in the eucharist of the covenant between the Lord and man draws the faithful into the compelling love of Christ and sets them on fire. From the liturgy, therefore, and especially from the eucharist, as from a font, grace is poured forth upon us; and the sanctification of men in Christ and the glorification of God, to which all other activities of the Church are directed as toward their end, is achieved in the most efficacious possible way.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2005

I am in receipt of e-messages from kind readers, including Wm. S, who e-wrote (edited): “I have been puzzled and agitated for years with the use of ‘We’ in the Credo instead of ‘I’. I do not believe that ‘We’ can believe. … Communal belief and communal confession offends logic. This may seem a minor problem but to me it is one of the major symbols of the wreck of the Mass. … Best wishes and thanks for your work through the years.” Wm., I agree. Credo should be translated correctly. But let’s make some distinctions.

First, Wm., you refer to an inaccurate translation. Bad translations per se don’t “wreck the Mass”. The language of Holy Mass ought to be Latin. The Vatican Council said vernacular languages might be used as an exception to the rule. Therefore, only bad Latin texts can really “wreck the Mass.” The “we” of the Credo, however, is a complex issue from a historical perspective. Historically, ancient creeds or “symbols” were the compromise formulas of synods or councils; precise enough to eliminate specific divisive heresies they were just ambiguous enough to allow members of battling factions to agree and affix their names for the sake of the Church’s unity. Today’s Creed comes from these ancient historical circumstances. The text is more or less from the acts of the Councils of Nicea (325 – convened in part to resolve the Arian question) and then Constantinople (381 – which examined the divinity of the Holy Spirit) followed by the addition of the infamous “filioque” clause (whose history and dating is far too convoluted to get into). Ancient conciliar and synodal creeds in the East were always expressed in the Greek plural pisteúomen, “we believe”. In the Latin West credal formulas began with a plural credimus. A form of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed was integrated early on in the Church’s Eucharistic liturgy in both the East and West. The liturgical Creed was an echo of the baptismal profession of faith and as such it was fitting that it should become a singular expression (“Credo…”) even though it is obviously and appropriately the communal expression of a unified believing congregation. Some early liturgical creeds retained the plural.

As you can see, Wm., although we may possibly be able to cobble up a tissue thin justification for a credimus, I don’t believe that is why the ICEL text has a plural. I think that, since the Latin texts were essentially bullet-proof, bad vernacular versions were introduced after Vatican II consciously to destroy certain elements of perennial Catholic theology and devotional practice and replace them with more up-to-date ideas. Lamentably, the Powers That Were, bamboozled by some scholarly sleight of hand in those days of Conciliar ecstasy, naively permitted numerous textual innovations.

Was the “we” of the lousy ICEL version a wrench applied to unhitch people from the vertically oriented theological perspective of the Latin texts and the translations of ubiquitous hand missals of yesteryear and harness them to a new horizontal and closed in group-think? You decide.

All of the above notwithstanding, let Powers That Be today pay close attention to what Joseph Ratzinger (now gloriously reigning as the sovereign Pontiff) wrote in God Is Near Us: The Eucharist, The Heart of Life (Ignatius Press, 2003) on a related topic, the “pro multis” issue: “The fact that in Hebrew the expression ‘many’ would mean the same thing as ‘all’ is not relevant to the question under consideration inasmuch as it is a question of translating, not a Hebrew text here, but a Latin text (from the Roman Liturgy), which is directly related to a Greek text (the New Testament). The institution narratives in the New Testament are by no means simply a translation (still less, a mistaken translation) of Isaiah; rather, they constitute an independent source” (emphasis added – cf. pp. 37-8, n. 10).

O, Cardinal Arinze? Do we need more than this? Hey, Cardinal Pell? Yoo-hoo! Father Harbert? Bishop Trautman? Hello!? Reasonable people are convinced by the undoubtedly correct view of the present Pope, the norms of the Congregation for Divine Worship’s document Liturgiam authenticam (LA), our Catholic sensus fidei and a rudimentary knowledge of Latin grammar that the Latin liturgical texts ought to be translated accurately. Yes, historical creeds in Greek and Latin were plural. Yes, some ancient liturgical creeds were plural. So what? The Creed in Latin says “Credo”. Credo means “I believe” and not anything else. The Latin liturgical tradition constitutes its own source apart from the synodal and conciliar foundations of the Creed in late antiquity. I was thus pleased to see “I believe” in a draft of the new ICEL translation.

Most Eminent and Reverend Fathers, I beg you, hear me. Your translation worker bees got credo right. How about pro multis? If credo means “I believe” and not something else, pro multis means “for many” … not something else. No amount of linguistic voodoo can make it otherwise. The Greek New Testament and the Latin consecration formula derived from it constitute their own sources and those sources must be respected. Those who say that pro multis must really mean “for all” are in effect suggesting that the New Testament and the Latin translations and liturgy that followed are wrong. If our Holy Mother the Church should want us to say “we believe” in English during Mass then the same Church could by a sacred act and with sound historical precedent impose a new Latin liturgical formula having credimus and we would joyfully translate it using “we believe” (which would at least involve the same verb credere). In the meantime, since your draft translation got credo right we can conclude that you no longer want us to recite something liturgically defective. The Church doesn’t want us to say “Credimus in unum Deum” and so we should not introduce a faulty English translation for the sake of horizontal fellowship. Similarly, we ought not gin up a faulty translation of pro multis for the sake of some horizontal sensibility or reckless ecumenical consideration. If the Church could hypothetically change the Latin credo to credimus (and this is sheer fantasy), she cannot even in theory change pro multis to pro omnibus. Look this up in Part II, ch. 4 (264.7-265.14) of your handy Catechismus Romanus seu Catechismus ex decreto Concilii Tridentini ad parochos …. Editio critica (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1989), p. 250. If there are good reasons not to say “we believe” in the Creed, there are even better reasons not to say “for all” during the consecration. We beseech you, Eminent and Reverend Fathers, give us a good translation! Soon! Furthermore, I still think Carthage should be destroyed.

COLLECT - (2002MR):
Deus virtutum, cuius est totum quod est optimum,
insere pectoribus nostris tui nominis amorem, et praesta,
ut in nobis, religionis augmento, quae sunt bona nutrias,
ac, vigilanti studio, quae nutrita custodias.

With small differences this Collect is based on a prayer in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary, subsequently in the 1962 Roman Missal on the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost. In the Anglican Church’s 1662 Book of Common Prayer for the Seventh Sunday after Trinity (The Alternative Service Book of 1980 for Pentecost 17) we find: “Lord of all power and might, who art the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of thy name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of thy great mercy keep us in the same.” 17th century English schismatics got it right. Can’t we? But what will you hear on Sunday?

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Almighty God,
every good thing comes from you.
Fill our hearts with love for you,
increase our faith,
and by your constant care
protect the good you have given us.

ARRRGHHH!

What does the prayer really say? Your indomitable Lewis & Short Dictionary explains that insero means “to sow, plant in, engraft, implant.” I really like that “graft”, chosen also by the Anglicans of yore. Going on, optimum does not mean “perfect”, but rather “best.” I think we can get away with “perfect”, given that we are applying “best” to what God has.

The abovementioned LA 51 states that “deficiency in translating the varying forms of addressing God, such as Domine, Deus, Omnipotens aeterne Deus, Pater, and so forth, as well as the various words expressing supplication, may render the translation monotonous and obscure the rich and beautiful way in which the relationship between the faithful and God is expressed in the Latin text”. Today the priest invokes God as Deus virtutum, an expression in St. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate Psalter (Ps 58:6; 79:5 ff; 83:9; 88;9) often translated as “God of hosts.” Don’t confuse “host” as “army, multitude” with the wheat wafer used at Mass. Virtutum is genitive plural of virtus,“manliness; strength, vigor; bravery, courage; aptness, capacity; power” etc. Jerome chose virtutum to render the Hebrew tsaba’, “that which goes forth, an army, war, a host.” Tsaba’ describes variously hosts of soldiers, of celestial bodies, and of angels. In the Sanctus of Mass and in the great Te Deum we echo the myriads of angels bowed low in the liturgy of heaven before God’s throne: Holy, Holy, Holy LORD GOD SABAOTH …. God of “heavenly hosts” or, as ICEL put it in 1973, God “of power and might”. I think “O mighty God of hosts” conveys what LA 51 is saying we should have.

Notice that we pray to God for an increase in “religion.” I take this to refer to the virtue of religion. Last week I wrote about the difference between “values” and “virtues”. Let’s make more distinctions. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines “religion” in the glossary toward the back of the newer English edition: a set of beliefs and practices followed by those committed to the service and worship of God. The first commandment requires us to believe in God, to worship and serve him, as the first duty of the virtue of religion (cf. also CCC 2084 and 2135). The Angelic Doctor says in his mighty Summa (II-II, 81, 1) that religion is the virtue by which men exhibit due worship and reverence to God as the creator and supreme ruler of all things. We must acknowledge dependence on God by rendering Him a due and fitting worship both interiorly (e.g., by acts of devotion, reverence, thanksgiving, etc.) and exteriorly (e.g., external reverence, liturgical acts, etc.). The virtue of religion can be sinned against by idolatry, superstitions, sacrilege, and blasphemy. We creatures must recognize who God is and act accordingly both inwardly and outwardly. When this at last becomes habitual for us, then we have the virtue of religion. A virtue is a habit. One good act does not make us virtuous. If being prudent or temperate or just, etc., is hard for us, then we don’t yet have the virtue. This petition in the Collect follows immediately from our desire that God “graft” (insere) love of His Holy Name into our hearts. We move from the title of God the angels and saints never tire of repeating in their everlasting liturgy in heaven: HOLY, they say, HOLY, again and again forever, HOLY. Then we beg for all good things to be nourished in us by God as He increases in us the virtue of religion leading to the proper interior and exterior actions that necessarily flow from recognizing who God truly is and who we are.

This Sunday’s Collect has images of armies. I think it not a stretch to imagine also orchard or vine tending. On the one hand, the God of hosts guards the good things we have. On the other, this same mighty God is grafting love into us and then nourishing it so it can grow.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O mighty God of hosts, of whom is the entirety of what is perfect,
graft into our hearts the love of your name, and grant,
that by means of an increase of the virtue of religion,
you may nourish in us the things which are good,
and, by means of vigilant zeal, guard the things which have been nourished.

The Pastor the the infamous breakaway parish St. Joan of Arc in my home town of Minneapolis published this in the parish bulletin. I tip my biretta to the Stella Borealis blog. o{]:¬)

In the following the emphasis is mine as are my comments:

Pastor’s 2 Cents: Fr. Jim DeBruycker:

In Catholic theology, church teaching is often divided between Traditio and Tradita. Traditio is the enduring teachings, the dogma of the Church, the Nicene Creed being the most prominent. It is the great Tradition of eternal truths. Tradita is the lesser accumulated beliefs and customs, i.e., what color cassock can a monsignor wear on Easter. Our salvation does not depend on it, unless of course, you are a monsignor. [Har! Har! Har!]

Arguments arise over what is Traditio and what is purely custom. I would say the closer a custom comes to an eternal truth the deeper and greater the theological agreement becomes. Theological sanctions against abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment deal with first principles of life and rightly come under the heading of Tradition.

Who is ordained is one of those issues which comes right at the intersection of Traditio and tradita. There is evidence that married men and women were ordained priests, if not bishops [underscore that "not], at different times in the Church.[Noooo… the only groups who had any female priestesses were heretical groups. The Catholic Church never had female priesthood.] From about the seventh century on in the Latin Rite, a celibate clergy become more and more the rule. John Paul II saw it and defined it as part of the Traditio. Of course, a lot of people are not happy with this and feel there is argument for what they see as an older tradition. [Big deal. Priestly celibacy in the West and the issue of ordaining women are like apples and giraffes. They ought not be confused or conflated.]

An example of this was in last week’s bulletin. There was an ad for Womenpriests Celebrate the Eucharist. Needless to say, the phone calls and emails have arrived in force. In this case they are correct. The magisteriam [Magisterium] does not recognize their ordination or their celebration of the Eucharist as a sacrament [But it does "recognize" them as scandalous actions that attack the unity of the Church, risk eternal hell, and deserve excommunication as a remedial sanction.]. The way we presented this in the bulletin as if it was no more than a small protest, has been interpreted by some as cavalier. It borders on schism and is not sanctioned by the magisterian [yet another spelling] as a valid sacrament. I know this sounds overtly pedantic and patriarchal [consider the audience, folks, consider the audience] but it would be a lie to pretend it was not portentous. I am sure Dr. Irvin’s presentation “Ancient and Contemporary Models of Womenpriests and Deacons” will be learned and factual [or a tissue of lies and mistakes], but it doesn’t change present [?] Church teaching.

I don’t say often enough how much I love being a priest. In all honesty I often don’t invite others into the priesthood because I feel how exclusionary it is to women [So? Just invite MEN and you won’t have this problem!]. I do not have an answer to the pain and anguished burning when those who want to serve are excluded. [I have a couple.]

The Gospel today sends up the question “What is of vital importance? What is God’s law? What is human tradition?" Some of it will wait to be found out in eternity, until then we must follow the most patriarchal of Apostles, James. [Luther didn’t like him either.]

Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world.