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

I have read in the ENGLISH language converage that the German expert on Islam mentioned by the Pope during his Regensburg Address, Prof. Adel Theodor Khoury, distanced himself from the Pope’s remarks.  However, if you read the story, he didn’t do that.  Here is what he said to the "Reuters of Germany" the DPA:

«Ich hätte mir ein paar Worte der Differenzierung gewünscht. Zwei, drei Zeilen hätten viel bewirkt» ...  "I would have wished for a few words of differentiation.  Two or three  lines would have accomplished a great deal." 
....
«Ein unkluges oder gar fahrlässiges Verhalten des Papstes kann ich nicht erkennen», ... "I do not see any imprudent or reckless behavior on the Pope’s part."

So, the prof is saying that this might have been softened a bit had the Pope said a little bit more about that citation, but that he didn’t see any thing in the use of it, per se, as being thoughtless or negligent.  The professor even made the remark in that article that he himself has had to say at times that once upon a time people spoke in way that didn’t reflect his own point of view. 

In the older, traditional calendar of the Roman Church, used usually with celebrations of Holy Mass with the 1962 Missale Romanum today is also the feast of the Impression of the Stigmata on St. Francis. The feast has brought to my mind the amazing figure of St. Francis. One episode of his life leaps to the fore.

In 1219 St. Francis and some companions went to Egypt and met with Sultan Melek-el-Kamel (who had returned Jerusalem to the Christians). There at the court Francis challenged their scholars to a "trial by fire" concerning whose religion was true, Christianity or Islam. Francis offered to be the first to enter the fire on the condition that if he went unscathed, the Sultan would have to convert. The Sultan did not agree but, impressed by Francis’s courage and faith, allowed him to preach in his territory and even to Muslims. The Sultan did not kill Francis. He let him go on his way and respected him.

A couple hundred years later, the penultimate Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus (A family name of a dynasty, by the way) had around the year 1391 a dialogue with a "learned Persian", who was of course a Muslim, about the truth of their respective religions. The dialogues, set down at Constantinople, between Emperor and Persian did not end with the Emperor having the Persian put to death. Their discussion was civilized, though substantive and hard hitting.

These two cases, both in the time when faith and reason had not yet been divorced one from the other, before authority and intellect came to be seen as contradictory, are fascinating. In the one case, the theocratic ruler of the state, a Sultan has a hard hitting but civilized dialogue with a Christian traveler. In the second case the theocratic ruler of the state is a Christian who has a hard hitting but civilized dialogue with a Persian Muslim traveler.

Constantinople, the jewel of the Eastern Roman Empire, with its fusion of cultures in a Christian context, fell to the Islamic ruler Mehmet some 60 years after the civilized dialogue of Manuel and the Persian. The Christian culture would be destroyed, Islamic law and religion were imposed, and many of the inhabitants were killed or enslaved.

In The Regensburg Address, the Pope actually said some things supportive of Islam, when considered carefully in the context of the whole presentation. Remember that the Address was given at the Pope’s old university to a largely academic circle. Keep in mind also the Holy Father’s past and present interest in the writings of Venerable John Henry Newman, who wrote on the "idea of a university".

It is important that one grasps in this far ranging Address some different themes touched on by the Pope. First, the Pope argued that the interchange and fusion of Bibical faith with a critically purified Hellenistic philosophy is part of the warp and weft of both Christianity and of Europe. Remember that the Pope stated that Turkey (the site of the civilized dialogue before the fall of Constantinople) is now fundamentally foreign to the very concept of Europe and should not be admitted to the EU. The Pope has been battling against the dominant relativism in the West, with its divorce of reason and faith and the reduction of ethics and morality to merely personal preference. On the other hand, in his extremely important Message for the World Day of Peace (1 January 2006) he spoke of the violation of the Truth and therefore of true human rights by, on the one hand, nihilistic atheism which denies the existence of objective Truth and, on the other hand, fanatical religious ideologies (read "fanatical Islam") which seeks to impose by violence a version of their truth without respect to reason and human rights. Both of these violations of the Truth result in violence to the human person, both as individuals and in societies.

Benedict, in The Regensburg Address, underscored the need to keep reason at the basis of discussion. He began with an explanation that the whole concept of a university (universitas), a phenomenon which evolved in Christendom, must include also theology, not as a "science" or "literature", but as theology. The idea is that theology which truly concerns God as logos ("Logos means both reason and word—a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason.") maintains the wider and fuller exploration of the Truth, while a de-theologized purely scientific approach to questions results in making reality smaller and renders it incapable of bridging the gaps that exist between people and their cosmos. On the one hand the "dehellenization" of Christian theology and of Western philosophy has resulted in the fragmentation of human understanding (and therefore of cultures). On the other hand, a view of the divine and practice of religion which does not have a starting point of reason will fall into a view of God as capricious, detached from truth and goodness, and cannot provide a basis for human understanding or societal bonds.

While making a real critique of the "pathologies" afflicting Western thought, and also the fanatical Islamic approach given to violence, etc., Benedict nevertheless presents a scenario which would embrace contact with Islam. Here is what he said (my emphasis):

Only thus do we become capable of that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today. In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world’s profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions.

A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures. At the same time, as I have attempted to show, modern scientific reason with its intrinsically Platonic element bears within itself a question which points beyond itself and beyond the possibilities of its methodology. Modern scientific reason quite simply has to accept the rational structure of matter and the correspondence between our spirit and the prevailing rational structures of nature as a given, on which its methodology has to be based.

Yet the question why this has to be so is a real question, and one which has to be remanded by the natural sciences to other modes and planes of thought—to philosophy and theology. For philosophy and, albeit in a different way, for theology, listening to the great experiences and insights of the religious traditions of humanity, and those of the Christian faith in particular, is a source of knowledge, and to ignore it would be an unacceptable restriction of our listening and responding.

We must break this down a bit. First, the reduction of all thought to purely scientific categories has bad results for the West but some undeniable advancement for man have come from the scientific method. Islam has a lot to learn that is good from the West, including from the authentic tradition of Christian thought which does not divorce reason from faith while the West has a lot to learn about incorporating a focus on God (properly understood) into our "scientific" ways. The dialogue for the West is most certainly, in Benedict’s view, going to focus mainly on Christianity and the intellectual tradition which most closely guards its intellectual tradition (the Catholic Church), but by no means is Islam to be excluded from the Pope’s comments! The university can be a place where that takes place, a place where hard hitting but civilized dialogue can occur without feat of repression or violence. Remember, the Pope gave The Regensburg Address at his old university.

The Holy Father wrapped up his speech saying:

The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur—this is the program with which a theology grounded in biblical faith enters into the debates of our time.

"Not to act reasonably (with logos) is contrary to the nature of God," said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university.

This statement, as those above, is clearly open to proper and respectful dialogue with Islam. Also, it was all about the "idea of the university", which was the setting for the Address.

The first modern experience the Holy See had with Islamic terror was in St. Peter’s square on 13 May 1981. 

The Soviets wanted JP2 dead.  They asked the Bulgarians to help and they found someone predisposed to shoot a Pope: Mehmet Ali AÄŸca, an Islamic Turk. 

Sure there were other factors, political and economic.   The fact remains that an Islamic Turk shot the Pope. 

Rhetorical question: Where is the continuing denunciation of this outrageous act of violence on the part of the muslim world?   Was there any in 1981?

Pope Benedict XVI’s Regensburg Address has this momentous event for a backdrop.

Pope Benedict XVI has brought this whole issue into the bright light of day via his remarks in Regensburg, which I am starting to call The Regensburg Address.  I think this talk will have historic repercussion and we will look back at it one day as being very significant.  The Pope is a smart man, surrounded by smart people who must have also read his address ahead of time and advised him about the possible repercussions.  The Pope decided to read that text and not some other text.  It is not out of the question that the Pope understood that many would take his remarks badly.  Surely he did not want people injured or killed.  He cannot, however, remain silent in the face of the suffering of so many Christians, and others, in repressive Islamic states.

The Pope made serious points concerning the reality of Christian Islamic dialog.  Here is one I take from the Address: Is it really possible?  If it is possible in some effective and valuable way (and I am not convinced that it is) it must be conducted on the basis of method of reason which does not seem to be in keeping with Islamic tenets about the nature of God.  Perhaps the best we can hope for is effective dialog with Islamic states rather than with Islamic religious leaders.   I don’t know.  Of course, in The Regensburg Address His Holiness also identified the pathology inflicting Western thought on theology and metaphysics, religion and reason.  The talk was aimed straight at the alienation of reason and religion and metaphysics and science, etc.

In any event, the Vatican already has had some up close and personal experience of Islamic terror.   I think Peter has something to say to the Islamic world as well as to the West.

The Holy Father gave his Angelus address today at Castlegandolfo. At the beginning he departed from his text many times to console those present who were being treated to heavy rain. The press reacted instantly, stating that the Pope apologized. However, if you listen to what he said, he did not. Let’s look at the Italian and figure out what the Pope really said (which was broadcast live by Al-Jazeera, among others).

Yes, he spoke of the reaction of muslims to his address in Regensburg. He said that he was "vivamente rammaricato" ... "deeply regretful" about the reactions resultings over his use of a brief medieval text which, he stressed, did not express, in any way, his personal opinion of muslims. He underscored that he was citing a medieval text.

Benedict said that Card. Bertone, the new Secretary of State stated already the "real sense" ("autentico senso") of his words. He hoped that people would pay attention to what he actually said. He added that what we need is frank and sicnere dialog with great reciprocal respect. He said that the whole text was and is an invitation to dialog.

«Sono vivamente rammaricato per le reazioni suscitate da un breve passo del mio discorso all’Universita di Ratisbona, ritenuto offensivo per la sensibilita dei credenti musulmani».

Benedict did not use the stronger phrase "chiedere scusa", or "apologize". He did not use the construction "mi sono rammaricato" (rammaricarsi) , which would have meant "I am sorry about" something. He used "vivamente rammaricato" or "deeply sorry" but in the sense of "regretful" or "disappointed" about the reactions following his speech. In fact, the phrase "sono vivamente rammaricato per le reazioni" could really mean "I am deeply wounded by the reactions". [UPDATE: The official English translation released after the fact says: "I am deeply sorry for the reactions"]

It is true that he distanced himself from that text. He said that Paleologus’s words were not his sentiments. You can say that this was an apology if you add all the elements together, but …. there it is. It won’t be enough, of course, for many (for the "thick"). It can be interpreted as an apology and, in a sense, it MUST be. There are in Islamic countries Christian communities in grave peril. Had the Pope not said something like this, those people would be in even greater danger. He had to apologize without apologizing while keeping his agenda on the table.

He added some additional insightful comments about the liturgical feasts of the Exaltation of the Cross and of the Sorrowful Mother. He added that the scandel of the Cross, considered a foolishness to the pagans, helps man to overcome slavery to sign. The Cross, symbol of death and of love, defeats hatred and violence and generates eternal life. In the hype about the comments at Regensburg, don’t forget to read everything Benedict said about the meaning of the Cross for our own sufferings. It was wonderful.

I was very pleased that His Holiness did not grovel over this. Indeed, his words in German to the German pilgrims were rather poignant in his reference to suffering in difficult situations.

The upshot of today’s address was: "Read the whole text and then let’s have a real discussion based on what I really said, not based on a brief citation I used in the speech."

He said he would speak more at length during his upcoming Wednesday audience.

In the meantime, Corriere della Sera rushed to put on its website that the Pope "apologized" ... "il Papa chiede scusa" ... to muslims. Well… yes and no.

Of course, the reaction of the press and muslim world underscores the point the Pope made in Regensburg. Christians are not treated fairly by muslims, violence is used against them, and reason is not employed. The Pope wanted to bring the use of violence (read "jihad") onto the table. Muslims cannot critically examine their own texts, as Christians do. Real theological dialog with muslims is not possible. Benedict stated that Islam thinks that Allah can be contradictory, which is absolutely different from Christian thought about God. But more on that later.

In the meantime, the muslim goverment in Sudan is committing genocide at Darfur.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? Exaltation of the Cross (24th Sunday of Ordinary Time)

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2003

Again the ubiquitous Rome correspondent of the left-leaning National Catholic Reporter, Mr. John L. Allen, Jr., writes in his “The Word From Rome” column of 29 August 2003 that the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments (CDW) “will host a meeting of the presidents of English-speaking bishops’ conferences on Oct. 21 to discuss liturgical translation. General issues are to include: The roles of the Vatican’s liturgy congregation and bishops’ conferences; more effective communication and consultation; and inculturation, in light of the third edition of the Roman Missal and a 1994 set of Vatican guidelines urging caution in integrating local customs into the liturgy.” We are seeing now put into action what I have for some time contended is the key to understanding the CDW’s 2001 document Liturgiam authenticam (LA), establishing norms for vernacular liturgical translations: inculturation. LA was the fifth instruction issued by the CDW for the proper implementation of the Second Vatican Council’s great Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy entitled Sacrosanctum Concilium. It followed the fourth instruction in 1994 called Varietates legitimae (VL) concerning a proper inculturation and permissible adaptations of the liturgy. Indeed LA and VL must be read in light each other. Inculturation, properly, understood will be the key principle at the foundation of the new English translations being prepared following upon the release of the third edition of the Missale Romanum in 2002.

There is more news on the liturgical front. The head of the Vatican’s hyper-dicastery, Secretary of State Angelo Card. Sodano recently spoke at a conference in Acireale Italy for National Liturgical Week. Forty years after the promulgation of Sacrosanctum Concilium His Eminence now states that, according the news account from Zenit.org, it is right to examine the way the pivotal Constitution was has been implemented in the last four decades, in order to “relaunch” it. Card. Sodano said, "Forty years later, it is right to ask what the liturgical reform itself has represented for the renewal of Christian communities, to what degree the liturgy, reformed according to the indications of the council, is able to mediate between faith and life, so that it forms believers able to offer consistent evangelical testimony”. He continued, “it is useful to ask oneself with clarity and sincerity if the reform has experienced some weak point and where, and, above all, how it can be relaunched for the good of the Christian people.” Resonating with what countless Catholics have been facing in the pews for decades now, His Eminence proposed that “perhaps some of the principles of the constitution have to be better understood and more faithfully applied.” In particular, he said, “it is useful to analyze some specific topics such as, for example, the relation between creativity and fidelity, between spiritual worship and life, between catechesis and celebration of the Mystery, between liturgical presidency and role of the assembly, between formation in the seminaries and the permanent formation of priests.”

Soon, hopefully, we will see a document about liturgical issues come forth from the CDW and we will hear tales of the meeting in October about translations, inculturation and the role of the bishops in their conferences in the process. Friends, pray for your bishop. His cares are many and the issue and duty of preparing translations is but one of his cares. While liturgy and its content is arguably “the source and summit” of our Catholic Christian lives, radiating its power into the farthest corners even of our moral lives, it will be a great temptation for the bishop, in the midst of many many administrative cares, law suits and funds to be raised, parish visits and unending committee meetings, to shuffle into the lap of some willing liturgist all the documentation and letters about translations he is being sent by the ream. If anything has been borne out over the years, liturgy and translations have received short shrift, at least insofar as they have required rectifying and the order of discipline.

But now hopes are raised. In the background many begin to think that words such as “discipline” and “reverence” have not been forgotten while from the podium and the press we hear words such as “relaunch” and “analyze” and, from such as the Cardinal Prefect of the CDW, “We want to respond to the spiritual hunger and sorrow so many of the faithful have expressed to us because of liturgical celebrations that seemed irreverent and unworthy of true adoration of God. You might sum up our document with words that echo the final words of the Mass: ‘The do-it-yourself Mass is ended. Go in peace.’”

We should encourage Cardinal Arinze:
His Eminence
Francis Card. Arinze
Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship
and Discipline of the Sacraments
00120 Vatican City

POST COMMUNIONEM
LATIN (2002 Missale Romanum – 24th Sunday):
Mentes nostras et corpora possideat,
quaesumus, Domine, doni caelestis operatio,
ut non noster sensus in nobis,
sed eius praeveniat semper effectus.

This was the Postcommunio of the 15th Sunday after Pentecost in the 1962MR with the slight change of the change of an adverb semper for iugiter : …sed iugiter eius praeveniat effectus.

Our Virgil leading us through the dark woods of Latin vocabulary, the Lewis & Short Dictionary explains that the verb possideo is “to have and hold, to be master of, to own, possess” and also “to take possession of, to occupy.” An operatio is “a working, work, labor, operation” and by extension it means “a religious performance, service, or solemnity, a bringing of offerings: operationes denicales, offerings”. In ancient Christian authors it means, “beneficence, charity” (cf. Lactantius 6, 12 and Prudentius Psychomachia 573). Sensus , Å«s, m. (from the verb sentio) means “the faculty or power of perceiving, perception, feeling, sensation, sense”. In a corporeal sense it applies to “perception, feeling, sensation” and in a mental sense, it is for “feeling, sentiment, emotion, affection; sense, understanding, capacity; humor, inclination, disposition, frame of mind”. By extension, among other things, it is “the common feelings of humanity, the moral sense, taste, discretion, tact in intercourse with men, often called in full sensus communis (sometimes with hominum)” Effectus, which dervies from efficio, still means what it meant back in the Post communion on the 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time, that is, “to make out, work out; hence, to bring to pass, to effect, execute, complete, accomplish, make, form” and as a substantive, effectus, “worked out, i. e., effected, completed”. Praevenio signifies, “to come before, precede, get the start of, to outstrip, anticipate, to prevent; to come or go beforehand (late Latin).” We looked at this word at length in the column on the Post communion of the feast of Epiphany with a digression about the theological distinction made when speaking of actual graces and gratia praeveniens or “prevenient grace” and sometimes even “preventing grace”.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
May the religious work of bringing the offering of the heavenly gift,
we beseech, O Lord, possess our minds and bodies,
so that its effect and not our common inclination
have precedence within us.

The vocabulary of our prayer today is very dense, and so our English translation will suffer if we try to come up with one-to-one equivalents for the Latin elements. For example, the word sensus has great weight. It means more than simply “sense”. Even in a non-theological source such as the preferred Latin Dictionary of fame we find that sensus carries meaning beyond what we might perceive by the five physical senses of the body or by the perceiving powers of the mind. It points to that which is common to all human beings, “common sense”. This not the “common sense” which we might have (or lack) in, for example, not standing too close with our back to the lions’ cage when posing for a photo. This is also not the Kantian a priori principle of every judgment of taste, the Kantian term for the so-called subjective principle which determines only by feeling rather than concepts, though nonetheless with universal validity, what is liked or disliked by all people. It is not quite the ancient Greek idea of koine aisthesis according to the Aristotle (De anima – II,6, 418a17-20) which applies to our capacities of perceiving objects through more than one sense. Aristotle suggests a “common sense” power by which we perceive things. Medieval Aristotelians suggest that sensus communis is the root and origin of all sensing. Thus we are able to hear the roar, feel the bite and then see the shaggy mane and realize that it is the one and the same lion gnawing us as he drags our leg into the cage … when we lack the other sort of common sense. So, we might say that this is the power of uniting mentally the impressions conveyed by the five physical senses which constitutes ordinary understanding, without which one is foolish or insane and thus prone to lack common sense.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord,
may the eucharist you have given us
influence our thoughts and actions.
May your Spirit guide and direct us in your way.

Take careful note of how, in the Latin, we are asking that Christ in the Eucharist be Lord of our entire person, both body and soul. The priest prays for us that, by the graces we receive through a good Holy Communion, our mere human gifts of senses and perception, even our impulses and inclinations, both physical and psychological, wounded as they are and still reduced in this world through the unreconstructed effects of original sin, not be the only arbiter in what we accomplish in life in thought and action through our minds and bodies (mentes et corpora). We need those human impulses when they are good and proper and under the control of discipline through our will and the aid of grace. But we suffer terrible wounds to our will and intellect because of Original Sin. We resist graces sometimes. Our own wicked habits do terrible damage. Left to ourselves, what good would we be inclined to do? And when we are inclined, how great a struggle is it? By our baptism we are admitted to the source of such strength that we can live well and please our God, in whose image we are made. May the Eucharistic Lord truly possess us and be admitted into every aspect of our lives, physical and spiritual, so that what we think and do may be pleasing to Him.

POST COMMUNIONEM
LATIN (2002 Missale Romanum – Exultation of the Holy Cross):
Refectione tua sancta enutriti,
Domine Iesu Christe, supplices deprecamur,
ut, quos per lignum crucis vivificae redemisti,
ad resurrectionis gloriam perducas.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Having been nourished upon your holy repast,
O Lord Jesus Christ, we supplicants earnestly pray,
that you may lead through to the glory of the resurrection
those whom you redeemed through the wood of the life-giving Cross.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord Jesus Christ,
you are the holy bread of life.
Bring to the glory of the resurrection
the people you have redeemed by the wood of the Cross.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  24th Sunday of Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2006

I have some clerical matters to resolve before we begin our week’s work.  Some clerics have kindly sent correspondence.

Fr. DC of OH writes by e-mail (edited): “I’ve enjoyed reading your column on WDTPRS over the years.  ...  For the past year or so I’ve been offering the Tridentine (indult) Mass a couple of times a month.  In getting to know the people, many of whom came from the St. Pius X group, a good number say they do not think that the Novus Ordo Mass is valid because of the faulty translation of ‘pro multis.’   My thought is this:  If Pope Benedict XVI were to mandate that the correct translation be used, this would undermine the argument many traditionalists have against the Novus Ordo Mass (or, as Fr. Frank Phillips of the Society of St. John Cantius in Chicago calls it, the ‘Missa Normativa’).  I think this is an added argument for a correct translation on this point, which can supplement your already eloquent and convincing arguments. ... Let us pray for a good translation, and that Pope Benedict issue a document based upon the synod last year that will bring about an authentic, and much-needed, reform of the reform.”  Thanks, Reverend and Dear Father for those good comments.  Thanks also for being generous with your time and energy in celebrating Mass for people who desire the 1962 Missale Romanum.   I agree that a correct translation would take a little of the steam out of some of our more traditionally oriented brothers and sisters.  However, my experience is that some of them would immediately batten onto another flaw they find in the Novus Ordo and continue to pick at it.  If it’s not one thing, it’s another.   Nevertheless, your point is very good.  I would add another point.  The phrase in the consecration pro multis must be translated correctly not just because it would help to bolster ecumenical efforts (don’t forget the Orthodox), but especially because it’s the right thing to do.

Fr. TJ of ND has also sent an electronic missive (edited): “I know this is kind of old news; but I had missed reading through a few copies of The Wanderer from the time I was on vacation last May.   I really liked your in depth exposition of the Easter Mystery in the WDTPRS column for the Fourth Sunday of Easter (4 May 2006).  May I print it in the weekend bulletin of my parishes this coming Easter 2007?  I can hardly wait.  I want to go ahead and transcribe it into my Easter 2007 Bulletin template on my PC.”   Sure, Father, it would be an honor.  I remember working on that for a long time.  I found a couple typos in that copy, however.  I can send you a cleaner, revised version.  Moreover, may I kindly ask that you refer to the fact that it was printed in The Wanderer and was not merely online?  Perhaps your parishioners would enjoy the opportunity to get copies of The Wanderer through your parish.   You can contact the offices of the The Wanderer to find out how to make that happen.

I received a substantial number of messages about the “consubstantial” issue.  Here is one from frequent correspondent Fr. TJ of ND (edited): “There is no argument, ‘consubstantial’ is a great word.  However, I was thinking about a couple of possible alternatives that might convey the meaning and have a ‘historical’ precedent: I am referring to the translation from 1963 or 1964 … of the Creed as it appeared in the 1964 Roman Missal and again in the 1966 Sacramentary.  Moreover, I found in my vintage People’s Mass Book hymnals of the same era the phrase: ‘Begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father.’  As well, I wondered whether the phrase: ‘One in substance with the Father’ (replacing the word ‘being’ in the current version of the Creed with the word ‘substance’) might also capture the same sense and meaning, without the four syllable, compound word ‘consubstantial’.”  Thanks, Fr. TJ, for the good observations.  I think we need to avoid the word “being” and opt for “substance” and some way to communicate “with” (which is what “consubstantial” does).  

On this same note, JH writes by e-mail: “As a boy in the Augustana Lutheran Synod I was given a book of church history that had a word I have always loved and seen as the sign of Orthodoxy.  I refer to homoousian.  The word, in my naiveté as a child, seemed perfectly clear and I also developed a life long admiration for Athanasius, the young hero of the Constantinople Synod.  Why not insert it at that point of the Creed?  Whatever happened to the Athanasian Creed, by the way?”  Well, JH, you are demonstrating what I have said all along in these columns: people aren’t stupid.  Give them a challenge, and they will rise to it.  Dumb everything down and they will drift away.  That said, I am not so sure I would insert the Greek technical term into the English text.  Furthermore, that simply isn’t going to happen.  We need an English solution unless we are going to use the Latin text.  Since most of us are of the Latin Rite, that is a good option, no?  What does it mean for us Latins that so many of us virtually never hear the language of our Rite?

The so-called Athanasian Creed (or Symbolum Quicumque), probably came from 5th century Latin Gaul and was attributed to the Greek speaking St. Athanasius of Alexandria (+373).  The eminent Patristic scholar J.N.D. Kelly, who wrote a book on this Creed, suggests that St. Vincent of Lérin (+c. 435) might have been the author.  The Creed is marvelous for its clarity.  Pope Paul VI quoted it in his wonderful Credo of the People of God.   The Athanasian Creed was composed to combat the heresies of Arianism and Monophysitism.  For centuries it was recited for the liturgical hour of Prime.  We do not use the Athanasian Creed now in the post-Conciliar liturgy, probably because it is a purely Western text, having no common counterpart in Greek.  Still, this beautiful and clear Creed could be a wonderful starting point for study, prayer and meditation.

We now move on to our examination of what ICEL called the “Prayer over the gifts” for the upcoming Sunday’s Mass.

SUPER OBLATA (2002MR):
Propitiare, Domine, supplicationibus nostris,
et has oblationes famulorum tuorum benignus assume,
ut quod singuli ad honorem tui nominis obtulerunt,
cunctis proficiat ad salutem.

This prayer, which is at least as old as the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary, was in the pre-Conciliar editions of the Missale Romanum as the Secret of the 5th Sunday after Pentecost.  In the more ancient form, however, the priest said “famulorum famularumque tuarum”.  In a way that is more “inclusive” in that it has both the masculine and feminine forms of famulus.  gasp!  The Novus Ordo version left out the women!  Actually not… you all know by now that Latin masculine plurals include both sexes.

The Lewis & Short Dictionary, no doubt on the desks of every member of ICEL, tells us that propitio is a verb meaning “to render favorable, to appease, propitiate”.  Propitiare (a second person singular present passive imperative) means something like “be thou appeased”.  I suppose that if ICEL is not using “deign” in the new translations, they might not use “appease” either.  We shall see.  Supplicatio is from supplex, which the etymological dictionary of Latin by Ernout and Meillet says describes one who is bending his knees in the attitude of a suppliant (humbly begging).  The root plico means to fold or bend.  Supplicatio means “a public prayer or supplication, a religious solemnity in consequence of certain (fortunate or unfortunate) public events; a day set apart for prayer, either by way of thanksgiving or of religious humiliation, genuflection.”  So, inhering in the very fabric of this prayer is the concept of the Church making its humble petition on bended knee.  If the priest is standing while pronouncing this prayer and in the Novus Ordo the congregation is standing, they are very soon required by the rubrics to kneel.  And if this is the attitude when raising the offering, how much more ought it be when receiving the fruits of that offering at Holy Communion?   

We have described famulus quite a few times in these columns.  If you, like Fr. TJ, save them check out the 19 July 2001 issue of The Wanderer or consult the internet archive for WDTPRS on the Collect of the 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time.  I described famulus, “servant”, and its origin in great detail.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Be appeased by our humble solemn prayers, O Lord,
and kindly accept these the sacrificial gifts of Your servants,
so that what individuals raise up unto the honor of Your Name,
may for all people be profitable unto salvation.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord,
hear the prayer of your people
and receive our gifts.
May the worship of each one here
bring salvation to all.

In this lame-duck ICEL rendering, now in use, there is no hint of humility in the prayer other, I suppose, than the fact that we are bothering to pray at all.  Notice how this version strips the original of most of its content, including the fact that we are supplicants before God’s majesty.

Look for a moment at the translation of today’s prayer in the

1959 Saint Joseph Daily Missal:
Be propitious to our supplications, O Lord,
and graciously receive these oblations of Your servants and handmaids,
that what each one offered to the glory of Your name,
may profit all to salvation.

Okay, this version admittedly could be a little too “Latinate” for our tastes today, but it does not attempt to evacuate the content or attitude of prayer.  Let’s see a different rendering from another old “hand missal”.

1962 Saint Andrew Bible Missal:  
O Lord, be pleased by our prayers,
and in your goodness accept these gifts from your sons and daughters.
May the salvation of all be assured
by what each has offered to the glory of your name.

I don’t like the division into two sentences, which ruins the flow of the prayer.  Again, the translator did not attempt either to excise our humble attitude or lobotomize us as participants.  All the elements of the Latin original are there and it is properly terse.

A priest friend who is a professor of Scripture often urged me to introduce into these columns a version that was not so slavishly close to the Latin original.  I don’t know if this is interesting to you readers or not, but here it is.  

A SMOOTHER WDTPRS VERSION:
Look favorably upon us, O Lord, for our humble prayers,
and in Your kindness accept these sacrificial gifts
Your servants are now raising up to You,
so that what each of us as individuals will offer in honor of Your Name
may advance the salvation of us all.

One of the things I love about this prayer is how it underscores our unity as baptized members of the Body of Christ.  The actions of an individual affect the whole.  When we sin, we harm the whole Church.  When we live according to the life of grace and fulfill our vocations, we build Christ’s Body.  The way we celebrate Mass and participate in the sacred mysteries truly makes a difference.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2005

I received interesting feedback via e-mail from the Land of the Rising Sun.  PAS of Tokyo, who signs as “Vox clamantis in deserto”, writes (edited): “Your article on the Collect for the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time reminded me of the Utopians’ classification of pleasures: they distinguish various sorts of pleasure, bodily, spiritual, intellectual, this worldly, transcendental – (voluptas, laetitia, delectatio, gaudium), and consider the gaudium (i.e., visio beatifica) the highest of all pleasures (cf., Edward L. Surtz, S.J., The Philosophy of Pleasure).  The ICEL tends, it seems, to emphasize the mundane and certainly subjective joy at the expense of objective reality of joy, especially of beatitudo.  So do the mainstream ‘liturgists’ here in Japan.  Ever thankful for your column….”  I wrote back to PAS and queried him about a topic all WDTPRSers are interested in: the vernacular translation of pro multis during the consecration of the Precious Blood.  He responded (edited): “The official Japanese translation is ‘ohku no hito’ (pro multis), but liberal priests who would let the congregation recite the doxologia maior or more of the Canon prefer ‘mina no tame’ (pro omnibus), which I think comes from the misunderstanding by Jeremias of rabbim and sagg i’in .... The Japanese translation of liturgical texts is catastrophic: our ‘liturgists’ (largely influenced by U.S. style Call-To-Action type ideology), ill educated literally and theologically, completely ignored Inaestimabile donum, Liturgiam authenticam, Sacramentum redemptionis and many others (i.e., Cafeteria Catholicism).” 

YES, PAS!  He even points a well educated finger at Joachim Jeremias and the job he did on the Greek word polloi (“many”) in the New Testament’s presentation of the events of the Last Supper.  In a nutshell, Jeremias set out to convince everyone that polloi meant “all” and liturgical progressivists swallowed the bait, hook, line and sinker.  Jeremias stated openly that he was trying to develop an understanding of the Greek text that would avoid the offense of Catholic teaching, namely, that while Christ poured out His Blood for all, the merits of His death would in fact be applied only to the many who would accept them.  Jeremias performed a philological fan dance worthy of Salome so as to make a Greek word mean something it had never meant in the history of the language based on His supposition about what Jesus might have said in Aramaic.  Jeremias argued, in effect, that the Greek New Testament account of Jesus’ words and deeds at the Last Supper was wrong and that the Fathers of the Church and Magisterium have been wide of the mark all this time.  Yes folks, the reason why we are being required to hear “for all” during the consecration is most likely because “experts” accepted Jeremias’ argument that Scripture was wrong.

Today’s Collect was not in a previous edition of the Roman Missal but there was an antecedent in the ancient Veronese Sacramentary during the month of September.

COLLECT - (2002MR):
Respice nos, rerum omnium Deus creator et rector,
et, ut tuae propitiationis sentiamus effectum,
toto nos tribue tibi corde servire.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Almighty God,
our creator and guide,
may we serve you with all our heart
and know your forgiveness in our lives.

In your personal copy of the hefty Lewis & Short Dictionary, you will find that respicio means in the first place, “to look back, behind; to look to something.”  Thereafter it also signifies, “have regard, turn attention to” and by extension “look at with solicitude; to have a care for, regard, be mindful of.”   The imperative forms respice and tribue are very common in Latin prayers.  Keep in mind also that the imperative or “command” mood of a verb in Latin, depending on the context, can have a range of meaning from a command to a heartfelt wish.  We are most decidedly not bossing God around by using an imperative.

Propitiatio means “an appeasing; atonement, propitiation”.  One of the references L&S lists is from Ambrose’s commentary on the biblical Song of Songs.  A. Souter’s A Glossary of Later Latin to 600 A.D. says that it can also mean the propitiatory sacrifice itself.  A. Blaise’s (reworked by A. Dumas) Le vocabulaire latin des principaux thèmes liturgiques confirms this.  Blaise also says that forms related to propitiatio are often accompanied in various ancient sacramentaries by imperative verbs like absolve, adesto, concede, exaudi, intende, largire, praesta, respice, suscipe, etc.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Be mindful of us, O God, creator and ruler of all things,
and, in order that we may sense the effect of your act of atonement,
grant to us to serve you with our whole heart.

As I write this it is the feast day of the glorious N. African Bishop of Hippo, St. Augustine (+430).  In his autobiographical prayer to God called most often the Confessions the Doctor of Grace uses the phrase (3, 7): unus et verus creator et rector universitatis, which is strikingly like the first line of the Collect.   Augustine certainly knew the beautiful hymns of Milan’s bishop St. Ambrose (+397).  Augustine wrote that he had heard the singing of hymns in the cathedral at Milan before his baptism by Ambrose.  He says the words entered into his heart, made him weep and that the tears were good for him.  Ambrose provided for the Church down through the centuries a beautiful prayer in song called Deus Creator Omnium.  Most ancient volumes for the singing of the liturgical hours contained some version of the Ambrosian hymn, but oddly it was not in the pre-Vatican II Roman Breviary.  It is now, however, in the current Liturgia horarum ( sans the sixth and seventh verses) for First Vespers of Sundays during Ordinary Time.  Ambrose’s hymn played a dramatic role in Augustine’s life.  After his baptism by Ambrose, Augustine and his mother St. Monnica, his promising but short-lived son Adeodatus (+389), brother Navigius and friends were heading back to N. Africa where they were going to start a monastic community.  However, they were stuck for many months in Rome and its port Ostia due to a blockade of the harbor during a time of upheaval.  Monnica took ill of a fever and died there in 387.  Her dying words were, “Lay me anywhere you wish; all I ask is to be remembered at the altar of the Lord.”  In Book IX of the Confessions Augustine explains that when his mother died he was not able to grieve properly for her who, by her prayers, had done so much for him.  He tried different remedies, such as hot baths, which were thought in the ancient world to elicit the right emotional response, but to no avail.  Then one night, while he was singing the hymn of Ambrose, his tears finally came….  “Deus creator omnium / polique rector vestiens / diem decoro lumine, / noctem soporis gratia…  O God creator of all things, ruler of the turning axis of the heavens, clothing day with splendid light, and night with the grace of sleep….”  Augustine wept in Ostia.  

The great Creator and Ruler of all things sees to our needs with mercy even while He remains our Judge.  This ought to be a motivation for many different kinds of tears, not the least of which are tears of gratitude.  Recognition of God’s greatness and all that He has done for us, especially in the redeeming work of His Son on the Cross, must move us at all levels of the mind and heart.  That recognition must then prompt us to action and service in the love of God and our neighbor made in His image and likeness.

The concept of propitiation is central to this prayer.  Propitiation is a prayerful act of appeasement begging for God’s mercy because we are sinners and for mitigation of the punishments we justly deserve for our sins both in this world and temporal punishment in the next.  Propitiation is distinguished from impetration (from Latin impetro, “to accomplish, effect, bring to pass; to get, obtain, procure, especially by exertion, request, entreaty”).  Impetration is an appeal to God’s goodness asking for spiritual or temporal well-being for ourselves or others.  So, whereas by impetratory prayer we beg God for benefits, by propitiatory prayer we beg Him more specifically for the benefit of mercy and forgiveness.   

Throughout the ages people have raised the question of whether or not it makes any sense to pray to God at all, given the fact that – if God is truly God – then he is omniscient and utterly eternal, not limited by past, present or future.  There is no thing that has happened, is happening or could happen that God does not know.  God is entirely simple in His perfection and wholly unchangeable.  He orders all things to their proper end, which is what we call divine providence.  Since God’s will and His knowledge and being are the same, what God knows will come to pass must of necessity come to pass.  Does it make any sense or any difference to offer prayers to such a God?
 
Various solutions to this problem have been proposed over the centuries.  Among the ancients some held that human affairs are not ruled by any divine providence and so it useless to pray and to worship God at all.  Others held that all things, even in human affairs, happen from necessity, whether by reason of the immutability of divine providence, or through the compelling influence of the stars, cosmic or physical forces, or what have you.  This view similarly eliminates the utility of prayer.  Others held that divine providence indeed rules human affairs and things do not happen of necessity, but they thought that God and His providence is changeable, that His will is changed by our prayers and rites of worship.  What we as Catholics have to do, in figuring out what to pray and how, and even why to pray at all, is account for the usefulness and effectiveness of prayer in such a way as to avoid imposing fatalistic necessity on human affairs and also not to imply that any aspect of God is changeable.  We have to ask God for things without treating Him as if He were a cosmic concierge.  

St. Thomas Aquinas (+1274) looks into whether it is a fitting thing to pray to God (STh II, IIae, q. 83, a. 2) saying, “In order to throw light on this question we must consider that divine providence disposes not only what effects shall take place, but also from what causes and in what order these effects shall proceed. Now among other causes human acts are the causes of certain effects. Wherefore it must be that men do certain actions, not that thereby they may change the divine disposition, but that by those actions they may achieve certain effects according to the order of the divine disposition: and the same is to be said of natural causes. And so is it with regard to prayer. For we pray not that we may change the divine disposition, but that we may impetrate that which God has disposed to be fulfilled by our prayers, in other words, ‘that by asking, men may deserve to receive what Almighty God from eternity has disposed to give,’ as (St.) Gregory (the Great) says (Dialogues).”  The same applies to begging for God’s mercy (propitiatory prayer), which we can do with confidence.

In His earthly life Jesus demonstrated that our petitions are effective.  He was moved by His Mother at Cana to change water to wine, by the Syro-phoenician woman to exorcise her daughter, by the Good Thief to remember him in His Kingdom, and many others.  We know that the intercession of saints can obtain favors from God.  We were taught to pray to God the Father by God the Son Himself.  Our prayer should be raised to God with humility and gratitude for what we know He has disposed in His divine providence. He grants favors according to what from all eternity He has known about us, our needs and disposition.