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

In all the hype about limbo these days, keep some things in mind. When he met with the International theological Commission at the end of their work, Benedict XVI didn’t do two things: he didn’t give them a normal post-meeting meeting or a normal post-meeting address. Instead, he celebrated Mass with them and gave them a sermon about the work of the theologian.

In his sermon, the Pope spoke about silence as a necessary part of doing theology. Reminding everyone that in theology God is not the "object" but rather the "subject", he stated that for God to be able to speak to the world through theology in truth, the theologian must also be silent and contemplative before adding the veritable flood or words that innundates the world today. The theologian and theology must be purified in and by silence. This helps the theologian be obedient to the Word (remember logos? both "Word" and "reason"?) and become a "coworker of the Truth".

The Pope underscored his points with the example of St. Thomas Aquinas who, before he died, ceased speaking and writing with with the explanation that everything he had produced was like so much "straw". Benedict marvelously and optimistically turns this famous phrase, quoting Jean-Pierre Torrel, with the wonderful phrase: "La paglia non è niente … Straw isn’t nothing." In fact, dried stalks bear grain. Dried stalks have value in that they bear grain. At the same time, this image shows both how insufficient human efforts are and, at the same times, it gives those efforts real value. Our job, my job, as a theologian, the Pope is saying, is to make sure that our work is really bearing the grain of the Word of God ("...porti realmente il grano della Parola di Dio").

On a personal note, years ago when I worked in the Palace of the Holy Office, a couple days after he released his instruction On the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian I encountered Cardinal Ratzinger in the hallway and had a pleasant and very fruitful chat with him. I told him I had read the document through a couple times and he, with his characteristic kindness, asked my opinion about it. I responded to his surprise that I wasn’t satisified. "Why", he asked. I said, "There are quite a few pages there, but nowhere do you identify who a theologian is." He regarded me for a few seconds and then said, "Why don’t you tell us. You are working at the Augustinianum [the Patristic Institute literally across the street from the Holy Office building]. You are studying St. Augustine. Find out what St. Augustine thought a theologian is." That became the basis of my first thesis and I have him to thank for it. My point is that the Pope approaches the issue of theology and who the theologian is with great humility. I give this personal example as a tiny flicker of light to illuminate his own theological method.

Benedict XVI is always taking the time to interrogate the past about today’s burning questions. In helping me to a thesis topic, he did what a professor had done for him when he was young as he steered the young Ratzinger to go back to Augustine to explore what was meant by the "People of God", a much discussed question of those years. Even in his Regensburg Address, the Pope uses something of the past as a crowbar to pry open the difficult questions we face today.

He pries and prays and then pronounces.

This more than likely why, in his present role as Supreme Pontiff, he did not breathe even a single word about limbo in a sermon to the Theological Commission. He didn’t even mention it as something they had studied!

He is going to pry and pray before making a pronouncement and he wants everyone else to do the same. Let us not forget that he also told those theologians present (as well as other theologians in the world together with himself) that theological pronouncements must be subject first to silence and God’s will, rather than the bombastic pressure of the world’s expectations.

The world probably expected the Pope to be poltically correct about Islam. He was not. The Pope spoke. The Pope has probably figured out his best approach to Islam and to Europe and Christianity and, after considerable thought and prayer, he spoke boldly something he must have known would anger many people. On the other hand, limbo, being a theological solution proposed about the question of the effects of original sin, also is going to cause the politically correct to flare up. After all, the very idea of original sin, and consequences for any sort of sin is going to make some relativists and that ilk see red. In this case, however, rather than say something that might be pleasing to that side, the Pope spoke not even the word "limbo", though he could have very easily said at least something.

If you want a hammer with which to drive home my point, the Pope in these days announced the topic of the next Synod of Bishops: The Word of God in the Life and the Mission of the Church. I imagine that everyone is going to be thinking that this will focus on Scripture.

I think he has something more in mind.

This has come in via Rorate Coeli:

Now the magazine of Continental Ultra-progressivism…

Golias, the not incredibly popular magazine of French Ultra-progressive Catholic ideals, also publishes, in its current weekly issue, the information that a document on the liberalization of the Traditional Roman Rite is imminent, that it will be published in November, that it was signed on September—yet, the language used by Christian Terras and Romano Libero, Golias’ editors, is similar to that mentioned in a similar note published by a web source recently and both texts fail to name a single source for their information.

Naturally, considering their unabated hatred of everything Traditional, their article is surprising, but it is defective in the lack of identification of its sources.

(For your information, past notes: 1, 2)

Here is something from the cited Golias article (my translation):

The date of publication of the decree is foreseen for this coming November. The content of the document concerns the complete "liberalization" of the Tridentine rite, according to the 1962 rubrics, placing it on the same level as the conciliar rite (or as the traditionalists say "reformed"): the "new" liturgy will be defined as "ordinary rite" whereas that of the traditionalists will be defined as "extradordinary rite", without any limitation for an Catholic priest whoever he may be. ...

[La date de publication du décret est prévue courant novembre prochain. Le contenu du document concernera la « libéralisation » totale du rite tridentin – selon les rubriques de 1962 – le mettant sur le même plan que le rite conciliaire (« réformé » pour les traditionalistes) : la « nouvelle » liturgie sera définie « rite ordinaire » alors que celle traditionaliste sera définie « rite extraordinaire », sans aucune limitation par quelque prêtre catholique que ce soit. ...]

 

 

In the handy volume called Denziger-Schönmetzer (L 5 – pp. 924-5)) there is an appendix on the question of limbo: Here is the text, in Latin (I will add some few abbreviations for clarity):

Peccati originalis poena est carentia visionis Dei (DS 184; DS 219) DS 780; add. de sequelis D 3 bd [p. 871 – Peccatum qua originale]; non exstitit locus medius beatitudinis inter regnum Dei et damnationem, sensu Pelagiano intellectus (DS 184) DS 224 DS 2626; reprob.: [Animae infantium a parentibus christianis ortorum sine bpt. decedentium venient ad paradisum terrestre, animae infantium a parentibus non-chr. ortoroum ad locum parentum] 1008.

Animae decedentium cum solo peccato originali in infernum descendunt, poenis tamen aac locis disparibus puniendae DS 858 DS a926 DS 1306; puniuntur poena damni citra poenam ignis 2626; locus ubi degunt, passim vocatur limbus DS 2626; reprob.: [Parvulus decedens sine baptismo Deum odio habebit] DS 1949.

 

DS 2626 is cited a couple times: here it is. It is from A.D. 1794 during the reign of Pius VI of blessed memory concerning the wretched Synod of Pistoia:

De poena decedentium cum solo originali

26. Doctrina, quae velut fabulam Pelagianam explodit locum illum inferorum (quem limbi puerorum nomine fideles passim designant), in quo animae decedentium cum sola originali culpa poena damni citra peonam ignis puniantur [citing Augustine De bapt. §12]: perinde ac si hoc ipso, quod, qui poenam ignis removent, in ducerent locum illum et statum medium expertum culpae et poenae inter regnum Dei et damnationem aeternam, qualem fabulabantur Pelagiani: – falsa, temeraria, in scholas catholicas iniuriosa.

Sorry about the Latin only texts, folks.  I wanted to get this out there rapidly while I was thinking of it.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  27th Sunday of Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2003

You will remember that in his last encyclical letter, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, the Holy Father called for a more specific document from the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments (CDW) concerning liturgical matters.  There has been a good deal of speculation about this upcoming document which was supposed to come out in October.  Back in May Inside the Vatican interviewed His Eminence Francis Card. Arinze, the present prefect of the CDW.  His Eminence said at that time, “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.’”   Some people imagined that the CDW and Holy Father were going to issue a blanket faculty for all priests to use the 1962 Missale Romanum.  I suggested was not going to happen.  Clearly, if the advance press concerning this disciplinary document indicated that it was going to be of a conservative nature, then the progressivist or liberal opposition was going to have plenty of time to mount a campaign of resistance.  As I opined in the column for the 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time about the conservative crowing over this upcoming document, “loose lips sink ship”.   I regret that I may have been right. 

A friend, FA, sent me via e-mail an article by Orazio Petrosillo in the 23 September internet edition of the Italian daily Il Messaggero.   The article reports that the CDW document, prepared in collaboration with Cardinal Ratzinger’s dicastery the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has been blocked by opposing forces in the Vatican as being too “severe”.  The draft of the document is reported to have been 200 paragraphs in length which covered 37 “principal abuses”.  In a Catholic World News item on the internet (cwnews.com) we read that the monthly Italian magazine Jesus will publish the text of the draft in its October issue.  Included in the abuses addresses by the CDW and CDF were the over-employment of the services of laypeople in the liturgy when such service was not really called for (something that was already legislated back in 1997.  The draft also called for a major scaling back of the use of altar girls and forbade things like liturgical dance.  The Il Messaggero article also claimed that the draft document asked that Communion rails be put back into churches where they had been removed.  At any rate, it appears that the draft has been blocked.  This probably means that the document to be entitled Pignus redemptionis ac futurae gloriae (Pledge of redemption and future glory) will not be issued in October as many hoped.    

POST COMMUNIONEM
LATIN (2002 Missale Romanum):
Concede nobis, omnipotens Deus,
ut de perceptis sacramentis inebriemur atque pascamur,
quatenus in id quod sumimus transeamus.

This prayer has traces of a sermon of St. Leo the Great from Wednesday of Holy Week, 19 March 452, about the Passion of the Lord (s. 63, 7 – PL 54, 357BC or CCL 138A, p. 388).

The verb inebrio as you might guess means “to make drunk, inebriate”.  Pasco means, “to pasture, drive to pasture, to feed, attend to the feeding of; nourish; cherish, cultivate” and also “feast, gratify”. Many of you will instantly make the connection of this verb with the moment on the shore of the Sea of Galilee when after His resurrection Jesus heals Peters betrayal and gives him his special role by saying: “Feed my lambs… Pasce agnos meos… pasce oves meas… pasce oves meas…” (John 21:15-17).   Transeo is, “to go over or across, to cross over, pass over, pass by, pass” or also “to go or pass over into any thing by transformation, to be changed or transformed into a thing.”  For example, you might like the proverbial chicken “cross over” the road or like the shepherds in Luke 2:15 “go over” to Bethlehem to see what had happened.  Were you to cross over a river, surely you would get wet and your clothes would be tinged and imbued with water.  Anything that passes through dye is certainly tinged.  Our souls are tinged and permanently marked with the Christian character when we are baptized.  We “transit” from old death over to new life.  Interestingly, the verb inebrio, according to soberingly thorough Lewis & Short Dictionary can also signify of colors, “to saturate” as in amethystum inebriatur Tyrio (cf. naturalist C. Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Eldar  +AD 79) 9, 41, 65, § 139).  Perhaps you will remember that in the WDPTRS column for Post communio the 4th Sunday of Lent when I digressed about the purple dye used in the ancient world made from the murex, a seashell toting critter possessed of a tiny gland producing a purple goo endowed with a marvelous staining quality, the best coming from Tyre.  The dye produced from the muricidae tinted the hideously expensive cloth that was eventually the “imperial purple”.  The odd little adverb quantenus we saw back on the 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time.  It means “how far, to what extent” and also “where”.  The first meaning of the verb percipio is “to take wholly, to seize entirely” and then by extension “to perceive, feel and “to learn, know, conceive, comprehend, understand.”  The verb sumo, sumpsi, sumptum basically signifies “to take, take up, lay hold of, assume” though by extension it is, “to take for some purpose, i. e. to use, apply, employ, spend, consume.”  Thus, it can mean “consume, eat”.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Almighty God,
Let the eucharist we share
fill us with your life.
May the love of Christ
which we celebrate here
touch our lives and lead us to you.

Sometimes when I am on the road a good deal and need to write these while traveling, I will fill the Latin and ICEL texts and maybe a few comments into a blank document and save it.  That way I can pull it up while I am on the move.   This time when I read the ICEL version I had to double check the text I had saved earlier because I couldn’t believe that it was supposed to correspond to the Latin for this Sunday.  What were they thinking?  This is how I read the Latin text…

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Grant to us, Almighty God,
that we may be inebriated and fed upon the sacramental mysteries that have been grasped
to the extent that we pass over into that which we consume.

Among the things that today’s prayer calls to mind is another prayer, traditionally printed in the Missale Romanum (as it is in the newest 2002MR, p. 1292) in a set of devotional prayers intended for the priest’s edification and thanksgiving after Mass.  It is widely attributed to St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) who placed it at the beginning of his Spiritual Exercises.  However, the prayer is found in a document from 1334 and some suggest that perhaps it comes from St. Patrick of 7th c. Ireland.   

Anima Christi, sanctifica me.
Corpus Christi, salva me.
Sanguis Christi, inebria me.
Aqua lateris Christi, lava me.
Passio Christi, conforta me.
O bone Iesu, exaudi me.
Intra tua vulnera absconde me.
Ne permittas me separari a te.
Ab hoste maligno defende me.
In hora mortis meae voca me.
Et iube me venire ad te,
Ut cum Sanctis tuis laudem te
in saecula saeculorum.

Soul of Christ, sanctify me.
Body of Christ, save me.
Blood of Christ, inebriate me.
Water from the side of Christ, wash me.
Suffering of Christ, strengthen me.
O good Jesus, harken to me.
Within your wounds hide me.
Permit not that I be separated from you.
From the wicked enemy defend me.
In the hour of my death call me.
And bid me to come to you,
so that I can praise you with your saints
for ever and ever.

The image of inebriation for the soul in union with God in Holy Communion is quite ancient.  When the Father and Doctor St. Ambrose of Milan (c. 340-397) writes about the Song of Songs, he said, “In fact, each time you drink [the blood of Christ],… you become spiritually inebriated.  Whoever gets drunk with wine staggers and becomes unsteady, but whoever is filled with the spirit takes root in Christ, as it were.  ‘Holy is this inebriation which brings about the sobriety of the heart’” (De sacramentis 5, 17).   The Father and Doctor St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 334-395) uses often an arresting paradoxical description of the soul in union with God: sober inebriation.  When commenting on the Song of Songs he says: “This is also the meaning of the flourishing vine (cf. Song 2:13) whose wine gladdens the heart and will one day fill the cup of wisdom. It will be freely offered to those who drink from the exalted preaching to enjoy a good and sober inebriation (nephalion methen)” and also “All inebriation makes the mind overcome with wine go into ecstasy (ekstasis). Therefore what the Song enjoins becomes a reality by that divine food and drink of the Gospel; as then and always, this food and drink contains a constant change (metabole) from a worse to a better condition.”  I should say so!  

It is obvious that the “inebriation” we are speaking of, the “sober inebriation” of Gregory of Nyssa and Ambrose of Milan, has nothing to do with alcoholic drunkenness, which impairs the will and intellect that distinguish us from brute beasts.  Through a sober inebriation in the Lord, in Holy Communion, will and reason are by grace raised beyond themselves to a new plane.   Each time we receive Holy Communion perhaps we might strive toward the goal of sober inebriation, a getting beyond and out of ourselves in a unity with Him who teaches us who we truly are (cf. Gaudium et spes 22).   “It is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

In our prayer for today’s Mass We hear the echo of a sermon by St. Leo the Great, who said in 452 “in id quod sumimus transeamus…may we passover into that which we consume”.  We want to become what we receive.   We hope by our Communion for a union so great that by it Christ transforms us more and more into who He is.   It is a powerful and intimate union that takes place in a good Holy Communion.  From Scripture we know that a man and woman who marry become “one flesh”, but they do not become “one spirit”.  On the other hand, the relationship the soul can have with the Eucharistic Lord, the soul’s best Spouse, can be even more intimate than the marital union.  “But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him” (1 Cor 6:17 – RSV).  That God has offered us unworthy creatures this kind of unity with Him is indeed intoxicating.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  27th Sunday of Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2006

As I reported last week, on 15 September Msgr. Bruce Harbert, the Executive Secretary of the new and improved ICEL, spoke at the Catholic Information Center in Washington D.C.  The talk available is as a podcast on the internet.  Msgr. Harbert addressed, inter alia, what “through” means in liturgical prayer.  He looked at the Third Eucharistic Prayer.  In the present translation we pray to the Father about Christ “from whom all things come” when in fact the Latin original says “through whom You bestow all good things upon the world” (my version, not his).  Msgr. Harbert dealt with the theological issues involved in saying “through”, how we pray for graces “through” Christ Our Lord, how we receive all things “through” Christ.  Our Latin prayers nearly all end, after a full stop and period, with the phrase beginning “Per Dominum nostrum…” or another phrase beginning with per, “through”.  The seemingly odd punctuation indicates the way the prayer is to be sung, the different marks corresponding to patterns of changes of pitch.  The odd punctuation reminds us that all good things come through Christ and all our prayers to the Father are also through Him.  Msgr. Harbert’s short talk is worth your time.  I remain much consoled by the presence of Msgr. Harbert in the control room of ICEL.  He is a very sharp fellow.

DS writes via e-mail (edited): “First, thanks for your work on translations and explanations of the Latin prayers. Several years ago, I noticed there were things missing from our English translations – even based on my two years of high school Latin a long time ago.” Thanks, DS.  If WDTPRS has helped you become more engaged with the prayers of Holy Mass, then the series is a success.  

DS continued (edited): “I have a question apropos of the Italian missal, which you mentioned in your internet blog post of 24 September.  In an article about the new ICEL translation of the Mass Ordinary in America magazine, Fr. John Baldovin, SJ, speaks of ‘the serious need for a new body of prayers written in elegant and contemporary English to accompany the current Missal.  The Italians, for example, have Scripture-related opening prayers for the whole three-year cycle.  The 1998 Sacramentary proposed by ICEL, which was rejected in no uncertain terms by the Vatican, contained equivalent prayers for the three-year cycle.  We need them.’  I’m curious about the assertion that the Italian Missal has a ‘new body’ of collects for the three-year cycle.  Can you shed any light on this assertion?  The article has the tone of ‘well, the Italians did this, so why can’t we Americans?’  In general, the article seems to use any handy argument against the new translation, even though the article’s arguments strike me as internally inconsistent.”

Well, DS, prescinding from whatever any vernacular edition of the Missale Romanum might include today, on various occasions the Holy See has had to remind everyone simply to translate the liturgical books and to cease composing new prayers or making adaptations.  The document of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments (CDWDS) on the norms for translation, Liturgiam authenticam, spells out the parameters of this work and they do not include composition of new prayers.  

It always gets my goat that, rather than giving the official prayers a genuine chance, some folks want to cobble up novelties.  How about actually using the book as it is for long enough to allow it to have an influence on the people of God before proposing adaptations?  The Novus Ordo may have gone into force in Advent of 1969, but have we really seen it implemented properly yet?  You can make the case that it hasn’t.  If WDTPRS has demonstrated anything, it is clear by now that the prayers of the Missale Romanum in the editions of the Novus Ordo have a rich content.  Sure, some of them have been resected a bit and subsequently lack the punch of their ancient counterparts.  Nevertheless, until they have been translated properly and put into use for a sufficient period, all this chat about needing a new body of prayers is ill-advised.   As far as the Italian Messale Romano is concerned, the edition I have with me here in the USA (where I am as I write) has no new body of Collects for the three-year cycle.  I will double check a newer edition.  In any event, the norms of Liturgiam authenticam apply to all language versions, including Italian.  The Italian translation is also being revised.

We must move along to this week’s “Prayer over the gifts” as it is sometimes called.  
 
SUPER OBLATA (2002MR):  
Suscipe, quaesumus, Domine,
sacrificia tuis instituta praeceptis,
et sacris mysteriis,
quae debitae servitutis celebramus officio,
sanctificationem tuae nobis redemptionis dignanter adimple.

Since I used above a couple column inches to laud the prayers of the Novus Ordo, you may find it a bit ironic that today’s prayer is clearly a patch job of bits and pieces of ancient prayers in the Veronese Sacramentary.  The phrase tuis instituta praeceptis is from a prayer for the month of April, debitae sevitutis celebramus officio is from one in August, and sanctificationem tuae nobis redemptionis is from July.  

I don’t get it either.  With all the gorgeous prayers from various ancient Latin sacramentaries at our disposal, was it really necessary to cobble a new one together like that?  Wait!  I am having a vision of the scene back in the 1960’s….  

In a dark room lined with metal jammed bookshelves and cabinets stuffed with files of notes, an articulated lamp strains with its stingy 40 watts to produce a pool of light on a paper stacked table.  The rolling chair supporting a bespectacled cleric, squeaks as he shifts.  His scrambled gray hair is thinning and during the night he must have tugged the collar of his too-long worn cassock open around his skinny neck.  Monsignore is a professor at a Roman university and a prized consultant for Annibale Bugnini’s Consilium.  Monsignor has drunk the Kool-Aid.  He riffles the pages of good-ole Leo Cunibert Mohlberg’s edition of the Sacramentarium Veronense with rapt attention, occasionally jotting down phrases on slips of paper.  His consultation complete, he squeaks forward to the table. Uttering a prayer to the Holy Ghost, he begins to slide the slips around.  He rearranges them, and gazes, and tries again, substituting now this one and that one in practiced curves until, ... EUREKA!  a new Super Oblata emerges ouija-like from out the depths of research and inspiration.  “Hmmm “heúreka”, perfect of heúrisko....”,  he mumbles and drags closer the manual typewriter he scrimped to purchase, lo many decades ago, for his doctoral dissertation on the dative case in the Liber Sacramentorum Augustodunenis.  Clack, clackity, ding, zzzip… clack clack, he whacks together his new prayer footnoting the source references for a future edition of the fontes of the Missale Romanum.  One day WDTPRS readers will need them on a weekly basis.  “Grazie, O Signore!” he beams at the framed print of the Crucified Jesus on the wall over his little metal framed bed.  The tiny window suggests the approaching dawn, but zeal for the Council consumes him.  “Now, what to do with the Twenty-Eighth Sunday?” he muses.  Scanning a shelf, his red-rimmed eyes linger over yellowing notes on the Gregorian Sacramentary.

Okay, okay.  Sarcasm aside, today’s prayer deserves to be judged on its merits.  Let’s not be overly prejudiced by its questionable paternity. Frankenstein’s poor monster was misunderstood too, right?  Just because this prayer was snipped and stitched together on a table, must we brandish our liturgical torches or pitchforks in high dudgeon and chase it toward the cliff?   Let’s find out what it really says and then make some conclusions.  Vocabulary and the grand Lewis & Short Dictionary will help.

The verb adimpleo is “to fill up, to fill full” and thus means also “to fulfill (as a promise, prediction, duty), to perform”.  Officium is “that which one does for another, a service, whether of free will or of (external or moral) necessity”.   L&S elaborates that officium is “A voluntary service, a kindness, favor, courtesy, rendered to one whose claim to it is recognized; while beneficium is a service rendered where there is no claim”.  If that weren’t enough, officium is a “ceremonial observance, ceremony, attendance (on a festive or solemn occasion)” together with “an obligatory service, an obligation, duty, function, part, office”.  That is how it comes to mean the position that an “official” holds, as in “high office”.  Priests, in fulfilling their obligations to prayer the Church’s official prayer each day “say their office”.  The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as it is known today, was called the “Holy Office”, and is still housed in the “Palazzo del Sant’Uffizio”.

REALLY LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Receive, we beg you, O Lord,
the sacrifices instituted at your commands,
and by the sacred mysteries,
which we are celebrating from the duty of owed service,
worthily bring to fulfillment for us the sanctification of your redemption.

 

This prayer digs into an important point of consideration for any Catholic Christian.  God lovingly rewards us when we perform our duty (officium) in life according to His plan.  In this life He gives us graces.  In heaven we will have splendid and eternal rewards.  Today’s prayer connects God’s rewards with sacrifice (sacrificium) and duty (officium) on our part.  If we know that we have duties and must make sacrifices, especially in renewing the once-for-all-time Sacrifice of the Cross during Holy Mass, we can be confident that there will be rewards.  Rewards are also from the divine will of Christ.  In regard to that officium we must also remember that, as baptized members of Christ’s Mystical Person, we share in our own way His three-fold office of priest, prophet and king.  At Holy Mass, each baptized person is enabled to offer spiritual sacrifices in union with the special way in which the ordained priest offices the Sacrifice.  Is this duty not already a reward of inestimable worth?

A SMOOTHER VERSION:
O Lord, we beseech You,
receive these sacrifices established at Your command,
and by the sacred mysteries
we are now celebrating according to our office,
graciously bring to fulfillment within us Your sanctifying redemption.

Since our correspondent DS (above) brought up the Italian Messale Romano, here is the

ORAZIONE SULLE OFFERTE:
Accogli, Signore,
il sacrifico che tu stesso ci hai comandato d’offrirti e,
mentre esercitiamo il nostro ufficio sacerdotale,
compi in noi la tua opera di salvezza.

LITERAL RENDERING OF THE ITALIAN PRAYER:
Receive, O Lord,
the sacrifice which You Yourself commanded us to offer and,
while we are exercising our priestly office,
complete in us Your work of salvation.

The Italian version expands the concept of the priestly officium of both the baptized and the ordained in union with each other during this profound moment of the Offertory.  All in all, if you were in an Italian pew, you wouldn’t wince in pain hearing this as you followed along in your Latin Missale.  Can we say the same for the lame-duck ICEL version we still hear now and for a while yet?

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Father,
receive these gifts
which our Lord Jesus Christ
has asked us to offer in his memory.
May our obedient service
bring us to the fullness of your redemption.

You decide if that is what the Latin prayer really says.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2005

Pope Benedict XVI, in his address on 19 September 2005 to newly consecrated bishops from around the world, made observations about the manner of celebration of Holy Mass and the effect celebration has on the life of the Church. The new bishops were attending an annually conducted “workshop” about their new mandate in the Church. Quoth the Pope: “The way Mass is celebrated by the bishop nourishes the faith and devotion of his priests and of the faithful.  Every bishop, as the ‘principal dispenser of the mysteries of God’, is in his diocese the one answerable (il responsabile) for the Eucharist: he has, therefore, the task of being on guard (vigilare) over the worthy and decorous (degna e decorosa) celebration of the Eucharist and of promoting Eucharistic worship” (my translation from the Italian original).  In Italian, il responsabile is “the one in charge” and, as a result, the one to be held accountable for what happens on his watch.

COLLECT - (2002MR):
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui abundantia pietatis tuae
et merita supplicum excedis et vota,
effunde super nos misericordiam tuam,
ut dimittas quae conscientia metuit,
et adicias quod oratio non praesumit.

With a minor variation this week’s Collect was in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary and was thence in all the editions of the Missale Romanum.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Father,
your love for us
surpasses all our hopes and desires.
Forgive our failings,
keep us in your peace
and lead us in the way of salvation.

As usual some quick glances at vocabulary will help us understand what the prayer really says.  The Lewis & Short Dictionary, oozing with information, says votum means “a solemn promise made to some deity; a vow.”  It is therefore also the thing promised or vowed.  In a more general sense it is a “wish, desire, longing, prayer.”  

Supplex is an adjective, used also as a substantive, meaning “humbly begging or entreating; humble, submissive, beseeching, suppliant, supplicant.”  This and other derivative forms are commonly used in our Latin prayers; for example, now and again we see the adverbial form suppliciter.  In the past I said that supplex is formed from the verb plico, “to fold”, but I was probably wrong about that.  Though L&S says: “sup-plico, bending the knees, kneeling down”, the article on supplex in the etymological dictionary of Latin of Alfred Ernout and Antoine Meillet presents the probability that supplex comes from plecto, xi, ctum, “to plait, braid, interweave”, and offers also the possibility that it is from placo, “to reconcile; to quiet, soothe, calm, assuage, appease, pacify”.   The former describes the physical attitude of the suppliant while the latter describes his moral attitude.  In any event, the more probable source plecto and its fundamental meaning of bending and braiding gives us much the same impact as plico and its folding connotations.  L&S also says that plico and plecto are synonyms.  Thus, the imagery I have invoked in the past of the supplicant being bent over or folded in respect to his knees (i.e., kneeling or bent low toward the floor) works well.  Also, in the ancient world it was usual for the supplicant to wrap his arms around (plecto) the knees of the one from whom he was begging his petition.  

This is hard, I know, but let’s stay with supplex for a moment.   It is important.  In many places celebrations of Holy Mass have been stripped of humility.  Instead of abasing ourselves humbly before the Real Presence of Almighty God, we celebrate ourselves in remembrance our non-judgmental buddy Jesus.  The concept behind supplex was systematically expunged from translations of prayers, contemporary music in parishes, and (in churches now lacking kneelers) architecture.  One of the most “Catholic” of prayers, nearly eliminated after Vatican II, underscores an important dimension of healthy spirituality.  In the once familiar Dies Irae, the haunting sequence of the Requiem Mass by the Franciscan friar Thomas of Celano (+ c.1270), sung amidst the inky vestments symbolizing our death to sin and the things of this world, we contemplate our inevitable judgment by the Rex tremendae maiestatis... the King of fearful majesty, iustus Iudex… our just Judge.  In two of the verses we prayed: “Once the accursed have been confounded / delivered up to the stinging flames, / call me with the blessed. // Knees bent and leaning over (supplex et acclinis), / My heart worn down like ash, I pray: / Have a care for my end.”

The use of supplex in our Catholic prayers conveys an attitude of contrition for our sins which then shapes other more joyful and confident prayers.  This lowly attitude keeps in close view the reality of our sins, God’s promises of forgiveness, the ordinary means of their cleansing and thus the joyful comfort we have when we surrender to this merciful plan.  God takes our sins away, but only when we beg Him to.  We retain the memory of actual sins, but not their stain.  When we reduce ourselves to the ashes of humility and confess our sins we know those sins are not merely covered over; they are washed away clean.  Before modern times soaps were made partly from ashes.   Today, the use of the Dies Irae is not forbidden in Masses.  The Church’s documentation on the use of sacred music establishes that suitable (i.e., truly sacred and truly artistic) pieces can be substituted into the Mass for the proper purpose and occasion.   Nothing is more suitable for Catholic piety than the use of the Dies Irae.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Almighty and everlasting God, who in the abundance of Your goodness
surpass both the merits and the prayerful vows of suppliants,
pour forth Your mercy upon us,
so that You set aside those things which our conscience fears,
and apply what our prayer dares not.
 
In the vocabulary of the Collect we have a pair of contrasts: God must remove from us the sins meriting perdition’s eternal agony while at the same time He must add to us the grace opening to us the glories of heaven.  You will recognize dimitto from the Lord’s Prayer.  Its basic meaning is, “to send different ways, set apart or forth.”   Therefore, it comes also to mean, “let go, discharge, dismiss, release.”  Another logical step makes dimitto into “renounce, give up, abandon, forego, forsake.”  Juxtaposed with dimitto is adicio (ad[j]icio), signifying “to throw or cast a thing to, to put or place at or near.”  Thus it is, “add to, apply to, increase.”  There is an interesting use of this by St. Jerome, translating Hebrew when putting together what we call the Vulgate: used as a Hebraism it is “to add to do, to do further” as in Isaiah 7:10 (RSV), “adiecit Dominus loqui... again the LORD spoke” or, in another translation, “the Lord furthermore spake”.

Some Collects we have encountered seem to refer to the Lord’s Prayer.  Perhaps this one does as well.  First, we have the word oratio.  In Latin the Lord’s Prayer is oratio dominica where dominica is an adjective, “lordly; of or pertaining to the Lord.”  In our Collect the “prayer”, oratio, is grammatically the subject of that last verb adicio.  After the Eucharistic Prayer the priest introduces the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer saying “audemus dicere.... we dare to say….”  On our own we could never presume or dare to raise any petitions to the Father if the Son had not already enjoined them on us, given us permission, nay command, and made us members of His own mystical Person as coheirs.   A noble and even courtly style of speech our prayer helps us avoid being presumptuous.  The banal, humility-stripped style of the lame-duck ICEL versions… well….

In our Collect today we have a tricky translation choice.  In dimitto we have a verb meaning basically “to send away; separate” and thus logically “to forgive” and in ad(j)icio a verb meaning “place a thing near; add as an increase, apply”.  It is hard to get the impact of this “spatial imagery” into English without circumlocutions.  We want to have sins and their lethal effects separated far away from us.  We want God’s favors and promises to stick to us and grow in abundance.

Our Collect gives us a model for an attitude of prayer.  We see the figure of one who is supplex, bowed down, folded in two, with bended knee.  This suppliant is frightened by the just reward the Judge will apply to him because of the sins he remembers he committed and which bother his conscience.  This lowly beggar prays and prays, entwining his arms about the knees of his Lord.  He petitions the Almighty Father, merciful and good, to allay his fears by totally removing the damning sins and then supply him with whatever he dares not ask or does not even know he ought to beg for (non praesumit).  At the same time, while he has the humility of the kneeling suppliant he also has the boldness of sonship.  He also dares that which is beyond his ability because God the Father Himself made him His son through a mysterious adoption.  He is emboldened to ask many things of the Father with faith and confidence (cf. Mark 11:24 and 9:23).  As Luke recounts (cf. ch. 11 and 18), Jesus gave us three parables about the persistent, even audacious, prayer of petition.  When we pray with the right attitude, particularly when in the sacred liturgy together before the altar of sacrifice with the assembly gathered by our mediator the priest, Christ makes up for what we are incapable of accomplishing.  St. Augustine (+430) describes this saying that Jesus “prays for us as our priest, prays in us as our Head, and is prayed to by us as our God.  Therefore, let us acknowledge our voice in Him and His in us” (en Ps 85, 1).

I find that last line of the Collect very consoling: adicias quod oratio non praesumit...add that which prayer does not dare… or rather … anticipate.  Praesumo also means “foresee” or do something “in advance”.  With our limited powers of discernment we cannot see or pray about every contingency we must face in life, but God knows them all.  He can mitigate our fears, both about the sins we remember as well as the things we worry over and can only guess at.  

Holy Mass is all about what Christ does for us.  The Church’s liturgy is a sacred action in which God is the principal actor.  By our baptism we participate actively in His sacred action even by our reception of what He gives.  He is the Head, we the Body.  He takes our voices and makes them His own.  Our actions become His.  For this reason, we must not usurp the liturgy into our own hands and change it around to suit our wants or force it to reflect our transient desires or circumstances.  With Christ’s own authority the Church gives us the Mass and she alone provides the proper options or variations.  We should bend to her will and make use of what we are given so that our earthly voices ring authentically with the celestial, and ecclesial, voice of the Risen Christ.  

We suppliants beg our Holy Father Pope Benedict and all those to whom he grants authority to oversee the preparation of new English translations to give us good and accurate versions of the words by which we are informed and transformed by Christ in the liturgy, in which He makes our words and actions His own and raises them on our behalf to the Father.