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

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2003

You might recall reading about the rather recently established “permission” for priests holding the relevant documents (“celebrets”) issued by the Holy See to use the 1962 Missale Romanum in the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome. The present Archpriest of the Basilica is Archbishop Francesco Marchisano a cardinal elect. The archpriest of the basilica is virtually always made a cardinal at some point. His Excellency has not been exactly the most generous in his interpretation of the ruling of the Holy Father which Darío Card. Castrillon-Hoyos obtained regarding the older form of Mass in the Vatican Basilica. He restricted use of the 1962MR to one specified chapel in the basilica’s crypt, with a versus populum altar, which of course is also sought after also by pilgrim groups and other who can reserve it. I now read in a CWNews.com story that Archbishop Marchisano is rumored for the post of Vatican librarian and archivist. The current librarian and archivist, Jorge Card. Mejia, will soon retire because of his age. It is possible that the 60 year old very influential French cardinal-elect Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, the Holy See’s “foreign minister” who suffers from Parkinson’s Disease may take the spot of Archpriest of the Vatican Basilica. It would be less taxing than that of foreign minister, to be sure. Since Archbishop Tauran is an unknown commodity regarding liturgical issues, I have no idea what this might mean for the basilica.

POST COMMUNIONEM
LATIN (2002 Missale Romanum):
Fac nos, quaesumus, Domine,
caelestium rerum frequentatione proficere,
ut et temporibus beneficiis adiuvemur,
et erudiamur aeternis.

This was new for the Novus Ordo though it bears the influence of the Veronese Sacramentary. In the last part of the prayer there is is a nice chiastic (“X”) pattern in temporibus beneficiis adiuvemur… erudiamur aeternis (ablative, passive verb… passive verb, ablative). Now, dear readers, I want to get out of the way from the onset the version by …

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord,
may this eucharist help us to remain faithful.
May it teach us the way to eternal life.

I honestly am not sure how the translators for ICEL arrived at the decision to publish this prayer as a “translation” of the Latin original, so let’s move on without further comment.

It is time to crack open again the sturdy cover of the mighty Lewis & Short Dictionary and review the vocabulary which the attentive student of the Roman Church’s official language will know. The verb proficio means “to go forward, advance, gain ground, make progress” and, by extension, “to go on, advance, make progress; to profit, derive advantage; to perform, effect, accomplish, obtain”. Adiuvo is “to help, assist, aid, support, further, sustain”. The noun frequentatio we have seen before in our WDTPRS column for the 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time, has layers of meaning. Frequentatio is first and foremost “frequency, frequent use, a crowding together.” This is a noun related to a verb, in this case frequento, which is “to visit or resort to frequently, to frequent; to do or make use of frequently, to repeat” and “to celebrate or keep in great numbers, esp. a festival.” We might be aware of a grammatical term, a “frequentative verb” which describes a repeated action. In English there is an archaic usage (at least for most people) for when we go to a place with some frequency: we “frequent” a place. Liturgically we understand this to indicate “to attend or participate in often”. It carries with it the sense of being crowded together with others.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
We beseech thee, O Lord, make us
to make progress by a frequent use of heavenly things,
so that we may both be sustained with temporal beneficial helps,
and also be polished by the eternal.

The verb erudio might sound familiar to erudite, have a measure of erudition, since it signifies “to free from roughness, i. e. to polish, educate, instruct, teach”. Some synonyms are doceo, edoceo, praecipio, instituo. The adjective rudis means “unwrought, untilled, unformed, unused, rough, raw, wild” and also “rude, unpolished, uncultivated, unskilled, awkward, clumsy, ignorant; unacquainted with, inexperienced in, etc.” We have in English the word “rude”. To have “erudition” means that you have been brought out from (e(x)-rudio) a state of being rough, unformed, unpolished, ignorant. To be taught means formation that changes you and polishes you.

In this world we Christians are in a school, a polishing school. We are instructed, given lessons and correction, reward and challenges. Along with our natural first teachers, our parents, God gives us also Holy Church, who is Mater et magistra…. “Mother and teacher”. In the voice and some actions of the Church, Christ Himself is teaching us and giving us what we need to please Him and come to our reward. Unlike our earthly, temporal schooling whereby we learn things through the teacher, but not the teacher himself, in the school of our lives with God, Christ is the teacher and the One who must be learned. He teaches us Himself. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29 – RSV).

Christ must be learned. Mary helps us learn him. With Mary, as the Holy Father says in his letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae through the repetitions of the prayer of the Rosary, focused always on the person of the Lord, we contemplate with her the face of Christ. No one ever contemplated His face as she did. By spending time with her in the Rosary, and by fixing our gaze upon Him, we can learn to be with Him. We can learn Him. As Catholics and Christians, we must be at school with Mary. It is a kind of spiritual polishing school.

All polishing is for a purpose to make things smooth, beautiful, useful. Once upon a time children and young people endured polishing by their elders for the sake of appearing in public, as if before the sovereign at court for the first time, as if for their first ball. We children of a heavenly Father are someday to appear before the throne of the King and Judge. All the good things of the universe have been given to us for our benefit. At the same time as we are to steward these things and use them for God’s glory, God uses them to shape and polish us. Remaining with this image of polishing there comes to mind the slow grinding that certain constantly tumbling rocks are subjected too through the eons of washing waves and surging water rolling them back and forth, or a perpetually turning rock polishing machine in a basement or garage, churning and rolling…taking off the edges in infinitesimally small increments. Over the course of our lives we endure a polishing, a slow washing and grinding, rolling shoreward and receding. Sometimes there are sharp blows to take off larger pieces that shouldn’t be there.

When a lens or a mirror is made perfect for reflection or for magnifying something, say for a telescope, it must be polished. We are simultaneously both mirrors and lens. Both of these optical elements redirect and channel light. Consider this from two points of view. A mirror reflects images. We were made in the image and likeness of God, to act as He acts… to know, to will and to love. We are made to reflect Christ in all our words and deeds. Just as Christ reveals to us the Father in all that He said and did, we must reflect Christ outwardly so that those who see us see Him and the One who sent Him. Similarly, what we do and say, while we reflect Christ, may also bring the Lord into greater focus. We can shine forth His glorious nature and “magnify” Him. As our Blessed Mother said when her cousin Elizabeth received her in her house, “My soul doth magnify the Lord…”, which is to say, “My soul enlarges/praises/honors/extols the Lord…”. To be good mirrors and lenses, we must be polished. To be polished we must be ground down, over time, in an unavoidable and inexorable process of continuous tiny little experiences of violence, just as the grist of the grinder makes a thing smooth: the finer the grist, the smoother the resulting surface. But at first, the big points and imperfections must be hacked off before the slower and gentle grinding can produce the desired effect.

What incredible patience we ought to learn for each other. Who of us is without flaws? We are all, without exception, in the Lord’s grinding polisher. Every one of us has flaws, and we all have need of having pieces whacked away.

I want to bring back to the fore what I wrote of the word frequentatio some weeks ago. Frequentatio is also a technical term in rhetoric: it is “a condensed recapitulation of the arguments already stated separately, a recapitulation, summing up.” Our reception of Holy Communion in the context of Mass is really the fullness of what the Church calls “full, conscious and active participation” in the sacred liturgy (which is the “source and summit”). Holy Communion is the ultimate frequentatio for the Eucharist “having in itself all delight”, as we pray during Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Furthermore, the celebration of Holy Mass is the source and summit of our Christian lives. Thus, is not the moment of Holy Communion being described in this prayer not a summation of the whole of the Christian’s identity and life? Each and every consecrated Host is the Eternal Word made flesh, who dwelt among us so as to save us from our sins and reveal us more fully to ourselves (cf. Gaudium et spes 22). Of all the sacraments Christ gave us, this Most Blessed Sacrament is the only one which actually is what it signifies:

Christ truly present. Christ, who is the Word spoken from eternity by the Father, is the frequentatio, the perfect “summing up”, who at the end will take all things to Himself and submit them to the Father so that God might be all in all (1 Cor 15:28). Christ is our frequentatio.

As I write, Pope John Paul is visiting Pompeii in Italy on the Feast of the Holy Rosary (7 October). We see our Holy Father being polished and ground into something beautiful by God’s hand as his life is being summed and he is being consumed. His sufferings and infirmities are, without question, a difficult “school” for him. They can be for us too an important spiritual lesson. In this age of the virtual deification of youth, health and perfection this ailing old man is allowing himself to be seen in public in all his weakness. Nevertheless, even in this state he is, like us, an image of God. He is teaching us what the value of human life is. Be sure to say your Rosary for our Holy Father.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2006

The 11 October edition of the Italian daily Il Giornale had a fascinating article about the rumored document of Pope Benedict XVI which would, in effect, “free up” use of the so-called “Tridentine Mass” in such a way that diocesan bishops would have a very much harder time forbidding its use. Here is my translation with my emphasis, followed by my comments:

The Mass in Latin returns – The Pope’s decree is ready

by Andrea Tornielli

Rome – The text is ready, and it lacks only the Pope’s signature. Benedict XVI could publish a "Motu proprio", even before the end of 2006, with which the use of the pre-Conciliar Missal would be freed up, thus allowing groups of faithful to request the celebration of the old Mass without encountering negative responses, often unjustified, from individual bishops. The document will “rehabilitate” the Mass, sometimes called that “of Saint Pius V”, celebrated in the Latin Catholic Church until 1969, and never declared abrogated, defining it as an “extraordinary” universal rite, alongside the ordinary Roman Rite, which is the post-Conciliar one. In this way, the old Mass would return to full citizenship, just as other Catholic rites enjoy, such as the Byzantine, Mozarabic or Syro-Antiochian. And bishops would not be able to refuse its concession, as often happens today.

The thought of Pope Ratzinger about this matter has been known for a long time now: in the liturgical sphere a real break with the past has been substantiated and the reform following Vatican II not only went far beyond the letter of the same Council, but also was and still is badly implemented in many countries, where many liturgical abuses take place which wind up reducing Mass to a show. Thus, just about anything is being tolerated at the altar, but the doors are slammed on those faithful who, also because of these abuses, have remained attached to or have rediscovered the old Rite. “Unfortunately for us”, Cardinal Ratzinger had asserted some years ago in the book length interview Salt of the Earth, “there is a nearly limitless tolerance for spectacular and adventurous alterations, while effectively there is none at all for the older liturgy. We are in this way surely on the wrong path”. The future Benedict XVI also added, “Personally, I maintain that there is needed a more generous attitude in granting the old Rite to those who desire it. You just can’t see what could be so dangerous or unacceptable in that. A community calls itself into question when it suddenly considers forbidden what until just a little before seemed sacred and when it makes the very desire for it seem reprehensible. Why must these things still be believed? Isn’t it possible that what is being enjoined today will be forbidden tomorrow?”

After having consulted the cardinals of the Roman Curia and having posed the question also to the Consistory of last February [sic], clearly stating that the theology of the Tridentine Mass cannot be defined as “reductive” [NB: this means characterized as too narrow, more on this below], Benedict XVI charged Darío Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos, Prefect of [the Congregation for] Clergy and President of the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” with moving forward. Subsequently, a first draft of the text was composed, which the Pope then forwarded to the Congregation for Divine Worship [and Discipline of the Sacraments]. Here the progress of the decree was made more difficult, due to various internal obstructions at the dicastery [i.e., the Congregation]: it was initially thought to fix a minimum number for faithful making the request at 100, which was then lowered to 30, and references to liturgical abuses were removed from the draft. The text was thus returned to the Pontiff and to “Ecclesia Dei”. In addition to Castrillón, Julián Cardinal Herranz, President of the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts, was also engaged in drafting the text.

The “Motu Proprio” for the liberalization [“freeing up”] of the new [sic] Missal, an initiative encountering considerable resistance inside and outside the Roman Curia, ought to facilitate also the achieving of full communion with the Lefebvrites of the Society of Saint Pius X, who have always fought for it [that is, “freeing up” of the use of the older Missal]. Obviously, if the Pope signs the document, as he seems disposed to do, it will not mean that the average member of the faithful will in his parish find Mass celebrated in the old way overnight. It will be necessary to balance the needs of the traditionalist faithful with those of other parishioners.

I must expand on Pope Benedict’s affirmation that the theology of the older form of Mass is not “reductive”.

Consider that the rite of Mass, with its texts and rubrics, both reflects the Church’s Faith and undergirds the Church’s Faith. Lex orandi – lex credendi … the way the Church prays has a reciprocal relationship with what she believes. If we believe certain things, we will pray in a certain way. If we pray a certain way, we will more strongly hold to certain things. So, when someone makes the accusation that the so-called “Tridentine” edition of the Roman Missal was “reductive”, that levels a serious accusation of narrowness, or lack of enlightenment, against the Church herself for, literally, centuries. Benedict XVI had been trying to dismantle that false accusation for decades. Thus, he says that the theology of the older form of Mass is not, in fact, “reductive”. What does this mean?

This “reductive” in Italian, is a hard word to translate. The impact of saying that the theology of the pre-Conciliar Missale is not "reductive" (“la teologia della Messa tridentina non può essere definita «riduttiva»”) means that many of the old chestnuts progressivists or modernists, or whatever you want to call them, toss around about the old Mass are simply not true. You will often hear that the older form of Mass is "too vertical", while the newer form is more “horizontal”, that the older form places too much emphasis on the sacrificial dimension and not enough on the “meal” aspect, that the older form does not take into account a true necessity for “active participation” as a constituent element of liturgical action, that the older Mass reduces people to “passive spectators” (that makes me CRAZY!), while the newer Mass “allows” people to “participate actively”. To say that the theology of the older Missale is not “reductive” is to say that these things are no more true about the “Tridentine” Missale than they are about the Novus Ordo. Both editions of the Roman Missal, old and new, must be given a fair shake. This is the beauty of the Pope’s argument for years now, nay decades. Setting the two editions, Tridentine and Novus Ordo, on a much more equal footing will reveal that much of the progressivist criticism has no foundation while showing at the same time that the Novus Ordo clearly opens up for us some advantages, from which even those attached to the older form can benefit.

For what it is worth, in another Italian paper, La Stampa, Marco Tosati offered on 11 October something about the internal battle in the Roman Curia over the draft. Here is my translation and emphasis:

When some time ago Benedict XVI sent the draft of the “Motu Proprio” to the Congregation for Divine Worship, the “anti-liberalizing” party, with the tacit endorsement of the Prefect, Cardinal Arinze, rushed to work on attaching restrictive modifications (for example, the need to raise the number of those making the request from 30 to 100), and sought in the doing to bypass the Secretary [of the Congregation, Archbishop Malcolm] Ranjith; who, however, managed to attach to the document, which was supposed to go back to the Pope, a long series of notes and marginal comments in order to bring the text back to its original meaning.

You will remember that His Excellency Archbishop Ranjith has the reputation, even among members of the SSPX, as a defender of the older form of Mass. Knowing His Eminence Card. Arinze, and having heard many positive things about Archbishop Ranjith, and having heard him speak in a reasoned and measured way about this matter, I have a hard time believing that this is a devious war between Arinze and Ranjith. Between others in the CDWDS and Ranjith? Certainly.

Furthermore, Tosati mentions in his article a possible (optimistic) date of 8 December, Feast of the Immaculate Conception. In any event, nearly all the coverage mentions that it could come before the end of the year.

Keep in mind that Benedict’s project is not just a sop to throw to “ultra-conservatives”. This is part of a larger plan to reinvigorate the Novus Ordo and reattach it to its sources. What happens in this regard is very important to us, even in the scope on this WDTPRS series because it concerns precisely what the prayer of the Mass really says. Let us now move along to our examination of this week’s “Prayer over the gifts”, as the lame-duck ICEL version calls it, but what in Latin is the

SUPER OBLATA (2002MR):
Tribue nos, Domine, quaesumus,
donis tuis libera mente servire,
ut, tua purificante nos gratia,
iisdem quibus famulamur mysteriis emundemur.

This prayer was in the ancient Veronese Sacramentary in the month of April. I once thought this prayer was of new composition, and said so when I dealt with it several years ago, but I was wrong.

Our trustworthy Lewis & Short Dictionary shows that servio basically means “to be a servant or slave, to serve, be in service.” Again, it is one of the verbs commonly constructed with its object (a person or thing) in the dative case: “to be devoted or subject to; to be of use or service to; to serve for, be fit or useful for; to do a service to, to comply with, gratify, humor, accommodate; to have respect to, to regard or care for; to consult, aim at, to accommodate one’s self to, etc.” We could opt for the shade of meaning “to have respect to, to regard or care for” and eke by. However, it seems to me quite important to keep a closer connection in English between the words servio and famulor. Clearly that was the author’s intention. We must make a distinction, also, between the two related verbs, the active famulo and the deponent (passive form but having an active meaning) famulor. Famulor means, “to be a servant, to serve, attend, wait upon.” Famulo is, “to use as a servant, to make serviceable”. I think in our prayer today we must have the deponent famulor which, like servio, can take a dative object. Let us start piecing this together. Remember our pairings: servio…famulor, purifico…emundo and also, our mens and God’s gratia.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
We beseech You, O Lord, grant
us to serve Your gifts with a free mind,
in order that, as Your grace is purifying us,
we may be cleansed by the same mysteries which we are serving.

SMOOTHER VERSION:
We pray, O Lord, that You allow
us to serve You in Your gifts with our hearts and minds made free,
so that, once purified by Your grace,
we may be cleansed by the very same mysteries in which we are serving You.

A proper understanding of how both servire and famulor are used here can give us the key to unlock this prayer. Consider for a moment the imagery we are given. We have two main ideas: service/freedom and cleansing. By our sins, beginning with original sin, we were in chains of slavery. By the cleansing of baptism and our continued nourishment by the Eucharist and other sacraments we are set free from bondage. Contrary to the way the world sees service, our faithful and humble submission to God sets us free in a way that the world and its hellish prince can neither offer nor comprehend. In His service, as His “slaves” (famuli), we have true freedom. The key that unchains us is the Precious Blood flowing from Christ on the Cross. Clavus, the Latin word for “key” is, by the way, also the word for “nail”. May the Precious Blood of Christ always purify us from our sins as well as our selfish willfulness, a horrible result of man’s original fall from grace.

[I made a mistake here. I conflated clavus "nail" and clavis "key")

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord God,
may the gifts we offer
bring us your love and forgiveness
and give us freedom to serve you with our lives.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2005

I received a wonderful message via e-mail from JB of NE. He asked good questions about how in the past I translated votum. Here are some of his other interesting comments (edited): “I am a convert of some 30 years standing from Episcopalianism, and I am now a ‘Traditionalist’ Catholic attending the indult Latin Mass parish (FSSP). I have subscribed to The Wanderer for 15 years, though I almost quit a few years ago when the paper went through a phase of vicious traditionalist-bashing. Your column, always fair to ‘Traddies,’ is the main reason I stay with The Wanderer, and reading it is my weekly delight. I do not share your hopes for eventual good translations of the new Mass, but I admire greatly your guts, and indeed your plucky optimism in the face of the antics of such figures as Bishop Trautman of Erie. … Though I am old and weary, and a pessimist about the whole state of the Church, I am sustained by people like you, who never cease to fight the good fight. Your inspiring and courageous column may not suit the taste of all, but it is surely ‘pro multis’, emphatically including myself!” Thanks, JB, your comments made my day. I hope to get to your concerns about votum in the not too distant future.

This is still the Year of the Eucharist proclaimed by the late Pope. Also, the Synod of Bishops is meeting in Rome right now to discuss matters related to the Eucharist, which is “source and summit”. During the Synod meeting, bishops and other delegates from around the world give brief speeches, meet in small groups to discuss certain themes, and do a lot of mixing. As the synod progresses a message is prepared for the Holy Father’s consideration. In the past John Paul II wrote post-synodal documents dealing with synod’s theme. Pope Benedict will probably follow this pattern.

Although at the time of this writing there have only been a few days of speeches, some themes are emerging as common concerns on the part of the attending bishops. We will look at these in the next weeks. For now, however, the issue of the effect of Communion in the hand has been raised and it is worth looking at what was said. His Excellency Jan PaweÅ‚ Lenga, M.I.C., Archbishop of Karaganda (Kazakhstan) gave us of the materialistic West something to ponder (my translation): “Among the liturgical innovations that have grown up in the West, there emerge two in particular which obscure in a certain sense the visible dimension of the Eucharist in regard to its centrality and sacred nature; these are: the removal of the tabernacle from the center and the distribution of Communion in the hand. When you remove the Eucharistic Lord, ‘the sacrificed and living Lamb”, from the central position and when in the distribution of Communion in the hand there is undeniably increased the danger of losing particles, of profanations, and of a virtual reduction of the Eucharistic bread to the level of ordinary bread, you create unfavorable conditions for a growth in the depth of faith and in devotion. Communion in the hand is becoming common, and is even more and more becoming dominant as the easiest way to go, almost as a kind of fad. … I therefore want humbly to make the following concrete proposals: that the Holy See might establish a universal norm according to which the official manner of receiving Communion would be on the tongue and kneeling. Communion in the hand would be reserved to clerics. May diocesan bishops where Communion in the hand has been introduced, work with pastoral prudence gradually to lead back the faithful back to the official rite of Communion, valid for all the local Churches.”

Since JB of NE (above) brought up Bishop Donald W. Trautman, the Erie Bishop of Pennsylvania (head of the USCCB’s Liturgy Committee and alternate bishop named to the Synod on the Eucharist) in the left-leaning Jesuit weekly America (3 October) criticized the Synod’s working document or Instrumentum laboris (find it on the website of the Holy See) much in the same snarky way he criticized the norms for liturgical translation in Liturgiam authenticam (LA) the 2001 document of Congregation for Divine Worship (CDW). Bishop Trautman thinks the Instrumentum pays too much attention “looking in the rearview mirror” and too little attention to the “pivotal problem of the lack of priests”. His Excellency’s main prop for his criticism of the document and his views of today’s challenges seems to be that people have an “absolute right” to the Eucharist. Based on that “absolute right” I guess we have to agree that any obscure old-fashioned view of priesthood and liturgical practice posing an obstacle to that “absolute right” ought to be set aside. By the end of this op-ed piece you have the sense that only by throwing off the past and greater subsidiarity with all manner of forward-imagining and blue-skying will we able to meet our challenges. Personally, I think that being in the state of mortal sin, lacking reason or will, adhering to heterodox doctrine or being excommunicated diminishes one’s “absolute right” to partake of Holy Communion in the Catholic Church, but I hope to be corrected on this point.

Bishop Trautman’s op-ed aims at so many things at once that it is hard to know just what he thinks the Instrumentum ought to have been. I do, nevertheless, agree completely with His Excellency when he says we already have now all the theological and disciplinary documents we need. He says that we should “enforce”, yes… “enforce” the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, “the authoritative document on the correct celebration of the Eucharist”. I couldn’t agree more, Your Excellency! As far as his “rearview mirror” is concerned, I humbly offer a comment: at one parish I know of in St. Paul, Minnesota, the Church of St. Agnes where the tabernacle is at the center of the church, people kneel and receive Communion on the tongue, Mass is often celebrated in Latin and always ad orientem, only boys and young in cassock with surplice men serve, and the rubrics of Mass are obeyed. I think His Excellency would consider this all very “rearview mirror” stuff. Despite this retrograde approach, St. Agnes’ parish has been producing on average a new priest ordained every year for nearly thirty years. So, if you want more priests…. The old ways work and are good ideas for the future too. Why is this all so hard?

COLLECT - (2002MR):
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus,
fac nos tibi semper et devotam gerere voluntatem,
et maiestati tuae sincero corde servire.

Those of you who are able to enjoy approved celebrations of Mass also according to the 1962 typical edition of the Missale Romanum will recognize that this is the Collect for Sunday in the Octave of the Ascension.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Almighty and ever-living God,
our source of power and inspiration,
give us strength and joy
in serving you as followers of Christ.

In your trusty Lewis & Short Dictionary you will learn that the complex verb gero means many things though basically it is “to bear, wear, carry, have”. However, in the supplement to the great L&S, Souter’s A Glossary of Later Latin, we find that after the 3rd century A.D. it is “to celebrate a festival, etc.”. This is confirmed in Blaise’s work on liturgical Latin vocabulary; we again find that gero is “celebrate”. The L&S says that in a construction with a dative pronoun (such as tibi) and morem (from mos as in the infamous exclamation O tempora! o mores!) it can mean “perform someone’s will.” It might be today’s tibi…gerere substitutes devotam voluntatem for morem. A close examination of L&S shows also that servio (“serve”) is one of those verbs constructed with an “object” in the dative case rather than accusative. This is the reason for the dative case of maiestas in our prayer.

Do you remember that maiestas is often synonymous with gloria? Early Latin writers such as Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose and in early liturgical texts, use this concept for far more than simple fame or celebrity or splendor of appearance. A liturgical Latin gloria can be the equivalent of biblical Greek doxa and Hebrew kabod. Latins also translated doxa with the words like maiestas and claritas. This “glory” and “majesty” is a power of God that transforms us into what He is. It is a sharing with us of His own glory. Our contact with Him through the sacraments begins a transformation which will continue in the Beatific Vision. When God wished to speak with Moses His Presence would descend on the tent/tabernacle in a cloud of glory (Heb. shekina). Moses’ face would shine radiantly from his encounters with God and had to be covered with a veil. The shekina remains with us architecturally in our churches even now… in some places at least. More than the burning presence lamp, a baldachin or a veil covering the tabernacle is the true sign of the Real Presence. When we enter the holy precincts of the church, our encounter must transform us. We must thus be well prepared to meet the Lord there. Good translations or good use of Latin with excellent hand missals would be of great aid in that preparation. It would also help to have the tabernacle front and center, and kneel at Communion rails, but I digress. And I will be punished for it, you can be sure.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Almighty eternal God,
cause us always both to bear towards you a devout faith,
and serve your majesty with a sincere heart.

Today’s Collect brings to my mind a beautiful fresco by Piero della Francesca in a little town near Arezzo, Italy called Monterchi. The unique fresco is called “La Madonna del Parto”. This important work shows Mary great with Child, a subject rare in Renaissance painting. One meaning of the Latin verb gero is precisely “to be pregnant” as in gerere uterum or partum. In the fresco, on both sides twin angels in Renaissance dress delicately lift tent-like draperies to reveal La Madonna standing with eyes meditatively cast down, one hand placed for support on her hip, as women are wont to do in later weeks, and the other hand upon her unborn Child. The fresco, this incredible depicting of Life, ironically originally in a cemetery chapel, evokes a baldacchino and the veil of the tabernacle. It calls to mind the tent in the wilderness where the Ark with the tablets and its golden angelic cherubim were preserved, where Moses spoke to God and his face shown with God’s splendor. Mary also is Ark of the Real Presence, the Tabernacle in which Christ reposed. She, like the tent of the Ark, was overshadowed. Our Collect this Sunday can remind us to look to Mary, the Mother of God and Mother of the Church, our Mother. She is the perfect example of service coming from bearing a devout faith. In the faithful way she lived her life Mary gives us a model of preparation for service.

Finally, I want to remind you all that these articles aim at stirring greater interest in what the Church’s prayers really say. Here is another invitation to pray for bishops who have the task of overseeing the development of accurate and beautiful vernacular translations. LA was issued over four years ago. Have the whining wails about LA drowned out the cheers? There a real war going on over the implementation of of LA. It is naive to think the nay-sayers will implement the document … or enforce other existing norms. I think that we who long for serious changes are being held at bay through the usual tactics of delay and earnest declarations that everything “is being studied.” Dear friends, ask the guardian angels of these our shepherds to open their hearts to us their people. Promise them … promise our prayerful support for their positive response to their duty. Don’t let them think we have forgotten anythign. Remind them now. Let’s start writing letters again, positive, supportive, respectful letters:

His Eminence
Francis Card. Arinze
Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship
and Discipline of the Sacraments
Palazzo delle Congregazioni
00120 Vatican City

I am back in my old room, high above the City and in view of the cupola.

Very tired.