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

Some glimpses of tonights view from the window.  The second one has a link to a larger version.  I am afraid the photos just don’t do this justice.

Sometimes people remark that their priests never preach about the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell.

Today during his Angelus address, a reflection on November and the Christian meaning of death, the Holy Father stated in very certain terms that someone who dies in the state of mortal sin excludes himself from heaven.  Italian with my translation:

"Chi muore in stato di peccato mortale senza pentimento, chiuso nella orgoliosa rifuita dell’amore di Dio, si autoesclude dal regno della vita. ... One who dies in the state of mortal sin without penitence, closed up within the proud refusal of the love of God, excludes himself from the kingdom of life."

Rorate Coeli again is helping us keep informed about what the French Bishops are doing in the plenary meeting of their conference.

Yesterday we saw Card. Ricard, President of the conference, Archbishop of Bordeaux and member of the Pont. Comm. "Ecclesia Dei" give a speech intended to calm the bishops down a little in the matter of a) setting up the new traditionalist community in his own diocese of Bordeaux and b) a possible future expansion of the use of the 1962 Missale Romanum.

Today we see some more of the doings of the French bishops. Via Rorate Coeli I read with astonishment an incredibly snarky letter by the Bishop of Soisson to Témoignage chrétien. Here is the text Rorate Coeli published (my emphasis and comments):

I join all those who deplore the creation of the Institute of the Good Shepherd without an understanding with the diocese of Bordeaux and its bishop. [I don’t get it. In other words he deplores the Holy See who set it up?] I seriously fear the motu proprio announced by the pope himself [?] [Ehem… who else would do it?] on the general availability of the celebration of the mass from before the Council.

I wrote in "La Vie diocésaine" [the diocesan paper] on November 1:

"Whatever shall be the decisions pope Benedict XVI shall make in liturgical matters, we cannot compromise with traditionalists [So much for flexibility and dialogue. Liberté! Égalité! Fraternité!] on the orientations provided by the Second Vatican Council. They are vital for the Church and her involvement in the present world."

I add:

"We will not be able to accept the division of our communities according to individual liturgical sensitivities and tastes". [I am very pleased that His Excellency will now be putting an end to all violations of the rubrics and illicit liturgical creativity in his diocese.]

Traditionalist priests, the leaders of this movement, are using the Latin mass as a standard-bearer for a conception of the world and of mankind which is the opposite of the spirit of the conciliar constitution "On the Church in the Modern World" [Gaudium et Spes]. [Probably, yes. That is a big problem for many of them. Most of them, however, just want a Mass without "individual liturgical sensitivities and tastes" inflicted on them by their priests and liturgical ministers when they go to their nearly empty churches.] The violence and arrogance [VIOLENCE???] of the leaders of this movement are not compatible with the values of the Gospel of the Beatitudes.

Marcel Herriot
Bishop of Soissons, Laon, and Saint-Quentin.

To be fair, to give His Excellency his due, I will admit that I have been tempted to violence a few times at the sight of some of the things I have seen in churches.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  31st Sunday of Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2003

JR writes via e-mail: “Some time ago, you wrote in WDTPRS about the ordo, and its notation of the daily "station churches," which were, of course, deleted from the Roman Missal when it was revised in 1970.  I have purchased the ordo 2003-04 from the LEV online, and it does not include the station churches.  Were you perhaps referring to another ordo, perhaps the proper ordo for the diocese of Rome?”   An “Ordo” is a little book published every year and containing practical information about what Mass is to be said each day and “LEV” is “Libreria Editrice Vaticana”, the Vatican’s publishing house.   No, JR, I don’t think I said that the Roman stations were listed in any modern Ordo.  I wrote in the column on the Post communion of the 1st Sunday of Lent in 2003 that the newer Vatican Ordo “still cites the practice of the stations and recommends their observance” even though I see now that in the newest LEV Ordo for 2003-2004 there not the slightest mention of the practice.  Nevertheless, as I also wrote: “In the Latin 1970MR, it is strongly recommended (valde commendatur) that this Roman custom be maintained, at least in larger cities.  This is represented in stronger terms in the newest 2002MR.”  The tear-off sheet wall calendar the Vatican publishes for the offices of the Curia lists the station churches each day when they pertain.

I recently attended in Rome the annual meeting of Una Voce International.  Una Voce (from the Preface of the Most Holy Trinity (“with one voice”) is an international federation of associations, founded in the 1960’s dedicated to ensuring that the so-called “Tridentine” Mass (1962MR) is maintained and to restoring the use of Latin, Gregorian Chant, and sacred polyphony in Catholic liturgy always in keeping with the Church’s Magisterium and legitimate pastors.  Good goals.

Many lay people and priests attended the meeting.  Speakers gave brief summaries of the changes and advances of their respective organizations.   With the exception of an address by Count Neri-Caponi, the presentations were very positive and upbeat, not at all what sometimes one has come to expect from the sturdy traditionalist supporters of the older form of the Church’s great Roman liturgy.   Father Arnaud Devillers, FSSP, Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, Fr. Gerald Goesche of the new Institute of St. Philip Neri in Berlin, Fr. Evaristus Eshiowu from Nigeria, and Fr. Olazabal of the Institute of Christ the King in Rome all provided accounts of their activities.  The common thread binding their presentations together was that on all fronts their groups are expanding and extending their apostolates, not merely holding steady.  They all had two concerns.  The first, of course, was that they all need money.  Secondly, they simply do not have enough men in Holy Orders to handle all the work they could otherwise have.  I consider that positive in more than one way: they focused on successes rather than lamented the obstacles.  

Dr. Eric de Saventhem, President Emeritus of Una Voce, made a suggestion at the end of the meeting.  He pointed with special attention to the fact that on 24 May 2003 His Eminence Darío Card. Castrillón Hoyos celebrated Mass with the 1962MR in the great Roman basilica St. Mary Major.  His Eminence stated in his homily that the “The rite of Saint Pius V cannot be considered to be extinct and the Authority of the Holy Father has expressed his benevolent recognition of the faithful who, though recognizing the legitimacy of the roman rite renewed according to the indications of the Second Vatican Council, remain attached to the preceding rite and find in it valuable spiritual nourishment in their journey of sanctification.”   And also, “The ancient roman rite hence conserves in the Church its right of citizenship among the multiformity of Catholic rites, both Latin and Oriental.”  Dr. de Saventhem, seemingly with the intention of rallying the troops present, pointed out that no matter how much some critics may wish to marginalize this historic Mass or downplay the Cardinal’s words, those words were in fact spoken and cannot be unspoken.  They mean something.  It is important, therefore, to make those words ring true with concrete advances and not let anyone “off the hook” (my words, not Dr. de Saventhem’s).  

We should wish them well in this endeavor.   Wide-spread celebrations of the older form of Mass must be welcomed also by those who personally have no desire to attend them.  Use of the older Mass, in my opinion, has functioned as an agent for correction and reform of the way many younger priests are celebrating the Novus Ordo.  In my opinion, the older pre-Conciliar form of Mass is critically important right now, for it keeps us anchored in the Roman Rite.  The ever wider use of the 1962 MR has been constantly stirring the pot over the last fifteen years or so, showing younger men in the priesthood exactly what it means to belong to the Latin Rite of the Church of Rome.  Maybe I am wrong, but without this great benefit of having also the older form of Mass we may not have seen some traditional elements creep their way back into the third edition of the present Missal, the 2002MR (such as the Oratio super populum during Lent).   It is also possible that the correctives which may (hopefully) be applied in the Congregation for Divine Worship’s upcoming document would have otherwise been unthinkable had the older Mass not kept the contrasts constantly before our eyes.  Similarly, though those who usually go to the older “Tridentine” Mass may only rarely attend the newer form of Mass, they too should fervently pray for and support with positive encouragement those who are preparing new vernacular translations of the Novus Ordo.  Although sometimes it may not seem so judging from the rhetoric that flies around now and then, the frequenters of both the new Mass and the older traditional rite all belong to the one same Holy Catholic Church.  Every Catholic benefits when things are legitimately going well for one group or the other.  We must help each other.   It is a work of mercy to do so.

POST COMMUNIONEM
LATIN (2002 Missale Romanum):
Augeatur in nobis, quaesumus, Domine,
tuae virtutis operatio,
ut, refecti caelestibus sacramentis,
ad eorum promissa capienda tuo munere praeparemur.

This was the Postcommunio of the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany during the season once called the Time through the Year before Septuagesima… Tempus per annum ante Septuagesima, though the prayer was a little different: Augeatur in nobis, quaesumus, Domine, tuae virtutis operatio: ut divinis vegetati sacramentis, ad eorum promissa capienda, tuo munere praeparemur.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord,
you give us new hope in the eucharist.
May the power of your love
continue its saving work among us
and bring us to the joy of your promise.

I hope you have anticipated our weekly exercise by settling into your comfortable chair with the praiseworthy Lewis & Short Dictionary at your elbow.   Within its pages we find the entry for operatio.   Obviously operatio bears a close resemblance to English “operation”.   We have seen this before in the Super oblata for the 4th Sunday of Easter.  Operatio, from the verb operor, means “is primarily “a working, work, labor, operation.”  It also means in classical Latin, “a religious performance, service, or solemnity, a bringing of offerings.”    In early Christian poetic authors it also has the meaning of “beneficence, charity” as in, you might say, a “corporal work of mercy” (cf. Lactantius (+ c. 325) 6, 12 and Prudentius (b. 348)  Psychomachia 573).   

The verb augeo has given us vocabulary we have seen before (auxilium, augmentum), but I think we have not yet seen the verb, which is rich in meanings.  L&S starts with some etymology showing that it is “allied” to vegeo – vegetus, vigeo – vigor, vigil.  Note that in the older form of this prayer in the 1962MR we find the word vegetati in the place of refecti.    This is why I will choose to say “reinvigorated” for refecti as L&S suggests.   Right away in English you will think of “augment”.   In Latin, however, its basic mean is “to increase, to nourish” and then “increase, enlarge, augment, strengthen, advance that which is already in existence”.   By extension it comes to be also “to exalt, to extol, embellish, to praise” almost like we might say colloquially “to make much of”.   Then you find in L&S a fascinating entry showing that in a range of classical authors from the rather wild early playwright Titus Maccius Plautus (c. 254 – c. 184 BC) to Publius Vergilius Maro or Virgil/Vergil (70–19 BC.) augeo has a religious overtone meaning (like mactare, adolere, etc.), “to honor, reverence, worship by offerings”.   In Latin Our Blessed Mother “magnifies” the Lord in her great exclamation while visiting Elizabeth (Luke 1:46-55).

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
May the working of your power, O Lord,
be increased in us,
so that, having been reinvigorated by the heavenly sacraments,
we may by your gift be prepared to grasp hold of the things they promise.

It is easy to snipe at the now lame-duck ICEL translations made decades ago.   At the same time it is very hard to produce adequate alternatives.  Consider that two of the Latin words is today’s prayer have at the same time regular, surface meanings which are somewhat intuitive from having a good working English vocabulary inventory.  However, both those words when you get under the surface had for centuries religious and ritual applications that make them snap and echo with new possibilities.  How does a translator cope with all this?  It is an extreme challenge and one that is bound to produce a version that is lacking in some ways.  We just can’t squeeze into a single translation all the prospective nuances.   

In our celebration of the sacraments God effects marvelous things in us by His power through our words and actions.   We have both our words and actions and God’s mighty grace in the liturgy.  By our religious offerings He powerfully works in us.  He puts it into us to perform these effective works and, when we cooperate, He Himself makes them meritorious for us.  The same can be said for every other good work (operatio) we perform in the state of grace: he urges us, we respond lovingly to cooperate, and He makes our hands strong – big enough (augeatur in nobis) – to grasp hold of what he offers.  We must grasp what he gives us now in this life through works of charity and mercy out of love of neighbor so that we can grasp in heaven all he has promised (promissa capienda).  Thus, our good works are really our works by which we please Him and merit His promised rewards and at the same time they are meritorious solely in light of His good pleasure and freely given grace (tuo munere).

How wonderful it would be to have celebrated far and wide many Holy Masses the Latin language and put into the hands of clerics and lay faithful alike beautifully bound personal missals containing a sound basic translation with accompanying notes and annotations (perhaps along the lines of some of the paragraphs of these weekly articles). In that way we might that crack open the treasure boxes that every one of these prayers can be.  Yet the vernacular will remain useful, and widespread.  Therefore we must strive seriously to pray for the translators and send notes of encouragement to those who will judge and approve their work.  Please, dear reader, as you put down this week’s paper, right away write a kind note to His Eminence Francis Card. Arinze!  With all the debates about the translations, and also this highly controverted document that is yet to come forth, I suspect his days are grueling, long and often punishingly thankless.  If you haven’t done this before, pick up your pen.  Do it now.

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

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

Your Eminence,

Please be assured of my special prayers for you in your heavy mandate.  I love Holy Mass, which is the source and summit of my Catholic Christian life.  Humbly I ask you to guide with courage the process of creating new English language translations according to the new norms in Liturgiam authenticam, in which I see a sign of great hope for beautiful, faithful, and reverent celebration of the Church’s liturgy.  I entrust you to the motherly care of the Blessed Virgin in this difficult task.

Sincerely in Christ,

Name ____________________________________
ADDRESS ___________________________  Date  _________

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  31st Sunday of Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2006

What does the GIRM really say?   His Holiness the Pope has directed that “lay ministers”, or better “Extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion”, not be permitted any longer to purify sacred vessels used during Holy Mass.  The American bishops had originally requested the extension of an “indult” for this.  One of WDTPRS’s favorite people, the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, His Eminence Francis Card. Arinze, sent a letter dated 23 October to His Excellency the President of the USCCB, Most Reverend William Skylstad, Bishop of Spokane, with a clear “No”.

Noting that the General Instruction of the Roman Missal says that the sacred vessels are to be purified by the priest, the deacon or an instituted acolyte, in other words by “Ordinary Ministers” and not “Extraordinary Ministers”,  Cardinal Arinze also restated what every well catechized Catholic child knows about Christ being fully present under each species even though Communion with both species offers a more complete “sign” of Christ’s presence.  

It seems to me that what is happening is the slow squeezing of the paradigm about “ministry” back to its proper shape and dimensions.  For decades the very concept of “ministry” has been drawn into question by rendering everyone into a being a minister of something or other.  The result has been, in some places at least, a blurring of the distinction of the priesthood of the baptized and the priesthood of the ordained.  Before his election to the See of Peter, Pope Benedict had addressed this issue several times in his writings.

In any event, His Eminence the Prefect also reminded the His Excellency the President that Communion by intinction “with reception on the tongue always and everywhere” was a good possibility to provide that fuller sign when numbers of people made distribution of the Precious Blood impractical.

In the meantime, the Bishops Committee on Liturgy (BCL), headed up by His Excellency Donald W. Trautman, issued forth to the bishops a letter entitled “Seven Questions on the Distribution of Holy Communion Under Both Kinds.”  According to the BCL, Communion under one kind alone or Communion by intinction makes the purification of vessels by priests, deacons or instituted acolytes alone “pastorally problematic.”  I am not sure why that may be, but there it is.  It strikes me that both intinction and Communion under one kind would reduce the number of vessels and complexity of purifying them.  

Fr. FS of NY has written with a welcome correction (edited): “In the last paragraph of your column for the 29th Sunday you wrote that clavus means both ‘key’ and ‘nail’.  I believe ‘nail’ is clavus (2nd declension) but clavis, is (3rd declension) is ‘key’;  e.g., Matthew 16:19 says, ‘...et tibi dabo claves regni caelorum...’ in John 20:25, the doubting Thomas said, ‘...nisi videro in manibus eius figuram clavorum et mittam digitum meum in locum clavorum...’ (Vulgate)  Forgive me if I am incorrect.  Thank you for your work.”  You are quite correct, Fr, FS.  I conflated the two words.  Your correction is much appreciated.  It also spurred me to look up the words again in lexica of later Latin to see if any authors conflated clavus and clavis as I did. I found an interesting connection between them.  In what we call Blaise/Chirat in these WDTPRS articles, the Lexicon Latinitatis Medii Aevi, I found that while clavis can stand for the purple band decorating a vestment, much as it did on the ancient Roman toga, a clavus is the red stripe on a dalmatic, the vestment of a deacon.  Furthermore, while a clavis was a musical key, a clavus could be part of a stringed musical instrument.   Looking in the etymological dictionary of Latin by Ernout/Meillet we find both clavis and clavus under the same entry.  Here I found that clavis, once written also as clavos was a primitive key shaped like a spike or nail which fastened something shut by being inserted into a ring.  It is fun to see the connections between words.

I received very good news. Three independent and well-placed sources confirmed a matter of great relevance to this WDTPRS series and you readers.  It is best not to publish too much about it before it is brought to light by the proper authority.  I am really not trying to be cagey about this or merely tease you. Sometimes because people want a “scoop” they rush to publish things before the prudent moment.  In doing so, they create unnecessary complications.  My motive in bringing out this vague news now is to enlist your prayers of thanksgiving and praise to the Almighty for this and other blessings in your lives.  All along I have asked you to pray for those in charge of liturgical translations and for your bishops and priests.  If we then obtain what we hope will be conceded, the glory is properly attributed to God.  Since the day of this writing is the Feast of Sts. Crispin and Crispinian, made well-known by the famous “Agincourt speech” in Shakespeare’s Henry V, IV, iii, I will again borrow the Bard’s words and repeat: “Do we all holy rites; Let there be sung ‘Non nobis’ and ‘Te Deum’” (VI, viii).  Here is a prayer for you to say right now.  It is the Collect of the Votive Mass Of Thanksgiving in the 1962 Missale Romanum and was commonly intoned at the end of the Te Deum:

Deus, cuius misericordiae non est numerus,
et bonitatis infinitus est thesaurus:
piissimae maiestati tuae pro collatis donis gratias agimus,
tuam semper clementiam exorantes;
ut, qui petentibus postulata concedis,
eosdem non deserens,
ad praemia futura disponas.

On 19 October during his meeting in Verona with the Fourth National Ecclesial Convention in Italy, Pope Benedict XVI said that, “adoration must precede our every activity and programme, that it may render us truly free and that we may be given the criteria for our action.”

LITERAL VERSION
O God, of whose mercy there is no reckoning,
and whose treasury of goodness is infinite:
always imploring Your clemency
we give thanks to Your most gracious Majesty for the gifts that have been conferred,
so that, You who grant the things petitioned to those seeking them,
even as You never abandon them,
may ready them for the rewards to come.

You will hear in this beautiful prayer an echo of Wisdom 7:14: “For she [Wisdom] is an infinite treasure to men: which they that use, become the friends of God, being commended for the gifts of discipline….”

Let us now move along to this coming Sunday’s “Prayer over the gifts” as the lame-duck ICEL version calls it.  This prayer is a new composition for the Novus Ordo.  Though it is new, here is the unmistakable influence of a sermon by Pope St. Leo the Great (440-61).

SUPER OBLATA (2002MR):
Fiat hoc sacrificium, Domine, oblatio tibi munda,
et nobis misericordiae tuae sancta largitio.

I said this is founded on a sermon of Leo.  Here is the bit the author employed: “Beloved, promptly expressing this profession of faith with your whole heart, spew out the impious comments of the heretics, so that your fasting and almsgiving may be polluted by the contagion of no errors.  For then both the offering of sacrifice and the holy bestowing of mercy is clean…(sacrificii munda est oblatio et misericordiae sancta largitio)”  (s. 91, 3: CCL 138A, p. 566; PL 54, 452 AB).  This sermon was pronounced during the fast time of the seventh month in the year A.D. 453.

The last time we looked at this prayer in 2002 I explained what was going on in 453, when Leo delivered his sermon.  It deserves a recap.  Attila the Hun, aka the Scourge of God, was ravaging the lands.  In the 440’s the western part of the Empire was disintegrating.  Burgundians had invaded Gaul but were driven off by the powerful general Aetius.  In 439 Geiseric conquered Carthage in North Africa.  In 441 he defeated a Roman force sent against him.  The West was suffering from a critical shortage of military manpower and they were beset everywhere (sound familiar?).  In 450 the Eastern Emperor Marcian cancelled the annual bribe to the Huns, which the Huns did not find amusing.   It happened that the Emperor Valentinian III was trying marry off his sister, Justa Grata Honoria, to an elderly dignitary.  She had other ideas.  Honoria sent a ring to Attila, King of the Huns.  Attila took this as an offer of marriage and demanded half the Western Empire as a dowry.  He then invaded Gaul.  In 451 near modern Châlons, the general Aetius defeated Attila who, instead of withdrawing back into Germany, moved into defenseless Italy in 452.  Aetius was unable to stop him.  The Huns sacked Milan, destroyed Aquileia, began to march on Rome.   Nothing stood in Attila’s way.  

In living memory Rome had been sacked in 410 by Alaric the Visigoth.  You can still see coins from fused into the marble floor of the Basilica Aemilia in the Roman Forum.  The Sack of Rome had a more profound impact on the Romans throughout the West than 9/11 had on the USA and its allies.  In fact, the year 410 in part provided St. Augustine of Hippo with the inspiration to write The City of God, which changed the course of Western civilization.  However, in the 450’s, Italy was nearly prostrate and no army could rescue Italy from Attila the Hun.  The only figure of any prestige in Italy at the time was the Pope of Rome, Leo.  Leo rode north from Rome with a small group of followers and met with Attila before he could reach City and pillage it.  They had a private conversation, legend has it.  We have no idea what Leo said to the Hunnish King, but immediately thereafter Attila turned his army around, left Italy.

In the Vatican Basilica of St. Peter, in the “Cappella della Colonna” we see the tomb and altar of St. Pope Leo the Great.  Over the tomb is a marble relief by Alessandro Algardi (made in 1646-50) depicting the moment of the colloquium of the Saint and the Scourge.  Attila is reeling backward from the sight of the menacing and heavily armed Sts. Peter and Paul swooping down from heaven behind Leo’s shoulder.  A frowning Peter points authoritatively at Leo while the glowering Paul is aiming his finger in a classic “scram” signal.  In 453 (the year Leo gave the sermon that influenced our prayer this week) Attila was heading back through Eastern Europe in preparation for another assault on the Byzantines.  He set up camp so that he could get married, drank himself unconscious and promptly did everyone a favor by drowning in his own blood from a nosebleed.  Attila’s empire fell apart almost at once and the Hunnish menace dissipated as swiftly as it had arisen.  All this in 453 when Leo said: “Beloved, promptly expressing this profession of faith with your whole heart, spew out the impious comments of the heretics, so that your fasting and almsgiving may be polluted by the contagion of no errors.  For then both the offering of sacrifice and the holy bestowing of mercy is clean.”

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O Lord, let this sacrifice become a pure offering to You,
and the holy bestowing of Your mercy to us.

There is nothing especially difficult about the vocabulary today.  Largitio in the thick Lewis & Short Dictionary is “a giving freely, a granting, bestowing, dispensing, distributing, imparting.”

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
God of mercy,
may we offer a pure sacrifice
for the forgiveness of our sins.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2005

On 13 October 2005 during the Synod of Bishop on the Eucharist Bishop Ian Murray of Argyll and the Isles gave an “in scriptis” discourse which touched on the issue of translations writing/saying: “Liturgy is a key instrument of evangelization and must be celebrated in a language which draws the faithful into the heart of the mystery of faith. Texts should transcend the vagaries of linguistic fads. Local languages present particular difficulties, as in my own diocese with Scots Gaelic. In situations like this, local conferences of bishops should be given the authority to produce and approve such liturgical texts. Migrants from European countries require the services of chaplains of their own language who will accompany them.”  There are different ways to parse this.  First, one could argue that Latin “draws the faithful into the heart of the mystery of faith”.  Did it not do so for many centuries even when it was not the spoken language?  However, clearly His Excellency was speaking of vernacular translations.  He seems to have been arguing for a classical approach to English that cuts across regional variations.  Let’s consider that Shakespeare or the classic English of the King James Bible remain the same whether you are in the Isles of Scotland, Australia, South Africa or North America.  Perhaps in this sense, if you are dead set again Latin, you could establish the style of Early Modern English as a benchmark.  

COLLECT - (2002MR):
Omnipotens et misericors Deus, de cuius munere venit,
ut tibi a fidelibus tuis digne et laudabiliter serviatur,
tribue, quaesumus, nobis,
ut ad promissiones tuas sine offensione curramus.
 
ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
God of power and mercy,
only with your help
can we offer you fitting service and praise.
May we live the faith we profess
and trust your promise of eternal life.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Almighty and merciful God, from whose gift it comes
that You be served by the faithful worthily and laudably,
grant us, we beseech You,
that we may run toward Your promises without stumbling.

We have a loaded word in our Collect today: munus.   Munus means essentially “a service, office, post, employment, function, duty.” Some synonyms are: officium, ministerium, honos.  A Greek equivalent of munus is “leitourgia” whence comes our word “liturgy”, originally standing in the ancient Greek world for a needed civic work or service that one performs because he ought to for the sake of society. 

In the New Testament this old word was applied to a new Christian context for concepts like taking up collections for the poor (i.e., what man does for man) and religious services (man’s worship of God).   To make this more complicated, munus also means “a present, gift.”  When it means “gift” it seems often to be in the ablative case, as in the construction mittere alicui aliquid munere... “to send something to someone as/for a gift”.  I say munus is a loaded word because in theological writing we speak among other things of the three-fold office or tria munera which Christ passed to His Church, the Apostles and their successors: to teach, to govern, to sanctify.

When the Lord gives us a command, and He does (e.g., love one another as I have loved you, pick up your Cross and follow me, be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect, do this in memory of me, etc.), we can sum them up in the two-fold commandment of love of God and of neighbor.  All followers of Jesus have been given a two-fold munus to fulfill which reflects the three-fold munera Christ gave to the Church’s ordained priesthood.  I invite you to try an experiment.  See what happens to your perception of the Collect if you make munus mean “office” rather than “gift.”  When four years ago I wrote about this Collect the first time, I chose “office” over “gift”.  We might be able to say “ministerial gift” so as to get at both sides of the content of munus.  While looking at it, can you keep both concepts simultaneously in mind?  

Our dog-eared editions of the Lewis & Short Dictionary provide insight into offensio, closely related to the verb offendo.  This verb has many meanings though some are not obvious.  Primarily it stands for “to hit, thrust, strike or dash against something.”  Therefore it is also, “to suffer damage, receive and injury” and “blunder, make a mistake, commit an offense.” From our knowledge of the English cognates, offendo also can mean, “be offensive, shock, mortify, vex.”   However, it can also simply mean, “to hit upon, light upon a person or thing, i. e. to come upon, meet with, find.”  Many years ago in Rome during my intensive studies of Latin I used to write postcards in Latin to my home parish.  During the summers the pastor was teaching some informal Latin courses to seminarians who were not receiving this essential training from their seminary (as is required in the 1983 Code of Canon Law).  I caused some surprise and not a little of anxiety once when I wrote : Cardinalem Ratzinger offendi... “I had by chance met Card. Ratzinger”, and greeted him from the aforementioned pastor whom the Cardinal knew.  When they read, “Cardinalem Ratzinger offendi” and that I greeted him in the name of the pastor, well… at first they thought I had done something else.  So, never forget that our Latin words have layer of meanings and sometimes the English cognates lead us into a false or deficient understanding of what is actually being said.  To the incautious, what I wrote sounded alarming when in fact it meant something else entirely.  But I digress… back to offensio.  The first meaning of offensio is “a striking against anything; a tripping, stumbling.”  By extension it can also mean the thing that causes one to trip or stumble, a “stumbling block.”  As a result, offensio indicates also an offense, either given to someone or received from someone.   In the Latin Vulgate offensio can be a thing which causes one to sin.

Some grammatical constructions we find in Latin force us to scramble after a comfortable English paraphrase.  This verb serviatur signals one of those hard constructions. First, servio is one those verbs constructed with an “object” in the dative case (tibi) rather than the accusative. L&S tells us that servio is virtually never used as a passive.  So, we can rule out saying something like munus … serviatur … that the gift may be served.  What we have instead is periphrastic (Greek peri- “around” and phrastic – “saying”) or “roundabout” way speaking, using the third person and the point of reference in the dative.  

This Collect gives me the image of a person hurrying to fulfill a duty or command given by his master or superior.  He is rushing, running.   He might even be carrying a heavy burden.   While dashing forward, I see him trying to be careful under his burden lest he stumble, fall, or spill what he is carrying and thus lose or ruin it.  This could be a description of how we live our Christian vocations sometimes.  Each one of us was made in God’s image.  We were given something to do here.  When we discern God’s will and do our best to live well according to our state in life, we experience heavy burdens.  We have the opportunity to participate in carrying the Cross of Jesus.  

The Lord Himself told us through the Gospels that if we want to be with Him, we must participate in His Cross.  We must pick up our Crosses and follow Him each day.  During His fearful Passion, our Lord literally carried His (and our) Cross.  Without a doubt He was hard pressed to stay on His feet under such a burden.  Envision the soldiers, probably the Temple guards, prodding Him while the Roman soldiers cleared the way.  They were forcing Him to go faster in order to beat sundown deadline and the Jewish holy days that followed.  The road He walked would have been uneven and rough, with edges and corners to catch weary feet.  He stumbled.  He fell even though He surely was being as careful as possible.  We stumble and fall too, though not like the sinless Lord.  We stumble in our sins mostly by choice.   In our Collect, we pray that we can hurry, even run, rather than drag along toward the reward of heaven.  We beg God (quaesumus) that we do so without mishap.   We desire neither to give offense God by what we do (offensio) but we also ask that the road be made free of stumbling blocks (offensio) for our feet as we run.  He understands the tough road we travel.  When we stumble in sin, we give offense to God.  Here is an echo of our petition in the Lord’s own Prayer: lead us not into temptation.  We must never forget that there is a tempter out there who desires us to fall and give offense to the Lord.  He will place obstacles before our feet.  That one we do not want to meet with (offendo) even by chance.