I attended tonight the world premiere of the new film “The Nativity Story”. It was shown to a full house in the Paul VI audience hall in the Vatican. Having the premiere of a film like this was a first for the Vatican. The woman Catherine Hardwicke (Tombstone, Three Kings, Vanilla Sky) who directed it was in attendance, as well as Secretary of State Tarcisio Card. Bertone (Archbp. Vercelli, Secretary CDF, Archbp. Genoa) was there, though not the Holy Father (Archbp. Munich, Prefect CDF). Also we saw in the hall the writer Mike Rich (Finding Forrester, The Rookie), the actor who played Joseph, Oscar Isaac, and the woman who played Elizabeth, Shohreh Aghdashloo.

If you are expecting stark realism in the film, you will not be disappointed. If you are expecting classic images of mangers and Wise Men with camels, …you will not be disappointed.

The film juxtaposed very realistic, even naturalistic scenes with scenes overlaid with classic images of the Nativity narrative, which snobs and scholars might turn their lifted noses at, but which I think should please most viewers, as they did me.

The makers of the movie did not shy from using images one nearly automatically associates with the Christmas narrative. There are Wise Men, right out of your Nativity scene and named Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar, with camels and garish boxes. They follow the star, “moving” in the sense that planets are converging,. and the star obligingly shoots a comforting ray of light down into the animal stall while Mary is in labor. The Holy Family has a faithful little donkey and the Blessed Virgin a blue mantle, though of a very light shade. Herod is really a bad guy who will remind you of a Semitic version of Braveheart’s Edward Longshanks. The music incorporated snatches of well-known melodies such as Veni veni Emanuel and The Coventry Carol. The angel of the Annunciation was suitably luminous and the shepherds sufficiently humble.

The text of the Magnificat worked as bookends in the film and, while our version of the movie was dubbed in Italian with English subtitles, I expect the final scene, interlacing the Magnificat with strains of Stille Nacht, may move many to tears.

In fact, the audience tonight was very responsive. They burst into applause when the baby Jesus was born, as one might expect, and laughed at the appropriate moments of comic relief, provided not terribly subtly by the three Wise Guys, er um, Men. In fact their humorous repartee is sets up their glorious expressions of faith at the moment of truth. I was up in the press area and there were some studio nazis from New Line present to make sure no one was recording anything or taking images from the showing. They freaked out when people in the audience began shooting flash pictures of the screen at predictable moments, and began making hurried cell phone calls.

The film did not lack suggestions of the difficulty women faced in the ancient world. The political dimension of the expected Messiah was mentioned several times. A serious thread found its way into the Nativity narrative with the occasional glimpse of men crucified along the side of the road.

I do not want to speak too much of the actual details of dialogue or portrayal of the biblical figures. Make up your own minds. Suffice to say that in the brief time of the film the script allows for some very strong character development, making them more than simple two dimensional figures. I particularly liked their Joseph, who was young, strong, and normal man striving to be virtuous and… well… normal.

I do not think you will be disappointed by the movie. I give it a biretta tip … o{]:¬)

Before the showing, there was a little speech in Italian by Archbishop John Foley, President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communication followed by a longish reading in Italian from the Gospel of Luke from the Nativity narrative by Gigi Proietti. Archbp. Foley, for his part after his Italian text, spoke more extemporaneously for a moment in English. He said, “At a time when in so many places people are hesitant to say ‘Merry Christmas’, they are hesitant to say the name of Jesus Christ, we are happy to celebrate here this evening a film in which we commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ, the God Man, the Savior of the world, born of the Virgin Mary. … We can say, even a month before hand, may all of you have a Merry Christmas. Buon Natale a tutti.”

I usually like the Wall Street Journal and I read it often, especially the opinion page. However, the WSJ has an article on the Holy Father right now that really misses the mark, both in its quality of writing and in its assessment of the situation. Here are excerpts from the article with my emphasis and comments.

A Tumultuous World Tests a Rigid Pope

Inside the Vatican, Benedict’s intellect and style intimidate. How will they play outside the Church?

Confronting Muslim anger

By GABRIEL KAHN and STACY MEICHTRY
November 25, 2006; Page A1

Vatican City

On official trips, he rarely strays from the timetable or jokes with the crowds. He is wary of the mass media and disdains made-for-TV images like those that helped define the papacy of his predecessor, John Paul II. Friends describe him as a man who is shy in crowds and prefers thinking to talking. [And that’s bad, if you are the usual sort of journalist always in need of a quip.] He is more likely to settle down with a book than sit down at a crowded dinner table.

In private, colleagues say, Pope Benedict XVI can demonstrate a disarming humbleness. Whereas John Paul would spend hours chatting with guests, Benedict is businesslike. He always seems to know what time it is, says Robert Spaemann, a conservative German Catholic philosopher who has known Benedict for years. "Then he’ll stand up and say, ‘Right, it’s time,’ and end the meeting." [Hmmm… disarming, humble, businesslike, on schedule… and how is this not good for someone running the biggest international organization in the world?]

Nineteen months after being selected pope, Benedict is transforming the Vatican with a different style and a different stance. Beneath his blunt words and rigid style lies a profound divergence from John Paul’s buoyant optimism. [Blunt and rigid. Okay, this comes from speaking in a way that you can actually understand and, perhaps, from having a point of view that doesn’t shift with public opinion? You can see that the writers don’t get the Pope. They are pointing to what they think are contradictions and they seem unable to reconcile them.] Pope Benedict believes that the Roman Catholic Church must stand apart from the world of today rather than embrace it. [This is seriously wrong. Benedict is not saying that the Church must stand apart from the world. The Church must influence the world without being contaminated with a world view opposed to her mission.]

John Paul II was the master of the grand overture—from praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem to kissing a copy of the Quran—which dissolved tensions with even his harshest foes. [And the Regensburg Address and now going to Turkey are not grand gestures? As "grand" a gesture kissing the Koran might have been, it strikes me that tension didn’t dissolve with Islam after JPII did it.]

For Benedict, the modern age is defined by growing secularism in the West and the rise of religious fanaticism most everywhere else. [Note: the are extremes. The Pope isn’t trying to avoid the "world", be wants to check extremism.] In order to fulfill its mission, he believes, the Church needs to shun both forces. Benedict is "pessimistic about the compatibility of the Church and the modern world," says Mr. Spaemann. [Again, the Pope is saying that the the Church cannot coexist with extremes which either deny objective truth or try to impose some "truth" by force. He has said this explicitly.]

This vision has sweeping implications for the Church—both in its approach to Catholic doctrine and liturgy and in its outreach to other faiths, particularly Islam.

Benedict preaches a renewal of the Church’s fundamental teachings and rituals, and is considering expanding the use of the Latin Mass. [How long O Lord? When will people figure out that the LANGUAGE is not the point?] Benedict’s emphasis on tradition risks alienating a broad cross-section of Catholics who argue the Church needs to become more accessible [Remember how the writers try to make Benedict sound as if HE personally is inaccessible? This is the real problem, it seems. Accessibility? What on earth does that mean?] to maintain its increasingly diverse flock. Only once the Church has reclaimed its own distinct identity, he says, can it mount an effective resistance against its chief foe, a "dictatorship of relativism." [Sigh… the Pope is trying to correct the corrosion in the Church from relativism. Is the problem with the "broad cross section" or with the Pope?]

Benedict’s public call to arms fires the imaginations of many of the cardinals who elected him pope. They share Benedict’s view of a Church that is under siege, and they want a leader who is ready to confront the dual challenges of secularism and Islam, even if such confrontation brings danger. Some cardinals insist that Benedict’s brusque language on such delicate matters [Notice how they juxtapose "brusque" on the part of the aloof rigid Pope and the "delicacy" needed.] as the Church’s relationship with Islam is necessary in order to set the stage for frank and constructive dialogue in the future.

Now, Benedict’s approach faces the biggest test of his young pontificate [Yes, but Benedict is not young.] as he travels to Turkey this coming week, his first papal trip to a Muslim nation.

Catholic-Muslim tensions have soared in recent months, in part because of Benedict’s own actions. In a September speech in Germany, the pope cited a 15th-century Byzantine emperor’s description of Muhammad’s teachings as "evil and inhuman." The speech ricocheted around the Muslim world, leading to riots, church bombings and the killing of a nun.

The reaction unnerved both the Vatican and the pope. [Maybe it didn’t unnerve the Pope as much as people think.] But the speech itself laid out one of Benedict’s most crucial departures from John Paul’s path of aggressive outreach. [JP’s outreach was aggressive? What Benedict did wasn’t? Benedict has spurred more real dialogue in these short months than happened in years before.] John Paul believed fervently—some say foolishly—that Christians and others faiths, even Islam, could always find common ground. Benedict, on the other hand, believes Catholics and Muslims are divided by an ideological chasm, and makes little effort to temper his conviction. [Nooooo…. Benedict thinks that dialogue can’t take place if REASON is not used. REASON. It is not a matter of impossibility of dialogue with adherents of Islam. It is possible so long as there is reason. Why should Benedct "temper" that?]

.... [Here follows some less than useful filler. Then note how the article returns to the theme (above) but from a new "voice". The article is stitched together.]

In the speech, Benedict advanced a bold position: True interreligious dialogue between Islam and Catholicism is blocked because of the two faiths’ divergent interpretations of the role of reason. [YES YES!] Catholicism views reason as integral to understanding and interpreting God; Islam, he argues, sees God as being beyond reason. [A reduction, but… let’s move along…]

Father Fessio described Benedict’s position on Islam in this way: "He’s saying that if your view of God…is that he’s so transcendent that he transcends all human categories, including rationality, well then you can justify the irrational, including violence, to spread religion, including terrorism."

"You can’t dialogue with us because you won’t accept reason as a basis. Because the God you are obeying is above reason," Father Fessio added.

...

Some saw the speech as evidence of the pope’s political naiveté. [Oh really? I think the Pope knew exactly what he was doing.] At Regensburg, the university where he once taught and helped turn into a bastion of conservative Catholic thought, Benedict was in his intellectual comfort zone. "He thought he could slip back into the role of professor," says Mr. Spaemann. "Perhaps he didn’t realize that every word would be weighed around the world, and that he can never again speak as non-Pope." [I don’t buy that at all.]

Despite the tensions, some Church elders see the Regensburg speech as actually offering an opportunity to restart dialogue on a more frank footing. [That’s what is happening, too.] Cardinal Angelo Scola, the patriarch of Venice, for example, says the Regensburg speech doesn’t reject having mutual respect for other faiths but just recognizes their deep differences.

The speech, says Cardinal Scola, who has known Benedict for more than 30 years, "represents a foundation upon which interreligious dialogue will be built in the future."

Even before the xignited Muslim rage with his Regensburg address, he was well aware that relations with Islam had reached a boiling point. [So… what’s it going to be? He was naive or he was "well aware"?] In the library of the Apostolic Palace last February, Benedict listened as Bishop Luigi Padovese recounted a grim tale: A few weeks earlier, a gunman had burst into a church in Trabzon, Turkey, near the Black Sea, and opened fire on a priest who had been kneeling in prayer. The gunman later claimed to have been driven to violence by cartoons published in a Danish newspaper that lampooned the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

At the pope’s urging, Bishop Padovese described how the first bullet tore through the priest’s lung. Moments later the gunman fired a second shot, and the priest collapsed dead.

The pope "wanted to know how everything happened in detail," recalls Bishop Padovese, a prelate whose Anatolia-based region includes Trabzon. Bishop Padovese now travels with a police escort in Turkey after a botched attempt on his life. [Do you think that Pope Benedict somehow forget that Vatican/Muslim dialogue was influenced by a Turk in St. Peter’s Square?] Benedict is also running the Vatican much differently than John Paul did, leaving him in many ways more removed from the rest of the world. He is traveling less and has cut down on the number of protocol duties, holding fewer meetings. As a result, his contact with people from outside the Church is more limited. [Notice how we are back to the theme of being accesible? This Pope doesn’t give journalists lots of grist and he writes and says things that are really hard. He makes being a journalist hard.] He has filled top positions with people he has worked closely with for years, giving the Vatican an ideological homogeneity that didn’t exist as much under John Paul, when top officials often sparred. [Right… less conflict in the ranks… that doens’t sell either.]

...

Sandro Magister, a veteran Vatican expert who writes for Italian newsweekly L’Espresso, says Cardinal Bertone’s appointment is a sign that Vatican foreign policy is likely to be based more on ideals than on pragmatism. [Doing the right thing, in other words.]

In an essay recently posted on a Catholic Web site, 30 Days, Cardinal Bertone wrote that Vatican envoys to predominantly Muslim nations should take a more aggressive stance in promoting Christianity. "We must not cease to propose and proclaim the Gospel, to Muslims also."

....

Benedict is very conscious of his age, now 79, and comments on it frequently to colleagues. During a recent meeting with Mr. Spaemann, the German philosopher, he remarked: "I’m an old dog."

That makes Benedict more focused on changing the Church, instead of the world, and less concerned about whom he might offend in the process. [Okay… so maybe the Pontificate is not so "young".]

Last month several dozen top Catholic theologians crowded into a Vatican chapel for 7:30 a.m. mass with Benedict. The pontiff gave pointed marching orders:

"Speaking just to find applause or to tell people what they want to hear….is like prostitution," he told the theologians, according to a transcript. "Don’t look for applause, but look to obey the truth." [!]

When I first began the WDTPRS series, I got some snarky hate mail from whiners saying things like, "How DARE you ciriticize the translation? How DARE you translate liturgy prayers? After all they were done by EXPERTS!!" I would always write back saying, "IF you would send me their names I will personally apologize to each one of them!"

Of course, I was just trying to find out who was responsible for the crap we’ve been forced to listen to (and recite) for decades. No luck, however.

Over at Off The Record there is an illuminating post which directly concerns this question. One of the perpetrators was a Sulpician involved with the Jesuits, probably a disciple of Karl Rahner, was involved with a couple of the worst seminaries in the USA, was Exec. of ICEL, who, after doing his damage, left the priesthood. Here is the relevant text [my emphasis]:

Ordained a Roman Catholic priest in May, 1960. After teaching Latin, Greek, English, and Religion at St. Charles College in Catonsville, Maryland, from 1960 to 1962, he became a member of the Society of St. Sulpice and studied theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, where he earned his doctorate in sacred theology. In 1964 he translated and published: The Eternal Year, by Karl Rahner. From 1965 to 1969 he taught ecclesiology and liturgy at St. Thomas Seminary in Seattle, and at St. Mary’s, Baltimore …

 

... when he was asked to become the Executive Secretary of the International Committee on English in the Liturgy (ICEL). In this role, he supervised the translation of many of the liturgical texts revised by Rome after Vatican II. These translations became the official liturgical texts for use throughout the English-speaking world.

 

In 1972 he left the canonical priesthood and pursued a career in technical and scientific writing, specializing in the areas of health research, patient education, and the application of social marketing principles to health communication programs. Jack puts his writing skills to practical use for ministry, and he officiates at weddings.

 

Great, huh?

 

Ya know. I am not going to look down on guys who leave the priesthood for some serious personal reason, but I get really p.o.’d at the guys who do serious systemic damage to the Church and then quit. Not that I am sorry they are out of the picture, but that still makes me mad. I am thinking in particular of several former priests who made my life a living hell along the way.

 

On a cheerier note, isn’t it wonderful that the damage is being corrected? Slowly but surely, we are putting the new translation to rights.

 

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  34th and Last Sunday in Ordinary Time – Christ The King

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2005

We come now to the final WDTPRS on the Collects of the Sunday Masses.  This is the last Sunday of the liturgical year.  Each year Holy Church presents to us the history of salvation, from Creation to the Lord’s Coming (the First and also the Final).   In a sense, today’s Solemnity is an anticipation of the season of Advent, which also focuses on the different ways in which the Lord comes to us.  At this time of year (November) we are also considering the Four Last Things: death, judgment, heaven and hell.   We are praying for the Poor Souls in Purgatory in a special way this month.  The Solemnity of Christ the King (which in the older Roman calendar was celebrated on the last Sunday of October) brings sharply to our attention the fact that the Lord is coming precisely as King and Judge not merely as friend or savior or role-model.  In the great Dies Irae prayed at Requiem Masses for so long (and still today), Christ is identified as “King of Fearful Majesty” and “Just Judge”.  Consider today’s feast in light of what we read in 2 Peter 3: 10-12: “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be kindled and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire!”  Christ Jesus will judge us all, dear friends, and submit all things to the Father (cf. 1 Cor 15:28).  Having excluded some from His presence, our King, Christ Jesus, will reign in majestic glory with the many who accepted His gifts and thereby merited eternal bliss.

COLLECT - (2002MR):
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus,
qui in dilecto Filio tuo, universorum Rege,
omnia instaurare voluisti,
concede propitius,
ut tota creatura, a servitute liberata,
tuae maiestati deserviat ac te sine fine collaudet.

While this Collect is of new composition for the Novus Ordo, it is similar to what was in the 1962 Missale Romanum for this feast with variations in the second part: Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui dilecto Filio tuo universorum Rege, omnia instaurare voluisti: concede propitius; ut cunctae familiae gentium, peccati vulnere disgregatae, eius suavissimo subdantur imperio... “so that all the families of peoples, torn apart by the wound of sin, may be subject to His most gentle rule.”

Universus is an adjective and universorum a neuter plural, “all things.”  Since we have another “all things” in omnia I will make universorum into “the whole universe.”  Our Latin ears perk up when we hear compound verbs (verbs with an attached preposition like sub or de or cvm).  In our own copy of A Latin Dictionary. Founded on Andrews’ edition of Freund’s Latin dictionary. revised, enlarged, and in great part rewritten by. Charlton T. Lewis, Ph.D. and. Charles Short, LL.D. – (aka Lewis & Short or even L&S) we find that deservio expands the meaning of servio to mean “serve zealously, be devoted to, subject to.”  Collaudo, more emphatic than simple laudo, means “to praise or commend very much, extol highly.”  You veterans of WDTPRS know how maiestas is synonymous with gloria which in early Latin writers such as Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose and in early liturgical texts, the equivalent of biblical Greek doxa and Hebrew kabod.   This “glory” and “majesty” is God’s own transforming power, a sharing of His life, that transforms us into what He is in an everlasting “deification”.

Instauro is a wonderful word which deserves more attention: “to renew, repeat, celebrate anew; to repair, restore; to erect, make”.  It is synonymous with renovo.  Etymologically instauro is related to Greek stauros.  Turning to a different L&S, the immensely valuable Liddell & Scott Greek Dictionary, we find that stauros is “an upright pale or stake.”   Stauros is the word used in the Greek New Testament for the Cross of Jesus.  Also the word immediately makes us think not only of the motto on the coat-of-arms of Pope St. Pius X, but also the origin of that motto Ephesians 1:10: “For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” (Eph 1:9-10 RSV).  There have been, by the way, some changes in the Latin texts of this passage.  The older Vulgate says “instaurare omnia in Christo” while the New Vulgate says “recapitulare omnia in Christo”.  

Let’s pause a moment to review what the New or “Neo” Vulgate is.  The New Vulgate is a modern and excellent reworking of the venerable Vulgate which for the most part compiled St. Jerome (+420) translations from Greek and Hebrew.  This was the standard version of the bible in use for many years.  However, with the advent of modern tools of research and scholarship it was determined that the Vulgate could benefit from some review and revision.  The New Vulgate was in preparation for many decades and was promulgated in an editio typica prior by John Paul II on 25 April 1979 by means of the Apostolic Constitution Scripturarum thesaurus.  It was then reissued in an official version in 1986.  What has all this to do with translations of texts for Holy Mass?   The document of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments (CDWDS) requires in the norms found in its document Liturgiam authenticam (LA) that translators must now refer to the Neo-Vulgate.  Some people, including His Excellency Donald W. Trautman the Erie bishop in Pennsylvania and present head of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee for Liturgy, think LA is a bad document because (as he claims) the New Vulgate is a flawed translation and translators of the liturgy should rather refer to texts in Latin and Greek.   However, what LA really says it that the New Vulgate must be used when determining which verses of Scripture are to be translated for the liturgy by the fact that chapter and verse markings differ among ancient manuscripts.   A single clear reference was needed.   
Back to our prayer.  Recapitulare is related to Latin caput (“head”) and was deemed by the scholars behind the New Vulgate as a better translation of the Greek anakephalaioô, “to sum up the argument.”  This harks to the headship of Christ over the Body of the Church and expresses that He is the Final Statement, the Conclusion of All Things.  At any rate, in 1925 and in the 1960’s when the older version of Vulgate was in use, the Collect had instaurare and not recapitulare.  

Why all this ink about recapitulare?  The phrase, “renew/reinstate all things in Christ” points to the Kingship of Jesus.  In everything that Jesus said or did in His earthly life, He was actively drawing all things and peoples to Himself.  In the time to come, when His Majesty the King returns in gloria and maiestas this act of drawing-to-Himself (cf. John 12:32) will culminate in the exaltation of all creation in a perfect unending paean of praise.  In the meantime, by virtue of baptism and our integration into Christus Venturus (Christ About-To-Come), we all share in His three-fold office of priest, prophet, and also king.  We have the duty to proclaim His Kingship by all that we say and do.  We are to offer all our good works back to Him for the sake of His glory and the expectation of His Coming.  This glorious restoration (instaurare) is possible only through the Lord’s Cross (Greek stauros).  The Cross is found subtly in the midst of this Collect, where it is revealed as the pivot point of all creation (creatura).

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Almighty eternal God,
who desired to renew all things
in Your beloved Son, the King of the universe,
graciously grant
that the whole of creation, having been freed from servitude,
may zealously serve Your majesty and praise You greatly without end.

The first objective of our participation in the Church’s sacred rites is to praise God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and give God glory.  Liturgical and Biblical Latin is rich with words and phrases which exalt and express praise of God.  In fact, the concepts of “glory” and “majesty” are nearly interchangeable in this light.  We, on the one hand, render up honor and glory to God in a way external to God.  On the other hand, glory and majesty are also divine attributes which we in no way give Him, which He has – or rather is – in Himself by His nature.  When we come into His presence, even in the contact we have with Him through the Church’s sacred mysteries, His divine attribute of splendor or glory or majesty, whatever you will, has the power to transform us.  His majestic glory changes us.  So, it is right to translate these lofty sounding attributions for God when we raise our voices in the Church’s official cult.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Almighty and merciful God,
you break the power of evil and make all things new
in your Son Jesus Christ, the King of the universe.
May all in heaven and earth
acclaim your glory
and never cease to praise you.

As we come to the end of another year’s work in this fruitful WDTPRS project, some comments and reminders are in order.   In the introductory article of this series I stated that it was not my intention to offer alternative translations to be used instead of those provided by ICEL with the approval of proper authority (no matter how bad the lame-duck ICEL versions might be).  I set out to provide you with “literal translations” in order to give even non-readers of Latin a glimpse into the original structure of the prayers, their elegance, and also the world-view inhering in them.  At times my versions adhere “slavishly” to the Latin originals but, since I am not trying to give you a liturgically appropriate text, that’s fine by me.  Sometimes my versions extend and paraphrase difficult words or passages, but I usually provide explanations of my choices, good or bad as they may be.  I am sure that my WDTPRS versions are flawed in many ways.   I know these articles are sometimes hard for the average reader.  When they are, I beg your patience.  The tradeoff is that WDTPRS is now being cited in some university level classes and quite a few people working in the Holy See’s Curia have told my they follow them with attention.  

Moreover, WDTPRS aims to stimulate and support the evolution of good, sound, accurate and beautiful translations in the future.  In the past I asked you to write to those in charge of making the new translations.  Many of you have and I have reason to believe that your letters touched the hearts of more than one official.  In addition, I have always invited and welcomed your feedback via letters and e-mail.  You honor me with your time and observations.  Over the past five years, I have also urged, cajoled and pled with you to pray for our bishops and give them positive support.  The work of the bishop is extremely difficult.  We may sometimes be struck with amazement at some of their actions (or inactions), but we must offer them prayer-filled support while we express courteously our legitimate observations.  Lastly, the most important goal of this series is to inspire in you a greater love of the rich content in our Church’s beautiful sacred liturgy both in Latin and in English.  If these articles help you listen more closely when attending Sunday or weekday Mass and think about what the prayers really say, then our efforts have been worthwhile.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  34th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Solemnity of Christ the King

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2006

“I could tell by numerous subtle signs, which might have been lost upon anyone but myself, that Holmes was on a hot scent. As impassive as ever to the casual observer, there were none the less a subdued eagerness and a suggestion of tension in his brightened eyes and brisker manner which assured me that the game was afoot. After his habit he said nothing, and after mine I asked no questions. Sufficient for me to share the sport and lend my humble help to the capture without distracting that intent brain with needless interruption. All would come round to me in due time.
     I waited, therefore – but, to my ever-deepening disappointment, I waited in vain. Day succeeded day, and my friend took no step forward.”  [Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, His Last Bow.]

There is a saying in Rome: cunctando regitur mundus… the world is ruled by delaying. The objective may be to slow the process to where it might not be possible to do anything at all.  You might be waiting for the best moment for action to manifest itself clearly.  Putting brakes on a project allows additional opportune knowledge to come in, compelling the development of a different plan.  If you defer intervention, the problem might resolve itself.  Delay, therefore, can be a useful tool either to derail an initiative or to ensure its success.  It depends on what side you are on.  

So far we have not seen an “indult” to derestrict the use of the so-called “Tridentine” Mass.  Recently the French bishops met in plenary session and His Eminence Jean-Pierre Card. Ricard, President of the conference, member of the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” and Archbishop of Bordeaux, did a tight-rope act among his panicking confreres.  The good news is that, despite a passing rumor that a draft of a Motu Proprio didn’t even exist, Card. Ricard will be headed to Rome and will participate in studying the draft.  

Thorny questions plague a derestricting Motu Proprio and those involved must find the right answers.  I am not happy that it is taking so long to produce this very sensible solution, but I am firmly convinced that any document Pope Benedict issues must be very carefully designed.    So, are you thinking that the Second Coming will occur before Rome moves on this?  The Parousia will be just fine also.  Bring it on.

Speaking of the return of the Lord, we have arrived at the Solemnity of Christ the King, the final Sunday of the liturgical year.  Each year the Church during Sunday Mass involves in us the history of salvation, from the universe’s Creation to the Lord’s Coming, both His First Coming and also the Second at the end of the world.   Today’s Solemnity looks Janus-like in two directions at once.  It regards the unfolding of the history of salvation, which we patiently observed during the last liturgical year, and it gazes forward to the season of Advent, which focuses on the different ways in which Christ comes to us.  It is now also November, when Catholics pray for souls in Purgatory and reflect on the Four Last Things: death, judgment, heaven and hell.   The Solemnity of Christ the King emphasizes how the Lord our Savior will come as King and Judge, not merely as friend or role-model.  In the Sequence sung for centuries in Requiem Masses, the Dies irae, Christ is identified as “King of Fearful Majesty” and “Just Judge”.   Consider today’s through the lens of 2 Peter 3: 9-14 (read this aloud in the Douay-Rheims version):

The Lord delayeth not his promise, as some imagine, but dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance, But the day of the Lord shall come as a thief, in which the heavens shall pass away with great violence and the elements shall be melted with heat and the earth and the works which are in it shall be burnt up. Seeing then that all these things are to be dissolved, what manner of people ought you to be in holy conversation and godliness? Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of the Lord, by which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with the burning heat? But we look for new heavens and a new earth according to his promises, in which justice dwelleth. Wherefore, dearly beloved, waiting for these things, be diligent that you may be found before him unspotted and blameless in peace.

Christ Jesus will judge us all, dear friends, and submit all things to the Father (cf. 1 Cor 15:28).  The King will exclude some from His presence and will then reign in majestic glory with the many who accepted His gifts.  Today’s feast celebrates both the triumphant glory of the Christ the King and reminds of our mortality, our judgment and, we hope, our happy reward.

SUPER OBLATA (2002MR):
Hostiam tibi, Domine, humanae reconciliationis offerentes,
suppliciter deprecamur, ut ipse Filius tuus
cunctis gentibus unitatis et pacis dona concedat.

 

This Super Oblata was the Secret of the Feast of Christ the King celebrated on the last Sunday of October according to the 1962MR.  It seems to be a new composition at the time when Pius XI instituted this new feast on 11 December 1925.  Our amazing Lewis & Short Dictionary reminds us that supplex (related to the verb sup-plico indicating a “bending the knees, kneeling down”) is an adjective for “humbly begging or entreating; humble, submissive, beseeching, suppliant, supplicant (synonyms: humilis, submissus)”.  The adverb suppliciter is “humbly, submissively, suppliantly”.
 
L&S also says humanus, a, um in its basic meaning is “of or belonging to man, human.”  This adjective also describes something as “humane, philanthropic, kind, gentle, obliging, polite” as well as “of good education, well-informed, learned, polite, refined.”  Think of “the humanities”.  English has a hard time distinguishing the differences between objective and subjective possession: “human reconciliation” could mean either the reconciliation given to man by a reconciler, or man’s own reconciliation which he offers.

The issue of “human reconciliation” is vital to our understanding of this feast.  Christ the King of Fearful Majesty, Eternal God and Light from Light, remains in His heavenly glory also our brother in our humanity.  In Christ our humanity now sits at the Father’s right hand in an indestructible bond with His divinity.   Christ is King, but He is also Bridegroom, perfectly committed to His Bride the Church and all of us who are her members.  It is interesting to note that the word “human”, deriving from Latin humanus, originally comes from the Indo-European root which also gives us “bridegroom”: *dhghem means “earthling” leading to Germanic *gumōn and thence Old English guma which produced “groom”.  That primordial form also gives us Greek khthōn, “earth”, and thus English “chthonic” and Latin humus, “earth”, and thus humanus “human” and humilis “humble”.

The roots of our magnificent English language express both God’s drawing Adam’s flesh forth from the clay and also the relationship of the new Adam, the Word made flesh, with His Church.  

As we are faithful, obedient and submissive to Him, He will be faithful to us and give us all that we need to face Him, as Judge, with joy and not terror.  We must live in such a way as, at that moment, to hear from Him: “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world…” (RSV Matthew 25:34).  The context is a parable about the Kingdom of God and the eschatological reward and punishment for those engaged in or neglecting the commands of the Lord, especially regarding corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

We must live in such a way that, at the end of the single course of this earthly life, we may hear the pleasure of our King.  Consider this in light of the fact that the Second Vatican Council describes the Church’s liturgy, especially the Eucharistic liturgy of Holy Mass, as the “source and summit of Christian life” (Lumen gentium 11; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church 1324).  

There is a reciprocal relationship between how we pray and what we believe, a dynamic bond of liturgical life and moral life.  Since Holy Mass is the “source and summit of Christian life” what we do in church, what we believe happens in church, makes an enormous difference.  Do we believe the consecration really does something?  If dropping a pebble in a pool produces ripples in a pond, does the way we celebrate Mass create spiritual ripples in the Church and the world?  Does our reception of Holy Communion?  What about violations of rubrics?  Mass is not merely a “teaching moment” or a “celebration of unity”.  Our choices of music, architecture, ceremonies and language affect more than our small congregation in one building.  Will our personal or collective choice not to kneel before Christ the King and Judge truly present in each sacred Host, produce a wider effect?  We are interconnected in our common human nature and in baptism.  If when we sin we hurt the whole Body of Christ the Church, then our liturgical choices must also have personal and corporate impact.   

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord,
we offer you the sacrifice
by which your Son reconciles mankind.
May it bring unity and peace to the world.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O Lord, offering to You the victim sacrifice of the reconciliation of humanity,
we are praying submissively that Your Son Himself
will grant all peoples the gifts of unity and of peace.

A SMOOTHER VERSION:
As we offer to You, O Lord, the Sacrifice of mankind’s reconciliation,
we humbly pray that Your Son may Himself
bestow upon all peoples the gifts of unity and peace.

At the end of this year’s cycle of WDTPRS some observations are in order.  It was never my intention in this series to offer alternative translations to the official ones provided by ICEL.  Rather, my “literal translations”, as flawed as they may be, are intended to stir interest and discussion.  If they help you listen more closely during Mass, think about what you hear and engage the sacred action with “full, conscious, and active” participation then WDTPRS is a success.  

Second, this series has aimed at promoting accurate and beautiful translations in keeping with the normative document Liturgiam authenticam.  At my urging you readers sent positive letters of support to the members of the Vox Clara committee, bishops, and heads of Vatican dicasteries.  You prayed for and offered penances for all those involved. As a result WDTPRS played a concrete role in the process of creating new translations, including the critical “pro multis” debate.

Third, I have endeavored to maintain a positive tone in relating news and comments about matters of liturgy and other issues of importance to the life of the Church.  My conviction is that we can report and debate and lobby and opine and analyze without tattling, bickering, nagging, ranting, or carping.

Continue always with your prayers for bishops and priests.  Support them by means of fasting and other mortifications.  Their vocations are extremely difficult.  Liturgical renewal depends on them but both societal and demonic forces are arrayed against them.   The salvation of many souls, including their own, depends on their work.  Discerning and implementing the right thing to do is difficult, and the pressures to cave in are great.  Your support, both hidden and manifest, will make all the difference in the future.

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  34th and Last Sunday in Ordinary Time – Solemnity of Christ the King

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2003

This is the last column of WDTPRS focusing on the proper prayers of Sunday Masses (at least for now).  In the first year we looked at the opening prayers or collects of the Sundays, always published a week ahead of time so that you could think about them at Mass.  In the second year we examined the offertory prayers or Super oblata.  This last year we have delved into the Post communion prayers.   The column will continue, friends.  But you will have to wait a couple weeks to see what I have in store for this coming year.   

I dearly appreciate readers’ feedback each week.  I am getting e-mail and your snail-mail letters are being forwarded (on the editor’s schedule, of course).  I can’t post comments from everyone who writes, but I do read every word you take the time to offer.   I should add that in the last three years the pieces of hate mail I have received about this column I could tally using one hand only.  (This is not an invitation for more.)  Thus, I conclude that these articles have positively resonated with far more people than they have irritated them.  That is something to which the folks at ICEL and our chief shepherds might hearken also.

POST COMMUNIONEM
LATIN (2002 Missale Romanum – Christ the King):
Immortalitatis alimoniam consecuti,
quaesumus, Domine,
ut, qui Christi Regis universorum
gloriamur oboedire mandatis,
cum ipso in caelesti regno sine fine vivere valeamus.

This seems to be of new composition based in part on the Postcommunio of the Feast of Christ the King celebrated on the last Sunday of October in the traditional Roman calendar used in the 1962MR: Immortalitatis alimoniam consecuti, quaesumus, Domine: ut, qui sub Christi Regis vexillis militare gloriamur, cum ipso, in caelesti sede, iugiter regnare possimus.  It is quite thoroughly redacted now.  Look at all the m’s, or rather listen to all the m’s and the v’s!   What comes to mind is the vast organum of visible and invisible creation humming beneath the eternal chorus praising God forever when He is “all in all”.  That “sine fine vivere valeamus” is a thrill and an improvement, I think.  On the other hand, I regret the loss of the military imagery, so important to us in the Church Militant, awaiting the coming of the King who banner (vexilla) we strive to merit calling our own even in this life.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord,
you give us Christ, the King of all creation,
as food for everlasting life.
Help us to live by his gospel
and bring us to the joy of his kingdom.

Let us heft the colossal Lewis & Short Dictionary for the last time (in this WDTPRS cycle) and look at a word meaning much more than what a divorced man pays to his estranged wife.  “Nourishment, food, sustenance, support” is what Latin alimonia means.  It also means in the Latin Vulgate of the Bible, “for the food of the burnt-offering”.   Transferred into a New Testament context, we might equate it with the bread and wine for the Mass, together with other sacrificial offerings provided by the people.   Consequor means “to follow, follow up, press upon, go after, attend, accompany, pursue any person or thing” as well as “to follow a model, copy, an authority, example, opinion, etc.; to imitate, adopt, obey” and “to reach, overtake, obtain”.  Thus, by extension, or consequently, this means “to become like or equal to a person or thing in any property or quality, to attain, come up to, to equal.”   It is possible to translate consecuti as many older hand missal might, simply as “having received”.  But in the context of the feast of Christ the King, it seems to me that we need something more.

At times you will note that certain key words in prayers recur in pairs or patterns on different Sundays.  The last time we examined consequor was in the Post communion of the 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time.  In that same prayer we also found, like today, a form of glorior.  Many times we have looked at gloria, the basis of the verb glorior, and how in early Latin writers such as Hilary of Poitier it stands for a a divine characteristic, a transforming might, which God will share with us to make us forever and ever more like Him.   In today’s prayer we also use vivere, and on the 3rd Sunday we heard, with forms of glorior and consequor also vivificare.   We want “to live”, and not just here and now, but forever in the transforming presence of Life itself for eternity.  We are talking about having life and having it abundantly (cf. John 10:10) which comes to fulfillment only at the end of the world.  The Latin Vulgate has St. Paul using a form of glorior several times, and some of those texts are a crowbar for us to pry open this prayer.  You will want to review for sure 1 Cor 1:28 ff. and also Ephesians 2:8-10: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast (ne quis glorietur).  For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”  Properly understood, there is no confusion in this with the false understanding of some Protestants about faith and works.  Also, St. Paul said, “But far be it from me to glory (gloriari) except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14).   The only way to the glory that lasts, that cannot be lost and the world cannot stain, strip or grind away is through the sacrificial love of God and neighbor that Christ modeled on Calvary and in washing His disciples’ feet in the Cenacle.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Having been remodeled according to the nourishment of immortality,
we beseech you, O Lord,
that, we who glory in obeying the mandates of Christ the King of all things,
will be able to live with Him without end in the heavenly kingdom.

Notice that consecuti in the Latin original agrees with nos (hidden in the subject of the verb quaesumus) and that it is a perfect participle of a deponent verb, so it has active meaning of a action that took place in the past but has present effects.  Something has been accomplished here on the last Sunday of the year, which looks to the moment of the ending of the world and the coming of the King: immortalitatis alimoniam consecuti – literally we could read this as more than just “we have received the food of immortality” and instead see in this prayer something like “we have been reshaped according to the model of food of immortality”.  What this means is that we have been transformed by what we received.   There seems to be a shift of perspective in this prayer.  

So very often in the Post communion prayers we acknowledge that since we have been nourished by what we received in Communion and we are further begging God to transform us through it in an ongoing way now so that we can be made apt for heaven later.  Now, it seems that we are acknowledging that we in fact have been transformed according to the model (consecuti) of the nourishing offering (alimonia) which bears a diving transforming power conferring the immortality heaven (immortalitas).   Note that while consequor is a deponent verb and would not usually sound passive in meaning, the verb also means, and this is what today I have chosen to stress, “to follow a model”.  Thus, in the present perfect time of this participle, I am going to say “having been remodeled according” rather than, “having modeled ourselves”, etc.  

Also, closely attend to what impact of the tense of consecuti.  At the end of the year, our transformation has in fact taken place with ongoing effect in the present (that is, the time when the priest is pronouncing the prayer).   While we clearly haven’t been perfected yet, we nevertheless as Christians are living in a state of “already, but not yet” regarding this immortalitatis alimonia.   We are baptized.  We have been conformed according to the model of Christ (consecuti) and even integrated into His divine Person, the Church.  Thus, the way has been opened by baptism to the Eucharist and to heaven.   The reception of the Eucharist in (a good) Holy Communion is the sign and pledge of what is to come.  So, this prayer is a triumphant example of confidence.  At the same time this confidence of baptized, Eucharist transformed Catholics, is also a paean of humility: we are glorified precisely in obeying, in obedience to Christ’s commands.   St. Paul said, “But far be it from me to glory (gloriari) except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14).   The only way to the glory that lasts, that cannot be lost and the world cannot stain, strip or grind away is through the sacrificial love of God and neighbor that Christ modeled on Calvary and in washing His disciples’ feet in the Cenacle.

At the end of this cycle of WDTPRS some observations are in order.  When I began this series’ three years ago, I said that I was not going to try to create translations that can be used instead of the ICEL versions now in use.   I was not striving to produce translations that were smooth and polished and ready for public declamation.  Rather, my “literal translations” would seek to stir interest in the prayers of Mass, provoke discussion, and help enter into the sacred action with mind and will engaged.  My profound hope is that they have helped you in some way.  If anything in these columns lead you to participate actively at Mass with “fuller, more conscious, and more active” participation then WDTPRS has succeeded.  

In addition, I wanted WDTPRS to be a lobby or a tool to promote the evolution of good, sound, accurate and beautiful translations in the future.  This is why I have urged you the readers to letters of support to bishops and those in charge of these matters.  Third, very often I have asked you to pray for bishops and give them support at least by means of your fasting and other mortifications.  The work of a bishop is extremely complicated and the production of liturgical translations is daunting and vast.  

Fourth, I have opened myself up to feedback and comments from you and many have generosity responded.  From years of experience of working on the internet, I have learned how important it is to make a project like this interactive.  St. Augustine, in his magisterial De doctrina christiana, which effectively established the philosophy of education for a millennium and a half, warned the potential “sacred preacher” that he must take great care to consider with sympathy the needs and abilities of those who must simply sit and listen to him talk.  So, if I invite you to read this each week, I will gladly read what you send in return.  To all who have written, I am grateful.

Finally, the most important goal of this series is to inspire a greater love of the all riches presented to us by Holy Mother Church, particularly in our beautiful sacred liturgy, both in Latin and in English.

Next week, we will launch ourselves into a new undertaking.  I will present a re-introduction of sorts so that new people (perhaps to whom you are giving gift subscriptions) who may have come lately to this series may see what we are doing.  I may take a week or two to write a column or two to spin out some of my thoughts on different ideas that may help us in our ongoing effort to understand what the prayers of Holy Mass really say.