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

During the annual Vespers of Thanksgiving and singing of the Te Deum the Holy Father in Rome gave a wonderful reflection on time. I had the chance to read it ahead of time but couldn’t post until now.

First, he constrasts the different secular traditions people have for the end of the year with the way Christians should understand the moment. Benedict emphasized seeing this time of year with a Marian view, who gazes at the Christ Child.

Benedict also speaks of the "fulness" of time. This is interesting.

Two different evaluations of the dimension of time thus contrast each other, one qualitative and one quantitative. On the one hand, there is there is the solar cycle with its rhythms; on the other, that which St. Paul calls the "fullness of time" (Gal 4:4), namely, the culminating moment of the history of the universe and of the human race, when the Son of God was born into the world. The time of promises was fulfilled and, when the pregnancy of Mary had reached its end, "the earth has yielded its increase" (Ps 66 [67]:7) as a psalm says. The coming of the Messiah, foretold by the Prophets, is qualitatively the most important event in all of history, to which it confers its own final and ultimate meaning. Historical-political coordinates do not condition God’s choices, but, on the contrary, it is the event of the Incarnation that "fills up" the worth and meaning of history.

The Holy Father then returns to his Marian reflection, speaking to how Christ was born of God and also born of Mary, so that He would have a fully human nature through which He would save us.

At the end of the Ave Maria we ask Mary to pray for us sinners. At the end of the year, the Pope reminds us to invoke Mary’s help for the world.

The cartoon Foxtrot has some Latin this morning!

What Does the Prayer Really Say? Holy Family – Sunday in the Octave of Christmas

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2004

A liturgical “octave” is an eight day period following and including the feast. In a way, the Church suspends time so that we can “rest” within the mystery we have celebrated while contemplating it from different angles. Perhaps you have gone to a museum and seen a magnificent statue, such as Michelangelo’s David in Florence. Glancing at it for a moment is not enough; you want to spend some time. Looking at it from one direction is inadequate; you walk around it to see it from various points of view. Considering our human weakness, a single day per year does not suffice to gather in the different dimensions of the mystery of a great feast. An octave, however, allows us to reflect on a feast in different ways. For example, Pius Parsh, a prominent figure of the Liturgical Movement during the 20th c., wrote in The Church’s Year of Grace that the feasts of Sts. Stephen, John the Evangelist, and the Holy Innocents permit us to approach Christ, the new born King, first as martyrs, then as virgins, then as virgin-martyrs. Theologically speaking, an octave anticipates the eternal bliss of heaven in which we will consider God in His glory. Think of it this way. God created the world in six days and on the seventh, the Sabbath, He rested. This cycle of seven repeats itself while the world endures. The eighth day is therefore beyond the cycle of seven. It symbolizes an eternal state, the perfect unending Sabbath of heaven. As a Church, during the octave – perceived as a single continuous day – we imitate the hosts of heaven in their abiding contemplation. Advent prepared us for the coming of the Lamb, both at Bethlehem and the end of time. Christmas too marks both comings. After Christmas we gather around the manger of Bethlehem and contemplate Jesus who is also the Lamb of the book of Revelation. We are like the Magi who adore Him, but we are also like the heavenly multitude of 144,000 who “follow the Lamb wherever he goes” (Rev 14:4). In both ways we remain in the Lord’s presence.

On 1 January we celebrate the solemn feast of Mary, Mother of God, once called in the traditional Roman calendar (and still so by those using the MR1962) the Feast of the Circumcision, when Christ shed His Blood for us for the first time. Thus, at Christmas the wooden Crib already points to the wooden Cross, and beyond to the goal of heaven made possible now for the children of a common Father. Mary stood at the foot of both. Consequently, it is fitting to celebrate her with great solemnity in the Christmas octave. By her participation in the salvific shedding of her Son’s Blood Mary gives us an important example of sacrificial love.

The place God Incarnate chose to begin manifesting this sacrificial love, which reached its culmination on the Cross, was the family home. Together with Mary and His earthly father Joseph, Christ began to reveal something of the unity of love within the most perfect of communions, the Holy Trinity. It is fitting to celebrate the Holy Family within the Octave of Christmas when we contemplate the coming of the Lord in imitation of that final, perfect communion with God to be enjoyed only by the blessed in heaven. The family is a paradigm of all other human relationships. The Holy Family teaches us, who are still in this world but moving inexorably toward our judgment and final goal, how to live – together – in this present state of “already, but not yet”.

COLLECT - LATIN TEXT (2002MR):
Deus, qui praeclara nobis sanctae Familiae
dignatus es exempla praebere,
concede propitius,
ut domesticis virtutibus caritatisque vinculis illam sectantes,
in laetitia domus tuae praemiis fruamur aeternis.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Father, help us to live as the holy family,
united in respect and love.
Bring us to the joy and peace of your eternal home.

According to the fine Lewis & Short Dictionary the noun exemplum means, “a sample for imitation, instruction, proof, a pattern, model, original, example….” For the Fathers, exemplum could mean many things. including man as God’s image, Christ as a Teacher, and the content of prophecy. In Greek and Roman rhetoric and philosophy, which so deeply influenced the Fathers, exemplum could have auctoritas, “authority”, which means among other things the moral persuasive force of an argument. When we hear this prayer with Patristic ears, exemplum is not merely an “example” to be followed: it indicates a past event as a reason for hope and an incitement to the spiritual life that leads to being raised up after the perfect exemplum, the Risen Christ. The deponent verb sector (you know the word “sect”) is, “to follow continuously or eagerly… to strive after.” The playwright Publius Terentius Afer (Terence + 158 BC) uses it for followers of a philosopher (Eunuchus 2.2.31). These disciples would take their name from their philosophical master just as we ‘Christians have ours. In the ancient Church there was a gossamer thin distinction between religion and philosophy. In a sense, Christ, the teacher offering His disciples perfect exempla is the verus philosophus for He Himself is Wisdom and Truth, and our faith is vera philosophia. That illam (singular) goes back, necessarily to familia (singular feminine, not the neuter plural exempla). Exemplum is also laden with import in the writings of the Fathers of the Church. Praeclarus, a, um, the adjective paired with exempla, signifies basically, “very bright, very clear” and then by extension, “very beautiful (physically or morally), magnificent, honorable, splendid, noble, remarkable, distinguished, excellent, famous, celebrated.” Praeclara …exempla is so packed with information that it is really impossible to render it into English completely without a long excursus, like, “authoritative models for imitation very beautiful in instructive clarity”. Also, the combination of praebere exempla is very common in the writings of the Fathers often for “offering examples for imitation” of virtues or good works. This prayer is laden with philosophical vocabulary revolving around instruction of and conformity of life to wisdom through virtues. This prayer is a new composition for the Novus Ordo based somewhat on the Collect for the Feast of the Holy Family in the 1962MR. Whoever wrote this knew more than his prayers, I can tell you.

The term domestica virtus, is used by ancient authors of philosophical works (e.g., Cicero (+43 BC) and Seneca (+AD 65)) and thereafter by the doctor of the Church St. Ambrose of Milan (+397) in his own works on virginity and on virtues and duties.

This word pairing brings to mind the Second Vatican Council’s description of the family as the “domestic Church”, reprised in the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1656 citing Lumen gentium 11:

In our own time, in a world often alien and even hostile to faith, believing families are of primary importance as centers of living radiant faith. For this reason the Second Vatican Council, using an ancient expression, calls the family the domestic Church (Ecclesia domestica). It is in the bosom of the family that parents are “by word and example…the first heralds of the faith with regard to their children. They should encourage them in the vocation which is proper to each child, fostering with special care any religious vocation.”

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O God, who deigned to provide us
with the very beautiful models of the Holy Family,
grant propitiously
that we who are eagerly imitating them in domestic virtues and the bonds of charity,
may enjoy eternal rewards in the joy of Your house.

We are asking God implicitly to enable us through grace, building in us the supernatural virtues of faith, hope and especially charity, to imitate the clear examples (praeclara exempla) of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in the communion of their earthly household. We are to build communion among ourselves, on their authoritative model, which in turn exemplifies the communion of the Church and of the Persons of the Trinity. Thereafter, our examples, our own families, serve as the building block of a society oriented to God, the “city of God”, not the “city of man”. The reward for doing this faithfully is participation in the heavenly household of God the Father in the new family of the Church triumphant.

What the Holy Family offers us is a real exemplum, authoritative model, of freedom. This is not the false freedom of self-interested satisfaction of appetites, or the freedom to “choose” divorced from consideration of objective truths. This is freedom within, not from the bonds of charity. The more we are implicated or “bound up” in the love of God, giving Him our freedom, the freer we truly are. Vinculum literally means “that with which any thing is bound”, a “fetter”, like a chain. Here it describes effect of real charity, vincula caritatis, the kind of sacrificial love based on obedience to God’s will that the Holy Family had for one another and Christ showed forth perfectly while fixed and bound to the Cross. The “bonds of charity” require sacrifices and the abandoning, or better, transformation of selfish desires. The bonds of the family, and any authentic relationship based on something other than mutual use of each other, seem to modern eyes often to restrict personal freedom. But this is not the case. God’s love and God-like love, charity, makes us freer than we could ever hope to be without it.

The bonds of love and virtues of the Holy Family are foreshadows of the harmony of heaven which we are eagerly striving after. The family, nourished in the faith and sacraments of the Church, is an image of the Holy Family, itself an image of the communion of persons of the Church in heaven and of the Persons of the Trinity. Today’s Collect points to the importance of the “domestic Church.” The family is the first “church” children know. Parents are the first examples of God children experience. Your children first learn who God is by experiencing you. Can anyone wonder why the forces of hell are bending relentless attacks upon the family and the virtues which must be practiced in the home? Through the media, especially cinema, TV, and the internet, there pour into our homes a constant assault on virtue. And it is precisely virtue (not diversity, not tolerance, not inclusivity, not politically correct sensitivity, not freedom of choice unfettered from charity) that makes possible a family and therefore a society. This prayer is a contradiction of worldly ways and an affirmation of the God’s true image in us.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph – Sunday in the Octave of Christmas

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2006

Today is simultaneously the Sunday in the Octave of Christmas, Holy Family, and, as St. Sylvester’s Day (New Year’s Eve), and the Vigil of the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God. During a liturgical octave time is “suspended”. A lifetime is insufficient, and eternity will not suffice to contemplate the mystery the Nativity, but at least we have eight days and not merely one to focus our minds and hearts upon it. Christ was born into this word to save us from our sins and to reveal us more fully to ourselves (cf. Gaudium et spes 22). By His Incarnation and Nativity, the Second Person who was the perfect invisible image of the Father became the perfect visible image. In Christ we who are made in God’s image see all that we are, ought to be and can be. Christ is a member of a community of Persons. In Him, we are all made brothers and sisters under our heavenly Father. In Christ we have our perfect model, not only as individuals but also as groups of people with a common calling to holiness. The Incarnation was bestowed in cooperation with Mary’s “Fiat”. Mary is the Mother of a whole Person, not just of a indeterminate human nature. Thus she is the Mother of God since she is Mother of the divine Person Jesus Christ. During this Octave, we consider Christ with Mary and His earthly Father Joseph in the heart of a family which is a “domestic church”. The family shapes us and is the building block of all common bonds between men and women, made in His image and likeness, made to live as He lives, in a community of holy persons.

The “prayer after Communion” for Sunday morning’s Feast of the Holy Family founded on the Secret for Holy Family in the 1962MR.

LATIN (2002 Missale Romanum):
Quos caelestibus reficis sacramentis,
fac, clementissime Pater,
sanctae Familiae exempla iugiter imitari,
ut, post aerumnas saeculi,
eius consortium consequamur aeternum.

The noun aerumna comes from aerumnula denoting a frame for carrying burdens upon the back. Hence it indicates “need, want, trouble, toil, hardship, distress, tribulation, calamity” in a material sense, though no doubt these things produce conditions of the soul. Consortium (cvm “with” + sors “any thing used to determine chances”) means a “community of goods” and by extension “fellowship, participation, society.” A consortium is a situation in which you have “cast your lot” with a group and with whom you are sharing a common outcome or fate. Consequor (cvm + sequor “to follow”) signifies “to follow, follow up, press upon, go after, attend, accompany, pursue any person or thing.” By extension it is also “to follow a model, copy, an authority, example, opinion, etc.; to imitate, adopt, obey”. Con+sequently… consequor means “to become like or equal to a person or thing in any property or quality, to attain, come up to, to equal.” Imitor obviously means “to imitate” in behavior, but also in a material copying of something. Exemplum is first and foremost “imitation, image, portrait; transcript, copy” and then it is in legal terms a case or cause to be imitated or followed in our behavior, a “precedent”.
The vocabulary underscores a strong theme of “imitation”: exemplum… imitor… consequor. Now, I apologize for what follows but…

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Eternal Father,
we want to live as Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,
in peace with you and one another.
May this communion strengthen us
to face the troubles of life.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Most merciful Father,
cause those whom You restore by the heavenly sacraments
to imitate the model of the Holy Family without ceasing,
so that, after the hardships of this world,
we may attain its eternal fellowship.

We could say “their” rather than “its” for the Holy Family, but I am sticking to the singular for the family “unit”.

We are all children of the fallen first family of Adam and Eve. We are children of God the Father in the Church. On the one hand, the prayer reminds us of our past (and present) fallen state with all the its difficulties (aerumna). On the other hand, it point to the heavenly family, raised up and sanctified. In the Church we are raised up but are not quite yet raised since heaven still awaits us. We are still both raised and fallen.

The prayer’s imitation vocabulary underscores that we are not without help in his life. We are part of a family, earthly and heavenly, already realized but not yet fulfilled. Christ chose to participate in a family when He began to save us and teach us who we are. Great work goes into the noble vocation of being a member of a family. We must imitate and practice the exempla offered us in the Holy Family, the lives of saints, the good efforts of people around us. By imitation and practice we develop virtues. We build ourselves, with God’s help, into holy individuals and families. There are hardships and the burdens of others to be carried (aerumna) in the workshop of the family where holy people are shaped and sculpted according to models (exempla) offered by God. Those who have families know this. So do those who do not have families. Often they know this with the bitterness of loneliness. Perhaps you could extend your family bond around someone you know who has no one else. Remember: the wood of the Christmas Crib predicts the wood of Calvary’s Cross. Family is bound together with the Sacrifice as will as with the joyful Nativity. We Christians “cast our lots” with each other (consortium), share each others burdens (aerumna). While the guards cast lots upon Jesus’ clothing and He was alone as no man has ever been, He guided His Mother, the widow about to loose her only child, and John, about to be orphaned by His death, together into a new family, a family of charity, a family of Blood though not of blood: “And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.” (John 19:27 RSV). This is a Christian imperative. It is Christ’s own exemplum to be imitated.

Since Sunday is New Year’s Eve you might observe the beautiful Roman tradition of singing or reciting the Te Deum, a fitting way to recognize that all good things come from God. Moreover, since New Year’s Day is the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, let’s have peek at the prayers for this great feast. Alas, I must omit the ICEL versions for the sake of space. I know you’ll miss them. Take The Wanderer to church and compare them before Mass begins.

(TO BE CONTINUED)....

It is amazing to contemplate the contrast of the lying in state of the late President, the Honorable Gerald Ford with the demise of the late … Saddam Hussein.

There is a report on ANSA today that the internet petition AGAINST the derestriction of the "Tridentine" Mass has been a flop.

UPDATE: The instigator of the petition against the old Mass is Fr. Paolo Farinella, a very visible and vocal lefty in Italy. Some of his accomplishments are being opposed to the presence of Crucifixes in classrooms and celebrating a Mass for Piergiorgio Welby recently in the infamous pro-euthanasia incident. He published an open letter against the old Mass to which the Archdiocese of Genoa made an official rebuke. Visit the site of the Archdiocese of Genoa and see an image of an old holy card showing the Tridentine Mass! Another biretta tip to my good friend Fabrizio o{]:¬)

Here excerpts from the story in my translation:

INTERNET PETITION AGAINST LATIN MASS FLOPS

CITTA’ DEL VATICANO - The collection of signatures launched on the internet by the priest and biblical scholar from Genoa Fr. Paolo Farinella against the return of the Mass in Latin – object of a long discussed possible Motu Proprio of Benedict XVI - and in defense of the choices of Vatican II is not having the success that was hoped for. The object of the appeal was to gather at least 10,000 signatures to send to the Vatican, but over the almost two months since the launch the number of signers is just above one thousand.

There are just 1052 signers up to today, who have joined the first signer, namely the same Fr. Farinella, but it is necessary to count also the signatures which are clearly false, such as that of someone who mocking signed as none less than "Marcel Lefebvre, Archbishop of Dakar", ....

"The problem is not that the Mass is in Latin (today an anachronism)" he explained in his online appeal. "The true problem rests in the fact that the Mass of Pius is a banner raised by the traditionalists to bring about the complete abnegation of the ecumenical Council Vatican II and especially of Pope Paul VI, whom they consider schismatic and inspired by the devil." Thus, in reviving for them the old rite, "you make yourself an accomplice and supporter of an even greater schism because the disciples of Lefebvre don’t accept the authority of the Council". "You are the Pope and we recognize your authority in this matter," Fr. Farinella added. "But at the same time we say to you that you cannot do this thing you desire and you cannot contradict a council much less abrogate it as you are doing with the concession of exclusive use the Mass of Pius V."

...

My special thanks are due to kind souls who fired off the last couple donations to keep the blog going. 

You have my gratitude and my biretta tip:

o{]:¬)

The Frankfurter Allgemeine is having a poll for "person of the year". You can vote for Benedikt XVI, who is presently winning in the poll!

Wer ist Ihr Mensch des Jahres?

 

18. Dezember 2006
Das zentrale Ereignis des Jahres war ein rauschendes Fußball-Fest. Den Titel errang das deutsche Team bei der Heim-WM zwar nicht, doch es bewegte einiges im Land. 2006 – alles nur Fußball? Beileibe nicht. Wer ist für Sie der Mensch des Jahres?

Ihre Stimme wurde gezählt.
Wer ist Ihr Mensch des Jahres?

Jürgen Klinsmann: 7641 Stimmen 23,12 %
Papst Benedikt XVI.: 17185 Stimmen 52,00 %
Thomas Reiter: 1824 Stimmen 5,52 %
Michael Schumacher: 1384 Stimmen 4,19 %
Angela Merkel: 2562 Stimmen 7,75 %
Natascha Kampusch: 2455 Stimmen 7,43 %

Insgesamt wurden 33051 Stimmen abgegeben

Here at The Sabine Farm we are having a bit of snow.  How is this for a contrast to my window back in Roma?

The chapel last night, ready for the post supper visit to the Blessed Sacrament.

We had snow during the night, and the snow is still falling.

And from the front, the scene is near perfection.  All this and a bright red barn.  My front room is my office, so this is the view out the window as I work.

 

Tonight I had two exquisite friends at the Sabine Farm. Tonight, my onomastico (I claim both John the Baptist and the Evangelist), I made supper from coniglio in umido, some superb mashed Yukon Gold potatoes with parmiggiano, mixed greens salad with homemade Green Godess dressing. Dessert was panetone and prosecco, about which I have many stories. After, there were choices of grappa di moscato or Chambord.

Here is a shot of the pan in preparation:

And on the plate!

I think larger images are available by doing a right click and a view image.

The preprandials consisted of, for one of us, one of my Bombay Sapphire martinis, and elsewise, a very good pinot grigio. We had an amuse gule of smoked salmon and capers on water crackers with a touch of Laphroaig. The wine for the main course was a ‘98 Cohn Cab. With the panetone we had prosecco by Zardetto.

Fr. Z is pretty tired today.  I am just checking in.

His Eminence Dario Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos read the text of the Holy Father’s Urbi et Orbi address aloud in Latin. 

One might think that the Dean of the College of Cardinals would have read the message, if the Pope himself did not.  The Dean is Cardinal Sodano. 

Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos is President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei.

Hmmm…

This is sheer speculation on my part, but I wonder if this is not part of Pope Benedict’s making sure that His Eminence has a little additional face time, especially in the realm of all things Latin.

We should notice too that His Eminence is in a dalmatic, which is entirely appropriate, since he is a Cardinal Deacon of the title SS. Nome di Maria al Foro Traiano.  Most curial cardinals, unless they were previously Cardinals as diocesan ordinaries, are Cardinal Deacons.  Ordinaries of dioceses are Cardinal Priests.  There are only a handleful of Cardinal Bishops, whose titles are the little suburbicarian dioceses surrounding Rome.

In any event, we have not yet seen the Latin text of the Urbi et Orbi released to the City and the World, except via voce, of course.   I am curious to hear the style.

Many years ago I had "hotwired" the phone of the office I working in in Rome so that I could dial out past the Vatican operator and get on Compuserve (Oh… how we thought that was cutting edge at the time), where I was moderator of the ur-Catholic Online Forum.  That forum software had chat room functions.   Each time I would try to leave the site to go home, some other soul would enter the "room" and it rapidly became obvious that many people were either shut in or alone.  After all, why else would they have been there?  I wound up spending over 12 hours in that office that Christmas, talking to people all over the world who were alone and providing the chat room for their safe clean chat. 

It occurred to me in the middle of Mass number 3 today (Puer natus est) that that might indeed be the case with people using blogs today.

I don’t have chat enabled in this blog but I do want to greet those of you who are along or shut in, perhaps ill or unable otherwise to go out, without people to be with.

I remembered you at Mass today and I give you my special Christmas greeting.

Sometimes you have to wonder how the translations of major texts are coordinated between the different offices that cover language groups.

Here are the headers for the langauge texts of the Holy Father’s Christmas sermon.

ITALIAN:"Salvator noster natus est in mundo" (Missale Romanum).  Italian language but the book title is Latin

FRENCH: «Salvator noster natus est in mundo» (Missel romain).

ENGLISH: "Salvator noster natus est in mundo" (Roman Missal)

GERMAN: „Salvator noster natus est in mundo" (Missale Romanum)  German language but the book title is Latin

SPANISH: "Salvator noster natus est in mundo" (Misal Romano).

PORTUGESE: « Salvator noster natus est in mundo» (Missal Romano)

POLISH: Salvator noster natus est in mundo" (Mszał Rzymski)

It is interesting to see differences in punctuation, of course.   What I find fascinating in that in places where the study of Latin has remained somewhat stronger, the title of the Missale is in Latin.

I want to make a brief visit back to 23 December for a moment and give you what I think is a fascinating entry in the Roman Martyrology for the day.  I was pretty busy and didn’t get it posted.   Here is the first entry of Christmas Eve.

1. Commemoratio omnium sanctorum avorum Iesu Christi, filii David, filii Abraham, filii Adam, patrum scilicet, qui Deo placuerunt et iusti inventi sunt et iuxta fidem defuncti, nullis acceptis promissionibus, sed longe eas aspicientes et salutantes, ex quibus natus est Christus secundum carnem, qui est super omnia Deus benedictus in saecula.

The commemoration of all the holy forefathers of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, the son of Adam, namely of the fathers, who pleased God and were found to be just also according to the faith of the dead, having received none of the promises fulfilled, but regarding them and greeting them from afar, from which the Christ was born according to the flesh, who is blessed God above all things forever.

Keep in mind that the Gospel reading for the Vigil Mass was the geneology of the Lord from the Gospel of Matthew.

In that Gospel geneology, Christ is shown to by the Lord of the history of our salvation.  And Matthew takes pains to teach us some subtle things.  Take note of the four women he mentions.  He does not mention the great women we usually think of in the Old Testament, like Sarah, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel.  Instead we get Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and the women who had been "the wife of Uriah."  So, we see pagans in the geneology who are women of less than perfect background in the eyes of the ancient Jews.  

God choses those whom it pleases Him to choose.

Here is an excerpt from the Holy Father’s message for the blessing Urbi et Orbi.  He is speaking directly to us, I think.  My emphasis:

[D]oes a "Saviour" still have any value and meaning for the men and women of the third millennium? Is a "Saviour" still needed by a humanity which has reached the moon and Mars and is prepared to conquer the universe; for a humanity which knows no limits in its pursuit of nature’s secrets and which has succeeded even in deciphering the marvellous codes of the human genome? Is a Saviour needed by a humanity which has invented interactive communication, which navigates in the virtual ocean of the internet and, thanks to the most advanced modern communications technologies, has now made the Earth, our great common home, a global village? This humanity of the twenty-first century appears as a sure and self-sufficient master of its own destiny, the avid proponent of uncontested triumphs.

So it would seem, yet this is not the case. People continue to die of hunger and thirst, disease and poverty, in this age of plenty and of unbridled consumerism. Some people remain enslaved, exploited and stripped of their dignity; others are victims of racial and religious hatred, hampered by intolerance and discrimination, and by political interference and physical or moral coercion with regard to the free profession of their faith. Others see their own bodies and those of their dear ones, particularly their children, maimed by weaponry, by terrorism and by all sorts of violence, at a time when everyone invokes and acclaims progress, solidarity and peace for all. And what of those who, bereft of hope, are forced to leave their homes and countries in order to find humane living conditions elsewhere? How can we help those who are misled by facile prophets of happiness, those who struggle with relationships and are incapable of accepting responsibility for their present and future, those who are trapped in the tunnel of loneliness and who often end up enslaved to alcohol or drugs? What are we to think of those who choose death in the belief that they are celebrating life?

I have been back in my home town of St. Paul and Minneapolis.  Christmas Eve has been busy.  There were no confessions here last tonight, but last night there were hoards.  This morning I drove over to a nearby parish to help a priest who is alone in his place and had four Masses to say and took one for the 4th Sunday of Advent.  Back at St. Agnes, for solemn 1st Vespers. I had the Vigil Mass, which was a sung Mass in Latin (deacons, Gregorian chant, etc.).  The deacon pretty much blew my sermon away by reading the wrong Gospel so I simply put my notes aside, dug my heals into the floor, and let rip.

At 9:30 pm Matins were sung in Gregorian chant.  Then came midnight Mass.  After listening to the 45 minutes or so of Christmas carols before Mass and watching the procession to the crib with il Bambino, I slid down to the chapel and celebrated the first Mass of Christmas with the 1962 Missale. 

I thought of the participants here on this blog.  

I was many years ago received into the Church on the 4th Sunday of Advent and my first Communion was at midnight Mass of Christmas, so this night is rather distingushised in my own liturgical year.

Tomorrow we get up and do it again with four Masses and then Benediction with Vespers in the afternoon. 

Merry Christmas to you all, from a very tired Fr. Z. 

What Does the Prayer Really Say? Christmas Day – Roman Station: 1st and 3rd Masses – Basilica of St. Mary Major, 2nd Mass – St. Anastasia

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2005

The Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord, Christmas, has a Vigil and Masses on the day itself: in nocte or “during night” (the legendary “Midnight Mass”), in aurora or “during daybreak”, and in die or “during daylight”. WDTPRS examined already the Christmas Day prayers for the “Midnight Mass” but never have we looked at Mass “during the day”. Ad ramos!

COLLECT “in die” – (2002MR)
Deus, qui humanae substantiae dignitatem
et mirabiliter condidisti, et mirabilius reformasti,
da, quaesumus, nobis eius divinitatis esse consortes,
qui humanitatis nostrae fieri dignatus est particeps.

Our prayer was in the Veronese and Gelasian, ancient sacramentaries both, and the pre-Conciliar Missale Romanum. That source of precious Latin knowledge, the Lewis & Short Dictionary, reveals that reformo is “to shape again, remould, transform, metamorphose, change”. The theological baggage borne by substantia is complex far beyond the scope of this column, but the helpful dictionary of liturgical Latin by Blaise cuts to the chase with “nature”, which works for me. The adjective consors , sortis, is “sharing property with one (as brother, sister, relative), living in community of goods, partaking of in common”, or a noun meaning “a sharer, partner”. The Latin word is formed from cvm and sors (“fate”). When you are a consors you have a common fate or destiny. The word dignitas, “dignity”, adds to the prayer a strong moral content.

LITERAL TRANSLATION
O God, who in a wondrous way created the dignity of human nature,
and yet more wondrously shaped it anew,
grant us, we beg, to be partakers of the Godhead of Him
who deigned to become a participant of our humanity.

St. Pope Leo I “the Great” (+441) said in his Christmas sermon of 440: “O Christian, recognize your dignity (dignitatem), and made a partaker (consors) of the divine nature, do not dare by degenerate conduct to return to former baseness. Remember of whose Head and whose body you are a member. Call to mind that you were snatched from the power of the shadows and borne over into the light and kingdom of God. By means of the sacrament of baptism you were made a temple of the Holy Spirit: do not by evil actions drive away from you such a great indweller and to subject yourself once again to the devil’s thralldom: for the blood of Christ is your ransom because he will judge you in truth who has redeemed you in mercy, Christ our Lord. “(s. 1 in Nativitate, 3 – my trans.).

We were made for God and for His glory. In creating us God intended to share with us something of His transforming glory. Our Collect makes a reference to the “divinization” of man by God. There is a twofold way we can see this. First, from the point of view of Christ, is the mystery of the Second Person’s self-emptying: He stooped infinitely below Himself to take up flesh and human soul and become a man, like us in all ways but sin. Next, from our point of view, our human nature created in God’s image, which had a dignity we wounded, is now by the indestructible bond with Christ’s divinity, by the “wondrous exchange”, elevated to an even greater dignity. In Christ our humanity has been taken up already to the right hand of the Father. The Eucharist is our “pledge of future glory”.

The mystery of the Incarnation which we celebrate at Christmas points to the kenosis or self-emptying of the Second Person. We embrace now the humble servitude of Jesus, and look to the magnificent destiny that awaits us won by the wood of Crib and Cross. In every Mass this mystery of the Incarnation must be held closely to our hearts and minds. The Christmas Collect was adapted for the preparation of the chalice by the priest during every Mass. Before the priest raises the chalice upwards in offering, he mingles with the wine a very small quantity of water, just drops. The mingling of water and wine underscores three things. First, it reveals how the Divine Son humbly accepted human nature. Second, it shows how we will be transformed by Him in the life to come. Indeed, we who are baptized into Christ and who receive the Eucharist are already being transformed, like drops of water in His wine. In the mingling of the water and wine, the water loses itself, becoming what the wine is. “O admirabile commercium! O marvelous exchange!”, as the Church sings at Vespers and Lauds on Christmas Octave. As Fathers of the Church expressed it the Son of God became the Son of Man so that we might become the sons of God. This “holy exchange” is the heart of Holy Mass. Bread and wine are given to us by God and we, in turn, collect them, work them, give them back to God who transforms them through the power of the Holy Spirit into the Real Presence of Christ (Body, Blood, soul and divinity). In turn the species of the Eucharist transform us, making us also into acceptable offerings to God. In this marvelous exchange earthly and temporal things mysteriously, sacramentally, become vehicles of the eternal. Third, the mixing of those few (human) drops into the (divine) wine in the chalice (an image of sacrifice and oblation) reveals how lay people must unite their prayers and sacrifices to what the priest offers at the altar: “Pray brethren that my sacrifice and yours be acceptable to God the almighty Father.” There is a distinction made regarding the way in which the priest and the people offer their sacrifices. The people offer good and acceptable sacrifice to God from their “baptismal priesthood”, as members of Christ, who is High Priest. But the priest makes a very different kind of sacrifice, as alter Christus… another Christ. So, the people at Mass must unite their good offerings to those of the priest. The mingling of the water and wine is a good moment to make a conscious effort to do precisely that.

We all have difficulties and sufferings. Like you I have burdens, for myself and for others. If Christ can transform our human nature through a touch of His divinity, He can transform our sorrows and cares. In the confessional I often suggest to people that when the chalice is being prepared, they should pour their troubles into that chalice with the little bit of water which will be taken in by the wine and then be transformed with the wine in the consecration. Give it all back to God through the Sacrifice of the Cross, through Holy Mass.

The core of today’s Collect prayer leads us seamlessly into the…

SUPER OBLATA “in die”- (2002MR)
Oblatio tibi sit, Domine, hodiernae sollemnitatis accepta,
qua et nostrae reconciliationis processit perfecta placatio,
et divini cultus nobis est indita plenitudo.

Remember that in these “Prayers over the gifts” of bread and wine God will transubstantiate through the priest are couched in the language of propitiation: we must placate the God against whom we have so grievously sinned in both the Original Sin of our first parents and in our own actual sins.

That qua is really an adverb meaning, “on which side, at or in which place, in what direction, where, by what way”. Both Blaise and Souter are without comment about indo but dependable L&S says it is, “to put, set, or place into or upon” and also “to impart or give to, apply to, impose on, attach to”. Cultus, us (from colo) refers to the worship and honor due to divinity. My sense of perfecta, from perficio, is “having been brought to completion”, rather than simply “perfect”. This super elegant prayer, filled with rhetorical flourishes, was in both the Veronese and Gelasian Sacramentary among the Christmas texts, but absent from the Missale Romanum until the Novus Ordo.

LITERAL TRANSLATION
O Lord, let the sacrificial offering of today’s solemnity be acceptable to You,
from whence issued forth the completed appeasing of our reconciliation,
and also was imparted to us the fullness of divine worship.

This prayer is quoted in the Council’s document Sacrosanctum Concilium 5, in the section examining “The Nature of the Sacred Liturgy and Its Importance in the Church’s Life”. Read this aloud and hear how Christmassy it is: “5. God who ‘wills that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth’ (1 Tim. 2:4), ‘who in many and various ways spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets’ (Heb. 1:1), when the fullness of time had come sent His Son, the Word made flesh, anointed by the Holy Spirit, to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the contrite of heart, to be a ‘bodily and spiritual medicine’, the Mediator between God and man. For His humanity, united with the person of the Word, was the instrument of our salvation. Therefore in Christ ‘the perfect achievement of our reconciliation came forth, and the fullness of divine worship was given to us’.”

Our “Prayer after Communion”, from the Gelasian and Veronese, was in the pre-Conciliar Missale Romanum. As is the case of the Collect and Super oblata, there is a deep stylistic elegance which delights the ear.

POST COMMUNION “in die” – (2002MR)
Praesta, misericors Deus, ut natus hodie Salvator mundi,
sicut divinae nobis generationis est auctor,
ita et immortalitatis sit ipse largitor.

The first prayer of the Mass set the stage for our active participation in Communion. Though expressed in exalted language, it conveyed an attitude of humility before the creation of man in God’s image, the Eternal Word’s self-emptying in the Incarnation, and the possibility of our transformation both in the Eucharist to be received in the course of the sacred mysteries this day and in the happiness of heaven to come. In the second prayer, before the Eucharistic Prayer and consecration, we recognized how we sinners have need to appease God and how the God made Man, Jesus Christ was the source both of reconciliation and also of the very Mass we are participating in, the perfect form of worship renewing our completed reconciliation. In this final prayer we put book ends around our grasp of today’s meaning. We were able to partake of Communion and actively participate in Mass first and foremost because of our divine regeneration in baptism, deepened in a good reception of the Blessed Sacrament in Mass. At the same time, we see how our rebirth in the life of the Trinity in baptism aims ultimately at eternal life and our ongoing transformation in heaven. The “just as… so too” structure of the prayer shows us how the “Savior of the world born today” is the fulcrum both of all the ages of the world, born as He was in the “fullness of time”, but also of our own lives as individuals. All of the prayers today are connected by the theme of the transformation of man’s human nature from his sinful state to a state of glory in the transforming assumption of our human nature by Second Person of the Trinity who, once born, is Jesus Christ – our brother in our humanity while remaining our God in His divinity.

LITERAL TRANSLATION
Grant, O merciful God, that just as the Savior of the world born today
is for us the author of divine generation,
so too may He be the bestower of immortality.

With Leo the Great, I extend to you and yours for a Merry and Holy Christmas: “Peace was the first thing proclaimed by the angelic choir and the Lord’s Nativity. It is peace which gives birth to children of God. Peace nurses love, engenders unity, gives repose to the blessed, and provides a home to eternity.” (s. 26.3)