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

I went to the Basilica this afternoon. I got some breathtaking shots.

These will only scratch the surface of what I got.

First, you should know that it is pretty dark in the Basilica, so steady is the name of the game. Here is a shot through the columns over the main altar toward the apse, where you can see the candles arrayed.

A closer view.

The bronze Cathedra is decorated with lighted candles only once a year, today.

The black bronse statue of St. Peter attributed to the marvelous Arnulfo di Cambio was always dressed up in his cope and tiara, with a ring on his finger and pectoral Cross on two days, 29 June and today. Then the moderists in the Fabrica started fooling around. Too triumphalistic. They started cutting out elements. But all of them were back today except for the griccia alb, which I can live without I guess.

And ….

The Pope seems to have announced the imminent release of the Post-Synodal Exhortation during a meeting with the priests of the Diocese of Rome, this morning, in the Hall of Blessings in the Apostolic Palace.

Benoit XVI annonce lui-meme la parution prochaine de l’Exhortation Apostolique sur l’Eucharistie

  Le Saint-Père Benoit XVI a rencontré ses pretres ce jeudi, dans la Salle des Bénédictions, au premier étage de la Basilique Saint-Pierre, de 11 heures à 13 heures.

Au cours de la rencontre en ce 1er jeudi de Careme, le Pape a lui-meme annoncé la parution désormais imminente de l’Exhortaion Apostolique, suite au Synode sur l’Eucharistie. Cette Exhortation sera surtout une "Méditation en plusieurs points" disait Benoit XVI

En arrivant et en quittant l’Aula delle Benedizioni, le Pape a salué plus de 100 pretres, sur les 800 présents

Some of you lay folks out there probably recite the Liturgy of the Hours. Maybe you also use the Office of Readings. If you don’t read Latin, you might not know how glorious the sermons of St. Leo the Great (+461) sound when pronounced. For today’s feast we have a selection from a sermon Leo delivered on the anniversary of his election as Successor of Peter. Leo was quite interested to assert his direct connection, even identity, with Peter and therefore Peter’s authority. This comes out in his preaching.

Here is the Latin of today’s second reading from the Office for 22 February. There is a podcast that goes with this.  See below.  This is just to give you a little taste of what Leo sounds like in Latin, though others might do better in the reading.

Ex sermonibus sancti Leonis Magni papae (s. 4 de Natali ipsius, 2-3)

Out of the whole world one man, Peter, is chosen to preside at the calling of all nations, and to be set over all the apostles and all the fathers of the Church. Though there are in God’s people many shepherds, Peter is thus appointed to rule in his own person those whom Christ also rules as the original ruler. Beloved, how great and wonderful is this sharing of his power that God in his goodness has given to this man. Whatever Christ has willed to be shared in common by Peter and the other leaders of the Church, it is only through Peter that he has given to others what he has not refused to bestow on them.
The Lord now asks the apostles as a whole what men think of him. As long as they are recounting the uncertainty born of human ignorance, their reply is always the same.
But when he presses the disciples to say what they think themselves, the first to confess his faith in the Lord is the one who is first in rank among the apostles.
Peter says: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”. Jesus replies: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven”. You are blessed, he means, because my Father has taught you. You have not been deceived by earthly opinion, but have been enlightened by inspiration from heaven. It was not flesh and blood that pointed me out to you, but the one whose only-begotten Son I am.
He continues: And I say to you. In other words, as my Father has revealed to you my godhead, so I in my turn make known to you your pre-eminence. You are Peter: though I am the inviolable rock, the cornerstone that makes both one, the foundation apart from which no one can lay any other, yet you also are a rock, for you are given solidity by my strength, so that which is my very own because of my power is common between us through your participation.
And upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. On this strong foundation, he says, I will build an everlasting temple. The great height of my Church, which is to penetrate the heavens, shall rise on the firm foundation of this faith.
The gates of hell shall not silence this confession of faith; the chains of death shall not bind it. Its words are the words of life. As they lift up to heaven those who profess them, so they send down to hell those who contradict them.
Blessed Peter is therefore told: To you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth is also bound in heaven. Whatever you lose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven.
The authority vested in this power passed also to the other apostles, and the institution established by this decree has been continued in all the leaders of the Church. But it is not without good reason that what is bestowed on all is entrusted to one. For Peter received it separately in trust because he is the prototype set before all the rulers of the Church.

De toto mundo unus Petrus eligitur, qui et universarum gentium vocationi, et omnibus Apostolis cunctisque Ecclesiae patribus praeponatur: ut, quamvis in populo Dei multi sacerdotes sint multique pastores, omnes tamen proprie regat Petrus, quos principaliter regit et Christus. Magnum et mirabile, dilectissimi, huic viro consortium potentiae suae tribuit divina dignatio; et, si quid cum eo commune ceteris voluit esse principibus, numquam nisi per ipsum dedit quidquid aliis non negavit.
Omnes denique Apostolos Dominus quid de se homines opinentur interrogat; et tamdiu sermo respondentium communis est, quamdiu humanae ignorantiae ambiguitas explicatur.
At ubi quid habeat sensus discipulorum exigitur, primus est in Domini confessione, qui primus est in apostolica dignitate. Qui cum dixisset: Tu es Christus, Filius Dei vivi, respondit ei Iesus: Beatus es, Simon Bar-Iona, quia caro et sanguis non revelavit tibi, sed Pater meus qui in caelis est; id ist, ideo beatus es, quia te Pater meus docuit, nec terrena opinio te fefellit, sed inspiratio caelestis instruxit; et non caro nec sanguis, sed ille me tibi, cuius sum unigenitus Filius, indicavit.
Et ego, inquit, dico tibi: hoc est, sicut Pater meus tibi manifestavit divinitatem meam, ita et ego tibi notam facio excellentiam tuam: Quia tu es Petrus: id ist, cum ego sim inviolabilis petra, ego lapis angularis, qui facio utraque unum, ego fundamentum praeter quod nemo potest aliud ponere; tamen tu quoque petra es, quia mea virtute solidaris, ut quae mihi potestate sunt propria, sint tibi mecum participatione communia.
Et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam, et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversus eam. Super hanc, inquit, fortitudinem aeternum exstruam templum, et Ecclesiae meae caelo inserenda sublimitas in huius fidei firmitate consurget.
Hanc confessionem portae inferi non tenebunt, mortis vincula non ligabunt: vox enim ista vox vitae est. Et sicut confessores suos in caelestia provehit, ita negatores ad inferna demergit.
Propter quod dicitur beatissimo Petro: Tibi dabo claves regni caelorum. Et quaecumque ligaveris super terram, erunt ligata et in caelis; et quaecumque solveris super terram, erunt soluta et in caelis.
Transivit quidem etiam in alios Apostolos ius potestatis istius, et ad omnes Ecclesiae principes decreti huius constituio commeavit; sed non frustra uni commendatur, quod omnibus intimetur. Petro enim ideo hoc singulariter creditur, quia cunctis Ecclesiae rectoribus Petri forma praeponitur.

One year ago today I photographed one of most amazing views I have every seen.

UPDATE!  It’s baaaaack!  The papal tiara, or triregno is back on the head of the bronze statue of St. Peter in the Basilica today.  For the last couple years, it was politically correctly absent.

Here are photos I have shot in the Basilica on this feast day.

You can see the candles on Bernini’s mighty bronzes for the Altar of the Chair. Tragically that was ripped out some years ago. I was there the morning they did it and watched them haul it away in chunks.

And something to delight us all

The famous statue used to be dressed up on 22 February and 29 June. They used to use the tiara and the cotta griccia ... but no more.

Here is a link to my entry last year on the Mass prayers for today.

We continue our Lenten journey through the prayers of Holy Mass with today’s

SUPER OBLATA:
Hostias, quaesumus, Domine, propitius intende,
quas sacris altaribus exhibemus,
ut, nobis indulgentiam largiendo,
tuo nomini dent honorem.

This prayer comes from ancient times. It is in the Gelasian and Veronese Sacramentaries as well as pre-Conciliar editions of the Missale Romanum on the 12th Sunday after Pentecost.

Largior, in liturgical language, usually has the impact of "accord lavishly". Intendo involves the concept of stretching. It can mean “to stretch towards, extend” and “aim”. It is also “to direct one’s thought toward something” and even “state as a premise in a syllogism”, which should please the Thomists out there! Here it is a gentle imperative, spoken with confident filial humility. We are asking God the Father to give us His attention. When I hear intende I almost see Him turning His neck, bending His fatherly head down to us below, as parents to with their children who are begging some attention so that we can whisper what we want to say into His ear.

LITERAL VERSION:
O Lord, we entreat You, look favorably upon the victim offerings,
which we are presenting at the sacred altars,
so that, by lavishing pardon upon us,
they may give honor to Your Name.

Interesting is the plural for "altars". This is probably a stylistic use of the plural influence by the sacrificial language of the Hebrews. The Temple had two altars, one of burnt offerings or holocausts and the other for incense. For us, however, we can draw an additional wrinkle of meaning from the plural.

What we celebrate on the altar of this church or that chapel is the same Sacrificial Eucharistic Banquet, Holy Mass, celebrated on every Catholic altar in the world through the centuries to the end of the world.

How important is it then that the Rites be consistent with the universality of practice and meaning there is in that understanding of our unity across the globe and through time?

Additionally, Holy Mass on earth is a reflection of and anticipation of the heavenly liturgy before the throne of God. In the Roman Canon the priest, bent down with his hands upon the altar prays God’s angel to bear the Sacrifice to the altar of heaven.

So, in the plural altaria we can hear an echo of our roots in Jewish ritual of the Old Covenant, while we in the New Covenant are stretched "horizontally" through time and space as well as "vertically" into the Beatific Vision.

The binding theme, however, is very immediate: pardon. 

We are members of a vast Church, terrible and splendid and transcendent through time, space and beyond death itself. In the sight of other members of the Church, our ancesters, our brethren in the Church on earth now, and the blessed of heaven, we have the duty to fulfill our part of the plan. When we sin, we thwart our part and let them and ourselves down. God works even with our faults, and provides pardon for the penitent.

And with what great gifts does He provide for our pardon? The gift of His Blood and Body upon our earthly altars.