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

The 20 Tips are getting around.  Again.

I got this via e-mail:

Good morning (here) Fr Z!

I think my pastor reads your blog!  Somebody at the office does anyway.  They do a "big mailing" every lent and advent and it has a letter from the pastor, a prayer book and some general info.  Printed on the last page of this one was your 20 tips for making a good confession!  [LAST page?  All my life… last name starts with Z… always on the last page.  Well, we just see about that.  Someday… someday… HA!]

When I read the title I thought, "How funny, Father Z has something just like this!"  Then I read on and thought, "Hey!  I’ve read this before!"  Sure enough, down at the bottom is your name and website.  That’s why I think it’s my pastor who reads it, because the letter says your website is "excellent" and I don’t think he’d endorse it if he didn’t read it.

The internet makes the world a really small world, doesn’t it?  [Sure does.]

Everyone,

People often write to me for information about books and DVD’s and tapes and courses, etc. etc. etc.  I, alas, lack the time to respond to most of these good-natured queries however much I would like to.  Additionally, I am not always up to date on what is coming to be available.  Thus, I may from time to time as you do to some footwork so as to create both a resource here and also a packet of information I can pass along.

Here is a first project.

Priests often write to me asking for information about DVD’s of the older, "Tridentine" form of Mass so that, I suppose, they can more easily learn how to celebrate it properly.  I know of a few disks, but they are in the USA and I am… well… not.  I don’t have time to look them up on the internet.

Would you be willing to post some information here in your comments about good resources for the older Mass, especially on DVD?  Perhaps some of you know of newer disks I have not seen yet.  (Since I know how it’s done, I haven’t been looking at them). 

Forget about devotional stuff.  Priests who are learning need nuts and bolts. 

Keep in mind if you include more than one link in a comment, my filters will wonder if you are a spammer.  You comment will be put in a moderation queue and I will eventually review it and release it.

Thanks in advance.
 

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

SUPER OBLATA:
Offerimus tibi, Domine, quae dicanda tuo nomini tu dedisti,
ut, sicut eadem nobis efficis sacramentum,
ita fieri tribuas remedium sempiternum.

LITERAL VERSION:
O Lord, we are offering to you the things which You gave to be dedicated to Your Name,
so that, just as You are completing them as a sacrament for us,
so too You may grant them to become for us the eternal remedy.

We should stay close to the language of healing when we see a liturgical remedium.  In liturgical language we will often have "medicinal" language for concepts like "pardon" and "reconciliation" and the sanctifying effects of sacraments.  So, words like remedium and medicina and medela pop up frequently in Post Communions and Secrets (and Super Oblata).  The fact is that because of our fallen and children of Adam and Eve, we need the healing that comes from becoming true Sons of the Second Adam, through the adoption of sonship offered us through being living members of the Body of Christ. 

Everything has a purpose, or end to which they are destined.  The greatest end that a grape can have, for example is to yield not only wine, but wine for the altar, and not only for the altar but actually the wine that goes into the chalice to be consecrated. 

Just as the offerings of bread and wine are "completed" in an extraordinary way by being at Holy Mass, we also have a perfect end for which we are destined.  When we are integrated into the Body of Christ, we are brought closer to our end, which will be finalized in the Beatific Vision.

Sometimes it helps for us to identify ourselves with the gifts placed on the altar for consecration.  Moments before the Super Oblata prayer, we are invited by the priest to unite our sacrifices to those he offers in his manner of offering.  We all have both burdens and reasons to rejoice.  These we can consciously place into the chalice as the priest prepares it for their own change and elevation and "completion". In a way, the water can be like our own human and earthly portion being joined, absorbed and changed into the wine (the divine), even before they are stupendously raised as the Eucharist.

Put your cares and joys into that chalice together with the drops of water the priest adds to the wine.