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

Today, the Vigil of Ascension, this PODCAzT brings to you a selection of St. Leo the Great’s (+461) sermon s. 73 on the Ascension.  Whassup with transfering Ascension Thursday to Sunday?  I talk about the Collect for the Ascension Mass on Thursday itself.  I also have feedback to relate!

 

 07-05-16 Leo on the Ascension; a Collect; feedback [31:31m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Clearly the Pope is back in Italy and back at work.

There is a great report on ANSA and SIR today about a sermon delivered by H.E. Giuseppe Betori, secretary of the Italian Bishops Conference (CEI).  He was in Gubbio for a celebration of St. Ubaldo.

He identified as the new enemies of Christianity: abortion, euthanasia, the negation of sexual duality and of a family based on marriage.

This is interesting, since we must conclude from this that because ideas don’t float in a vacuum but are in reality help by people, the promoters of abortion, etc., are the enemies of Christians.

Bp. Betori compared nihilism and relativism to the troops of Frederick Barbarossa (!) who attacked Gubbio in 1155 and whom St. Ubaldo helped to drive away with the military.

Bertori defended the role of the Church in the public square, saying that the new enemy is trying to subvert public order.

Reading the Italian, it seems like Mons. Betori was making an extemporaneous speech.  The Italian is a bit tortured, but here is a taste in my translation:

"If we want to defend the true face of man, we must rediscover the face of God.  The face of God is love, not however a love which is weak and hides the truth, that which creates ambiguity under the veil of false tolerance, rather than one which is demanding, which does not avoid cutting to cure, which makes distinctions so as to build authentic bridges and looks not reduce everything to a false homogeneity, which reminds us of responsibility without indulging in a "go along to get along" attitude which fails in the end."

At BetNet there is a post about the iRosary, ostensibly using an iPod or other mp3 player for your recitation/audition of the Rosary. 

iRosary uses the advantages of the iPod to make the rosary more attractive and flexible for younger believers. At the same time, however, it reciprocally uses the significance of both objects as practical commodities on the one side and symbolic signs on the other and only changes the objects to a minimum extent.

The most important distinguishing feature of the iPod, the white earphones cable, becomes a string of beads on which only one bead is now found. This bead can be shifted. The position of the bead can be measured and heard as audio beads on a sensitive range of the cable. Due to technical possibilities, the new rosary can help a person to learn the prayer; the right mysteries are inserted automatically and there are various modes for choosing the degree of difficulty.

Not a bad idea.  Not sure about the beads, but okay.  Maybe the big iPods can have video of which bead you are on.  Just thinkin’ out load here.   

I am reminded of a whimsical thing I wrote for WDTPRS in print once, about using a notebook for a one volume version of the entire Missale Romanum (which the late Archbp. Bugnini said he would make sure could never be used again):

Today, with the advent multiple volumes of the lectionary we have now a plethora of books.  And with the addition of so many new readings from Scripture in the different two year “daily” cycle and the three year annual cycle, you would have to push the Missal up to the altar on a two-wheeler if it were all in one volume.   Now that we stand at the dawn of the “information revolution” I suppose one solution would be to provide each sanctuary with two notebook computers linked with wireless LAN cards that could access a database on a CD-ROM containing every prayer and reading for that particular day.  Call it the Sacramentarium Cyberense Romanum.  The computer would automatically pick the readings based on its internal clock and calendar.  No more ribbons!  And can you imagine seeing the deacon bowing before the priest, asking for his blessing and then raising his shiny new liturgical notebook computer and proceeding to the ambo to proclaim the Gospel?  He would solemnly open its tasteful and liturgically correct cover (blue for Advent, right?), announce the reading, incense it, hit any key to take it out of its screen saver mode and begin, wreathed in the fragrant smoke lit by the glow of the 17" display.  The computer could have special decorative covers, like some of the new large format books for the Gospel readings.  And if everyone had their PDAs and smartphones with them, they could scroll along with the texts in the pews, being able to see the original Hebrew, Greek and Latin sources together with commentaries by the Fathers of the Church and the current box-scores of baseball games they were interested in. The next step?   Sacramental ATM machines.  On the other hand, since the prayers of the Mass are now copyrighted by the bishops, they wouldn’t be able to publish and sell as many books that way.  After all, whenever they make some changes, every parish in the country needs to retool and obtain new books, sometimes at not insignificant expense. 

You know… when my 1962 Missale I have here in Rome "grew legs" and vanished for a short time from the chapel, I used my laptop.  You just can’t make things up fast enough to stay ahead of reality, I guess.

But I digress…

I use audio for the Rosary in Chinese.  It helps.

I learned how to say the Rosary before I was Catholic, from the Catholic father of a friend of mine.  In a sense, the personal contact there was later important when considering the Catholic faith in a more serious way.  On the other hand, technology and media today has begun to separate people from human contact.  Thus, something like this iRosary (and PODCAzTs) can be useful.  On the other hand, we should make sure there are opportunities in parishes for people to say the Rosary together.  

Hmmm… maybe I ought to expand the Patristic Rosary Project into PODCAzTs.

On that note, I would guide your attention to the page of San Gregorio ai Muratori in Rome where the Tridentine Mass is celebrated.  They are going to have a Rosary with musical accompaniment.

May 23rd, 2007, at 7:00 p.m. at San Gregorio dei Muratori, Via Leccosa 75 (off Piazza Nicosia), the Fondazione Elsa Peretti with the collaboration of the Associazione Pro Missa Romana is sponsoring a recitation of the Most Holy Rosary in Latin with musical accompaniment.

Gregorian Antiphon

Ave Maris Stella

***

Francesco Soriano (1548-1621)

Canon CIII Sopra l’Ave Maris Stella

***

Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (1644-1704)

Sonata del Rosario XII L’Ascensione di Cristo – Intrada

Aria tubicinum – Alemanda – Courente – Double

***

Anonimo (prima metà XVIII sec.)

Ach amoris dolcissima poena

mottetto per Soprano, Viola d’amore e Basso Continuo

Ach Amoris, Aria

Sed in hac poena, Recitativo

Tu o mi Jesu, Aria

Alleluia

***

Pablo Bruna (1611-1679)

Tiento de Secondo Tono por G-sol-re-ut

Sobre la letania de la Virgen

***

This will be the first in a series of Rosaries which will be recited at the principal Marian shrines of Rome. Elsa Peretti has dedicated these events to Our Lady and to the recovery of the sacred through the traditional rites of the liturgy. This first Rosary is in memory of Nando Peretti.

Did you know that in the Solesmes volume Cantus selecti there are Gregorian settings of antiphons for the mysteries?

Years ago when people were suggesting St. Isidore of Seville (+636) as the patron saint of the internet, I was asked to write a prayer people could recite before using the internet.  I wrote the prayer in Latin and submitted it, with a translation into English, to a bishop who gave it his approval. 

This prayer is all over the same internet now (both with and without attribution) in many translations which I am trying to collect into one place. 

You can pray to any saint in this matter, of course, but the important this is that you do pray.  There is nothing official about a patron for the internet so far. 

You can find all the versions I have on a separate page here.

If you would like to offer a translation into a language missing from the list, please send it.  I am waiting for translations in Tegalog and Tamil right now.  The newest addition was CATALAN!  Also, I am deeply interested in AUDIO files of the prayer being read by native speakers of the languages.

CATALAN

Oració abans de conectar amb la ret internet
Déu totpoderós i etern
qui ens haveu creat a la vostra imatge
i haveu manat que cerquéssim tot allò que és bo, veritat i bell,
especialment en la divina persona del vostre Fill Unigènit, el nostre Senyor Jesucrist,
concedeu, si us plau,
que, per l’intercessió de sant Isidre, bisbe i doctor,
durant les nostres peregrinacions per la ret internet,
dirigim els nostres ulls i les nostres mans sols envers allò que us és grat,
i que tractem amb caritat i paciència a totes les ànimes que hi trobem.
Per Nostre Senyor Jesucrist.  Amen.