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

We must all challenge ourselves to make each and every document of the Holy See our own, in some way appropriate to our vocations.

You have, I am sure, been deeply moved and edified by the new roadie document from the Card. Martino’s office.  

To help you get your start in making the roadie doc your own, here are some suggestions from the Curt Jester.

Be serious, now. 

The following are some of the highlights of the new document.

• If you are carjacked one mile, go with him two.
• If yor are hit, turn the other signal.
• Do not let your air bag become puffed up like the Pharisees
• Let not the sun go down on you road rage
• Carry your cross daily, or at least have one hanging from your rear view mirror.
• When you enter a freeway that is backed up, go and move to the lowest place and not try to merge into the front. For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
• Do not talk about your Honda so that it can be said of you "That he did not say it of his own Accord."
• Hydroplaning is not the same thing as walking on water, avoid it.
• Before Jesus peformed the miracle at Cana, he appointed a designated driver.
• Do not say "Are we there yet", but rather "It is good to be here."

In other news Sammy Hagar has been excommunicated for not being able to drive 55.

We can look forward to new documents in the future from the Pontifical Council for Transportation. Another document called "Sacrificial suffering and airline food" is rumored to be in the works.

On the Z-Cam in the Sabine Chapel, I have an audio loop playing 24/7.  Right now one of the sections in the loop features a famous prayer for detachment by St. Thomas More, whose feast is celebrated today. 

With a biretta tip to The Lion and the Cardinal  o{]:¬)  here is an image of the page of St. Thomas’s own prayerbook in which he wrote by hand this famous prayer.  This is for me very stirring.

I find it wonderful that it begins on the page with the Deus in adiutorium meum intende.

More, ehem, "more" pages of the same are

Here.
Here.
Here.
Here.
Here.
Here.
Here.
Here.
Here.

The audio loop on the Z-cam is just under an hour in length.   Maybe you will hear St. Thomas’s prayer.  On the loop are some musical selections and some prayers with music background.

(Written while imprisoned in the Tower of London, 1534)

Give me thy grace, good Lord:
To set the world at nought;
To set my mind fast upon thee,
And not to hang upon the blast of men’s mouths;
To be content to be solitary,
Not to long for worldly company;
Little and little utterly to cast off the world,
And rid my mind of all the business thereof;
Not to long to hear of any worldly things,
But that the hearing of worldly phantasies may be to me displeasant;
Gladly to be thinking of God,
Piteously to call for his help;
To lean unto the comfort of God,
Busily to labor to love him;
To know mine own vility and wretchedness,
To humble and meeken myself under the mighty hand of God;
To bewail my sins passed,
For the purging of them patiently to suffer adversity;
Gladly to bear my purgatory here,
To be joyful of tribulations;
To walk the narrow way that leadeth to life,
To bear the cross with Christ;
To have the last thing in remembrance,
To have ever afore mine eye my death that is ever at hand;
To make death no stranger to me,
To foresee and consider the everlasting fire of hell;
To pray for pardon before the judge come,
To have continually in mind the passion that Christ suffered for me;
For his benefits uncessantly to give him thanks,
To buy the time again that I before have lost;
To abstain from vain confabulations,
To eschew light foolish mirth and gladness;
Recreations not necessary — to cut off;
Of worldly substance, friends, liberty, life and all, to set the loss
at right nought for the winning of Christ;
To think my most enemies my best friends,
For the brethren of Joseph could never have done him so much good
with their love and favor as they did him with their malice and hatred.

These minds are more to be desired of every man than all the treasure
of all the princes and kings, Christian and heathen, were it
gathered and laid together all upon one heap . 

[PS… Priest friends were here visiting last night and they used the Sabine Chapel this morning.  Thus today I will be having Mass sometime during (my) afternooon.] 

The "maturità" exams (state exams) have been underway for 18-19 year olds graduating from the liceo (more or less high-school).  In the interdisciplinary exams for the Liceo Classico, the kids had a piece of Seneca from De beneficiis 6.3 to translate:

Egregie mihi videtur M. Antonius apud Rabirium poetam, cum fortunam suam transeuntem alio videat et sibi nihil relictum praeter ius mortis, id quoque, si cito occupaverit, exclamare: “Hoc habeo, quodcumque dedi”. O quantum habere potuit, si voluisset! Hae sunt divitiae certae in quacumque sortis humanae levitate uno loco permansurae; quae cum maiores fuerint, hoc minorem habebunt invidiam. Quid tamquam tuo parcis? procurator es. Omnia ista, quae vos tumidos et supra humana elatos oblivisci cogunt vestrae fragilitatis, quae ferreis claustris custoditis armati, quae ex alieno sanguine rapta vestro defenditis, propter quae classes cruentaturas maria deducitis, propter quae quassatis urbes ignari, quantum telorum in aversos fortuna conparet, propter quae ruptis totiens adfinitatis, amicitiae, conlegii foederibus inter contendentes duos terrarum orbis elisus est, non sunt vestra; in depositi causa sunt iam iamque ad alium dominum spectantia; aut hostis illa aut hostilis animi successor invadet. Quaeris, quomodo illa tua facias? dona dando. Consule igitur rebus tuis et certam tibi earum atque inexpugnabilem possessionem para honestiores illas, non solum tutiores facturus. Istud, quod suspicis, quo te divitem ac potentem putas, quam diu possides, sub nomine sordido iacet: domus est, servus est, nummi sunt; cum donasti, beneficium est.

I know a lot of seminarians and graduate school level priests in theology or law who would not have a clue how to approach this text.