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

Since I started keeping track of stats on 5 January 2006, we just hit visit number 2 million.

Thanks everyone for helping make this blog a success!

And thanks to #2,000,000 … I don’t know who you are, but you got it.

More proof, with the help of Fr. Blake, of why we really needed Summorum Pontificum, especially in France, especially in the cathedral of Lille.

Does that chalice look sort of like a part broken off of a 1960’s lamp?

The "altar" cover looks like the basket from the baloon in the Wizard of Oz.

The USCCB has released a statement about Pope Benedict’s new prayer for the 1962 Missale Romanum Good Friday Prayer for the Jews.

Shall we have a look with my emphases and comments?

Response To The Publication Of Pope Benedict XVI’s Revision Of The 1962 Good Friday Prayer For The Jewish People    

Statement of Most Reverend Richard J. Sklba
Auxiliary Bishop of Milwaukee
Chairman, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Ecumenical and
Interreligious Affairs

WASHINGTON – “The Holy Father has heard with appreciation the concerns of the Jewish community that the prayers of Good Friday should reflect the relationship between Jews and the Church put forward in Nostra Aetate, and implemented by the late Pope John Paul II. As Vatican II states, ‘God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; He does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues – such is the witness of the Apostle’ (NA, no. 4).  [In a way, this states that the main point of concern was not so much what the Jews thought of the old Good Friday prayers, but rather what Nostra aetate said, though I could be wrong.]

“The Holy Father has chosen to omit from his revision any language from the various editions of the (Latin) Missal of 1962 that have long been associated with negative images of Jews. For example, there are no references to the ‘blindness of the Jews,’ to the ‘lifting of a veil from their heart,’ or to their ‘being pulled from darkness.’  [Well… maybe this isn’t quite accurate.  It is true that the words "blindness" and "veil" and "darkness" are not in the new prayer, but the obvious reference to Romans 11:25-26 must inevitably pull the reader to read that Scripture and find that language.  I would say that Pope Benedict’s prayer in fact retains the concepts which are claimed to have been omitted.]

“Pope Benedict XVI has chosen to present the relationship of the Church and the Jews within the mystery of salvation as found in Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans (cf. Rom 11:11-32). Central to the concerns of the Holy Father is the clear articulation that salvation comes through faith in Jesus Christ and his Church. It is a faith that must never be imposed but always freely chosen.  [Well put.  However, central to the concerns of St. Paul, all too well-known to the Holy Father, is also the mystery of the "blindness" of those of his Jewish brethren who did not come into the Church in those days and what will happen with the return of the Lord.  I will suppose that the Holy Father shares St. Paul’s concerns about the Jews, as well the peoples who even now are entering the Church.  His revision of the prayer expresses those concerns very gently, but with insistence.]

“The Catholic Church in the United States remains steadfastly committed to deepening its bonds of friendship and mutual understanding with the Jewish community.” 

I hope the Catholic Church in the United States is also steadfastly committed to implementing the provisions of Summorum Pontificum and the use of the entire 1962 Missale Romanum.

 

From the student newspaper of Georgetown University The Hoya.

    In response to student requests for the Tridentine Mass, a traditional Catholic Mass said in Latin, the Office of Campus Ministry has agreed to regularize its twice-weekly observance in Copley Crypt.

According to the article, the TLM will be said on Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m. and Sundays at 11:30 a.m. in the Copley Crypt Chapel of the North American Martyrs.  Find out where Copley Hall by visiting Georgetown’s website.

 

Brick by brick, folks. 

 

Perhaps students from other Catholic schools around the country might get in touch with those who have succesfully organized the use the TLM in other places.  Pick their brains.  Make connections.

There is a piece on Religion News Service about the new Good Friday prayer for the Jews to be used in celebration of the Triduum with the 1962 Missale Romanum.   Your humble correspondent is quoted.

My emphases and comments.

Critics unsatisfied after pope tweaks prayer for Jews

By FRANCIS X. ROCCA

    VATICAN CITY —With his decision last July to liberalize use of the
Old Latin Mass, Pope Benedict XVI sought to appease traditionalists
disaffected by recent changes to Catholic worship. [Wow… that is really not what the Pope had in mind.  Sure, that is one component, but not in any way the most important.]
    But in making it easier for priests to celebrate the so-called
Tridentine Rite, Benedict also resurrected a controversial prayer used
on Good Friday that called for the conversion of the Jews.
    On Tuesday (Feb. 5), just in time for Lent, the Vatican published a
new version of the prayer clearly designed to allay Jewish concerns. [Really?  I wonder.]
Gone is the reference to Jews’ "blindness" and the request that God
"take the veil from their hearts."  [Not really accurate.  The reference is still very much there, as I show in another entry.  The use of language from Romans 11 brings us directly back to Paul speaking about the blindness of the Jews.  The reference to blindness is not gone.  You just have to look for it a little harder.]
    The new prayer calls upon God to "enlighten (Jews’) hearts so that
they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, the savior of all men" and expresses
the hope that "all Israel may be saved."
    Yet judging from initial reactions to Benedict’s solution, the
formula for preserving Catholic tradition while promoting the interfaith
harmony that sprouted in the 1960s remains elusive—both inside and
outside the church.  [Ummm… I don’t think a Catholic observance of Good Friday is about interfaith harmony.]
    "We are deeply troubled and disappointed that the framework and
intention to petition God for Jews to accept Jesus as Lord was kept
intact," said Abraham Foxman, national director of the New York-based
Anti-Defamation League.  [No surpise there.]
    The International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations,
which represents a dozen international Jewish groups, also issued a
declaration of "deep regret and disappointment" over the new text.
    According to one expert on Catholic liturgy, the revised prayer
continues to pose difficulties for the church’s interfaith outreach,
which was born after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, the same
time the old Tridentine Rite was retired.
    "There is a tension that will not go well with the furthering of
Jewish-Christian relations," said the Rev. Keith F. Pecklers, an
American who teaches at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University. [This is one of the three fellows who worked up the book about the post-Conciliar reform that came out over the name of Archbp. Piero Marini.  I suspect Pecklers actually wrote most of it, but I am not sure.  I think we can be reasonably sure, however, that he is helping to spearhead an effort to set up Archbp. Marini as a rallying point for those who don’t like what Pope Benedict is doing with the liturgy.]
    "It’s a slight improvement over the original text," he said, "but
not much more."
    Instead of modifying the Tridentine text, the pope could have
applied language from the post-Vatican II liturgy, a step that "would
have certainly solved the problem," Pecklers said.  [First, it would have solved nothing.  Had the Holy Father made the sort of change Fr. Peckler’s suggests, the ADL and others would have then merely pivoted and found some other point to to attack and gripe about.  Second, it may be that Pope Benedict sees a very different "problem" than both Fr. Peckler’s and the ADL et al.  His Holiness could have chosen the solution of Pecklers and the ADL, but he decided instead to reaffirm the substance of the traditional prayer in the older Missal.  By doing so, he is probably saying that a) the Good Friday service is not really about ecumenical dialogue and b) any continuing dialogue making reference to how we pray must be rooted in what Catholics actually believe, rather than in what we are willing to compromise on after being griped at for long enough.]
    The Good Friday prayer for Jews in the 1970 Roman Missal, now used
by most Catholic congregations around the world, refers to Jews as "the
first to hear the word of God" and prays that "they may continue to grow
in the love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant."  [Which means … what, exactly?  Is there any reference to Christ as our salvation in that formula?]
    The Vatican’s secretary of state and No. 2 official, Cardinal
Tarcisio Bertone, suggested last July that the relevant section of the
Tridentine liturgy could be replaced by the Latin version of the 1970
prayer.
    But such a move would have been unacceptable to traditionalists,
notes the Rev. John T. Zuhlsdorf, whose Web site "What Does the Prayer
Really Say?" is popular among devotees of the Old Latin Mass.
    "It would have been a different prayer," he said.  [Well… yah.]
    For some, Zuhlsdorf predicts, even the pope’s more limited revision
will seem too radical.  [That this is proving to be the case, for some people anyway, according to the comments elsewhere on this blog.]
    "There are going to be a lot of hysterical reactions," he said.
"Some will really hate this prayer simply because it’s change."
    But other traditionalists "will read this prayer carefully and will
come to realize that it is actually in substance pretty darn good,"
Zuhlsdorf said. "The substance of the prayer … remains the same.
However, instead of talking about blindness, now we’re talking about
illumination."  [Though, as I pointed out, the reference to blindness is clearly in the subtext because of the use of language from Romans 11.]

Every once in a while I find a very creative posting in the blogosphere which uses outdoor church signs of different denominations to explain Catholic positions.  Very clever, I must say. 

I have ported this entry over here from Kansas City Catholic, but you all must be sure to go and look at that site.  It must take a lot of work to put these together.

Catholics across the world attend Mass and begin the penitential season of Lent. And while Ash Wednesday is not a holy day of obligation and the reception of the ashes is not a sacrament, the day and the act are important ones in the liturgical year.

To begin the season of Lent, Catholics fast and abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday (and abstain from meat on Lenten Fridays) and often commit to a sacrifice or act that serves as a way of deepening their faith during Lent’s 40 days. The Catholic observance of Ash Wednesday is confusing to some of our Christian brothers and sisters. The church signs below explain the day–and the season of Lent–in their own way.

This is the sort of creative post that makes the Catholic blogosphere so very interesting and useful.  I tip my biretta  o{]:¬)