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

The other day I posted an eyewitness account of the Solemn TLM in Winchester Cathedral… an Anglican Cathedral, under the aegis of the Catholic Bishop of Portsmouth but at the invitation of the Cathedral Chapter.  I warned you about it here at the time when there was that ghastly dust up in Cardiff at the Catholic Cathedral.

This is what I call true ecumenism.

Alas, I think that post got lost in the server changes last weekend.

Here it is again.

Dear Fr John
 
I hope that you have recovered from the awful weather that followed you around the mid-west ten days ago or so.
 
And so to Winchester, to the Cathedral that you and I visited five months ago, to resting place of the bones of so many of the Saxon Kings of Wessex and England, and of Jane Austen, where this morning I had the joy of assisting "In choro" at a Votive Mass (Sacerdotes tui, Domine) of St Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, celebrated by Rt Rev’d Dom Laurence Beer OSB, with Rev’d Dr Laurence Hemming as Deacon and Rev’d Fr Philip Thomas as Subdeacon.   In choir, in addition to your humble correspondent, were Rev’d Frs Andrew Goodman and William Young.   Profound gratitude is due to Bishop Crispian Hollis, the Bishop of Portsmouth and to the Parish Priest, Canon Paul Townsend, for giving permission for this Mass and, most of all to the Dean of the Cathedral, Very Rev’d James Atwell, who was present in his stall, for the invitation.  
 
The ordinary was Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli, sang beautifully and without fault by the Lay Clerks of the Winchester Cathedral Choir, who also sang the exquisite Offertory Motet "Exaltabo te, Domine" by Palestrina and Victoria’s "O Sacrum Convivium" whilst upwards of two hundred and fifty made their Holy Communion.   I remembered you at the Memorial of living and the late Mgr Schuler RIP (who would have delighted in the music) at that of the dead.
 
Dr Hemming preached on the witness of St Swithun to the need for us to cleave close to Christ, our one true High Priest.   At the end of Mass he gave us a delightful fevorino on Reginald Cardinal Pole before we sang the Prayer for the Queen, beginning with the delightful versicle and response, "Domine salvam fac Reginam nostram Elisabeth: et exaudi nos in die qua invocaverimus te" and the Mass ended with the Salve Regina (in the normal tone) and the Christus Vincit from the Worcester Cathedral Antiphoner.  [Msgr. Schuler would have delighted in the music, certainly, but also in the event.  A little know fact is that he was the Catholic priest who brought the first Anglican priests to meet Card. Seper in Rome to talk about the "pastoral provision".]
 
The most beautiful thing this side of heaven?   Procul dubio.
 
With every good wish and the hope of seeing you again before too long.
 
Deacon Stephen Morgan

A couple readers sent via e-mail a text floating around which was claimed to be a response from ICEL to the points raised about the draft of the new translation of the Missale Romanum by His Excellency Most Reverend Victor Galeone, Bishop of Saint Augustine, Florida, during the recent meeting of the USCCB.

Since I didn’t see anything whereby I could verify this text, I contacted the good folks at ICEL and asked about it.  In turn they sent me a copy of the text with a clarification.  I post those here for your perusal.

In the text you will be my emphases and comments.

Dear Fr. Zuhlsdorf,

 

Attached you will find some notes that Msgr Harbert prepared concerning the comments made by Bishop Galeone at the USCCB meeting in Orlando last week. These notes were sent to Bishop Galeone, but were not really "issued by ICEL" but shared with some interested parties.

 Now the text itself:

Bishop Galeone has broken new ground in the public discussion of liturgical language, raising the debate to a higher intellectual level. Whereas critics of ICEL’s recent drafts have mostly commented on individual vocabulary items, his contribution points to structural and semantic issues that are systemic throughout the Missale. His remarks merit a careful response.

Commenting on ICEL’s proposed translation of the Post-Communion for the Wednesday in Holy Week, he has pointed out that the final verb is preceded by two lines that modify it, whereas the more normal pattern in English is for modifiers to follow their verb. If this principle were followed in this case, the translation might read:

Fill our minds, almighty God,
with sure confidence
that you have given us perpetual life
through your Son’s Death in time,
to which awesome mysteries bear witness.

However, ICEL’s translators have been impressed by the fact that Latin orations, especially Post-Communions, tend to conclude strongly with a teleological or eschatological point.  [Yes.  Roman prayers, even as the Psalms do, identify a particular characteristic of God and then, as a consequence of that divine characteristic, going on to make a petition.  The concise Roman Latin style adds great force to the petition, perhaps a reflection of the confidence of the prayering Church in God’s promises.  Something of this force can be retained by sticking as closely as English allows to the Latin structure.] Because of this, they have often followed the Latin in placing the modifiers before the verb so that the English prayer also ends on a strong note. In doing so, they have hoped to avoid a defect that many have noticed in the current translations of these prayers, namely that they often end weakly. It has not been possible to follow this procedure in every case, because sometimes too contorted a syntax results, but it has been followed frequently throughout the Missal. The Commission hopes that this pattern, though unfamiliar at first, will soon become familiar, and allow the teleological thrust that marks so many of the Post-Communions to become more apparent to the people.  [Right! Once people get used to a new style of more accurate prayers, many of this problems with style will fall away.]

Bp Galeone also recommended the addition of ‘this’ to the third line, so that it would read:

to which these awesome mysteries bear witness.

The recommendation to insert ‘this’ or ‘these’ where there is no Latin equivalent is made frequently, but the translators have often found themselves disinclined to adopt it, because it narrows the focus of the text. A familiar example is found in the words before Communion currently translated:

This is the Lamb of God . . .

These words draw the people’s attention to the Host that the Priest holds in his hand, and invite them to recognise Christ present in the Sacrament. But the words were originally those of John the Baptist, spoken when he was at some distance from Jesus. The Commission’s more recent translation, ‘Behold the Lamb of God . . . ‘. gives the text a greater polyvalence, inviting the people to remember also the Baptist’s words and the context in which they were first uttered, as well as the eschatological appearance of the Lamb in heaven, which the Priest’s subsequent quotation of Apoc 19:9 recalls.

Returning to the Post-Communion for Wednesday in Holy Week, we can see that Bp Galeone’s proposal would make the prayer refer clearly to the Eucharist whose celebration is drawing to a close. But it should be noticed that since its earliest appearance (in the Hadrianum manuscript of the Gregorian Sacramentary, dated 811 – 812), this prayer has been assigned to the day before the beginning of the Easter Triduum. It retained that position in subsequent Sacramentaries, and in the 1570 Missal. [!] This being so, we can see a richer significance in the words mysteria veneranda: they refer not only to the Mass just celebrated, but also to the mysteries of the Triduum that will be beginning next time the people gather. It would seem a pity to remove such a resonance from this ancient prayer by adding the word ‘these’.

 I am grateful for the clarification from ICEL and the text, which we now can be confident is accurate.

Another thing.

Note that Msgr. Harbert points out, much as the weekly WDTPRS columns do, the provenance of the prayer under discussion.  He says that from earliest times this prayer was used as the last Mass oration uttered before the Sacred Triduum began the next day.  This is a very good thing to underscore. 

Most of the prayers of the 2002 Missale Romanum are very ancient.  Sadly many of them were chopped up or uprooted from their original places during the liturgical year and moved around.  But the fact remains that we can look at their original contexts in order to gain insight into what the prayers really say.

The intrepid Andrea Tornielli has the five points which the Holy See has offered to the SSPX.  Here is my translation:

I have gotten hold of the letter (written in French) which Dario Card. Castrillon Hoyos wrote with the five conditions sent to [Bp.] Fellay in view of a return to full communion with Rome.  Contrary to the first leaks, there is no mention of acceptance of the Council or the new Mass:  they are prior general conditions.  In fact the Holy See, showing a great generosity, asks that they not attack the person of the Pope.  [Bp.] Fellay asked Benedict XVI for the revocation of the excommunication, so the request to respect authority without first pretending to be the recipients of a a "superior" Magisterium to that of the reigning Pontiff seems to me to be a commonsensical condition!  This is the text of the letter which bears the signature of the Cardinal President of Ecclesia Dei:

Conditions resulting from the 4 june 2008 meeting between Dario Card. Castrillon Hoyos and Bishop Bernard Fellay:

1. A commitment to a proportioned response to the generosity of the Pope.
2. A commitment to avoid any public speech which does not respect the person of the Holy Father and which can be negative for ecclesial charity.
3. A commitment to avoid the pretense of a Magisterium superior to the Holy Father and to not put forward the Fraternity [SSPX] in opposition to the Church.
4. A commitment to demonstrate the will to behave honestly in full ecclesial charity and in respect to the authority of the Vicar of Christ.
5. A commitment to respect the date – fixed at the end of the month of June – to respond positively.  This will be a required and necessary condition for the immediate preparation for adhesion to have full communion.

Okay.   Huge stuff here.

Isn’t this basically a papal "offer you can’t refuse"?

Let’s parse some of this.

The Holy See has not made any theological requirements beyond those inherent in having a proper relationship of respect with the Vicar of Christ.   The office of the Vicar of Christ, the Petrine Ministry, is a theological point in itself, a constitutive dimension of the Church willed by the Lord Himself.  Therefore a proper attitude of respect for a) his person and b) his teaching office, are both practical and theological.  Union with the Roman Pontiff must at least fulfill these points, at the very least. 

There are practical aspects here too.  Not long ago, speaking in Paris, Bp. Fellay said some harsh things about the Pope, calling him a "perfect liberal" in a sermon.  I posted on that here.   This must stop, clearly.   Also, recall that some people said "But Father! But Father!", in high dudgeon, "you shouldn’t talk about what Bp. Fellay said!  That’s unhelpful!"   No, friends.  This was an important point that had to be taken care of.  It concerns ecclesial charity.

Also, and I think this must be brought out – though some will bridle at the suggestion the question implies: Could some dissenter such as, say, Kung accept these conditions?  I suspect not. 

We have now moved firmly to the real point of the conflict: Who is Peter in the Church?

Denial of unity with Peter is now the serious problem to be overcome and it must be done in charity, which means at times some difficult questions and corresponding sacrifices.

The basis of all union in the Church has to be charity, first exemplified by Jesus on the Cross in His great act of self-oblation. 

There is no mention in the conditions of doctrinal details. 

Also, the word "adhesion" needs some thought.  In my days at the P.C. Ecclesia Dei, all that meant was that you signed a document which had the Creed and a statement that the New Mass was valid and that you didn’t deny the Second Vatican Council.  Nothing more.  It didn’t require that you like the New Mass or that you had to celebrate Mass in the Novus Ordo.  It say you had to think everything in the Co