Fr. Z's Blog

I’m sure you know that only a tiny percent of the orations of the Vetus Ordo made it into the Novus Ordo unmolested.

Well… maybe that isn’t quite the right word in every case.

In some cases the Novus changed the prayer to an even more ancient form. However, ancient isn’t always better. We learn, deepen our understanding over the years. Changes ought to be careful, like the delicate pruning of a bonsai rather than the grasping rip of a stump puller.

The experts of the Consilium were not of the bonsai school in their overall approach.

Here is the Collect for Ember Wednesday in Lent.

VETUS COLLECT (1962RM):
Devotionem populi tui, quaesumus, Domine,
benignus intende:
ut, qui per abstinentiam macerantur in corpore,
per fructum boni operis reficiantur in mente.

This isn’t all that difficult.

Anyone who has been a cook recognizes the basic sense of macero. Macero is “to make soft or tender, to soften by steeping, to soak, steep, macerate”.   When applied to us it is, “to weaken in body or mind, to waste away, enervate”.

WORDY LITERAL RENDERING:
We beg You, O Lord, kindly look upon the
devotion of Your people,
with the result that they who by means of abstinence are being tenderized in respect to the body
may by means of the fruit of good work be refreshed in respect to the mind.

In the Novus Ordo the prayer is somewhat softened.  Are you getting used to that now?

NOVUS COLLECT (2002MR):
Devotionem populi tui, quaesumus, Domine,
benignus intende,
ut, qui per abstinentiam temperantur in corpore,
per fructum boni operis reficiantur in mente.

The Novus Ordo redactors sliced out macero and put in tempero, related to temperatio.  Tempero… or….  temperor?  There is a deponent temperor.   Temperantur can be either passive or active.  Tempero is “to observe proper measure; to moderate or restrain one’s self; to forbear, abstain; to be moderate or temperate”. We can also use this word to indicate the mixing of liquids, such as when water is added to wine in a cup, according to ancient usage. Tempero also means, “to forbear, abstain, or refrain from; to spare, be indulgent to any thing”.  Think of the virtue temperance.   Temperor is “to divide or proportion duly, mingle in due proportion”, like in the wine example above.  It is also, “to regulate, order” and “to restrain one’s self, forbear, abstain”.  In our prayer I think we have the deponent with active meaning, something like a middle voice.

WORDY LITERAL RENDERING:
We beg You, O Lord, kindly look upon the
devotion of Your people,
with the result that they who by means of abstinence are restraining themselves in due measure in respect to the body
may by means of the fruit of good work be refreshed in respect to the mind.

Macero… soften.  You would think we want to toughen, not soften.  Right?  This is LENT!  This is BATTLE!  We are FASTING!  GET TOUGH!  Right?  Think of the cooking term maceration.  Soften?  Really?

We macerate things by immersing them in some substance in order to break them down.  This is done with meat, for example to tenderize it, to break down the fibers of muscle so that they will not contract under heat and make the meat tough.  We do the same thing by pounding flesh with a spikey hammer.  Maceratio means tenderize.  Think of softening up an entrenched position of the enemy by hammering it with artillery.

Perhaps while we must toughen up in body though discipline, through discipline we can also mellow and tenderize our hearts in respect to any way in which we have hardened them.  Hard hearts don’t admit graces and don’t circulate joy or anything that is good.

What we are driving at here is “mortification of the flesh” and “renewal of the soul”.    Both, at the same time.

I think macero is much more interesting a choice.  Macerantur catches the ear right away, whereas temperantur…  meh… not so much.

NEW ICEL VERSION:
Look kindly, Lord, we pray,
on the devotion of your people,
that those who by self-denial are restrained in body
may by the fruit of good works be renewed in mind.

More about that tempero.  As surely you do, I immediately think of Horace’s Ode 1, 20:

In Ode 1.20 the poet talks about his countryside villa (his “Sabine Farm”… *sigh*), his wine and a great shout that echoed out over Rome for his patron Maecenas who made a first appearance in public after an illness:

Vile potabis modicis Sabinum
cantharis, Graeca quod ego ipse testa
conditum levi, datus in theatro
cum tibi plausus,

care Maecenas eques, ut paterni
fluminis ripae simul et iocosa
redderet laudes tibi Vaticani
montis imago.

Caecubum et prelo domitam Caleno
tu bibes uvam; mea nec Falernae
temperant vites neque Formiani
pocula colles.

The parts below in parenthesis I added to make this clearer to those who don’t know much about Horace.

(When you, Maecenas, visit me in the country at my farm)
You will quaff from simple drinking cups
the lowly Sabine which I laid down with the
Greek style seal, in the year when the applause
was given to you in the theater,

dear knight Maecenas, so loud that
the Vatican hill together with the banks of
the fatherly river Tiber sent the praises
back to you (so loud they echoed off the Vatican hill back to the Theater of Pompey).

(At your home) you will be drinking Caecuban and the grape
crushed in the Caleniean press; my vines (when you visit my Sabine farm house in the country)
and not Falernian vines nor Formian hills
temper my cups.

It could be that tempero here is a reference to how the ancients used to drink their wine mixed with water.  To drink unmixed merum was a scandal and sign of immoderate … everything.  Mark Anthony was one such, and Cicero sharply pointed it out.  In the Ode, however, I think the very has the force of “mellow” or “season” and the object is the cups.    What is brilliant is that Horace made us think of both at the same time.

A long time ago, one of my Latin profs told me that as I got older I would appreciate Horace more and more.

I suppose with many more seasons behind me now, I have mellowed a little, mixed as I have been in respect to years and tears.

Our prayers this week are giving us different virtues to think about: devotio, moderatio, temperatio. There is a frequent juxtaposition of mens and corpus or caro, rationabilia and corporalia in Lenten prayers.

We are both.  Both must be subject to discipline during Lent.