Fr. Z's Blog

At work in the Collect for the 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time are themes of divine adoption, the liberation of the children of God, the peril of error, and the splendor of Truth.

Here is the Collect:

Deus, qui, per adoptionem gratiae,
lucis nos esse filios voluisti,
praesta, quaesumus,
ut errorum non involvamur tenebris,
sed in splendore veritatis semper maneamus conspicui.

A LITERAL VERSION:

O God, who willed us, through the adoption of grace,
to be children of light,
grant, we beg,
that we may not be wrapped up in the shadows of errors,
but that we may remain always conspicuous in the splendor of truth.

CURRENT ICEL, 2012:

O God, who through the grace of adoption chose us to be children of light, grant, we pray, that we may not be wrapped in the darkness of error but always be seen to stand in the bright light of truth.

This is a beautiful prayer. It is also compact. Collects are like that. They are polished theological jewels, miniature sermons.  This one was new for the Novus Ordo, but it seems to have a root in the Sacramentarium Bergomense (11th c.).  I couldn’t find it.

Let’s drill into the Latin.

Deus, qui… voluisti… praesta…

Classic Collect structure. First, God is addressed, then a relative clause recalls what God has done, or what God has willed. Then comes the petition. In other words, we begin with God not with ourselves. We petition because God has already acted.

Per adoptionem gratiae is a dense phrase. The genitive gratiae can be heard as adoption brought about by grace, belonging to the order of grace, impossible by nature alone. We are sons in the Son. We are not “children of light” by optimism, therapeutic affirmation, or niceness. We are such by grace.

Lucis nos esse filios voluisti. Notice the order. Lucis comes before filios. Literally, “of light children.” The Latin places “light” forward. Light is the atmosphere of the whole petition. The prayer begins with light and ends with splendor. Between those two bright poles lurk the tenebrae errorum, the shadows of errors.

There is an architecture here: lucis… tenebris… splendore. Light, darkness, splendor. The Collect moves in a threefold visual drama. First, God’s will: we are made children of light. Second, the danger: we can be enveloped in the darkness of errors. Third, the desired state: we remain visible, shining, conspicuous in the splendor of truth.

The phrase errorum… tenebris is strong. That tenebris is plural. Plural can often be rendered thought of as a singular notion, but literally it is “darknesses, shadows, glooms”. The plural errorum is also important. This error is not merely a single intellectual mistake, like getting the date of Lepanto wrong. Errors spread, multiply. It is as if they link arms in the service of darkness. One error about God leads to another about man, which leads to another about sin, which leads to another about freedom, which leads to another about the body, marriage, worship, priesthood, death, judgment, heaven, hell. Soon the poor errant soul is not merely mistaken: he is wrapped up like a mummy.

That brings us to involvamur. From involvo, it means “to roll in, wrap up, envelop, cover, surround, entangle”.  I mentioned a mummy.  Think of a man trapped in a net, or a fog bound traveler who no longer discerns road, ditch, or cliff. The verb is passive: non involvamur, “may we not be enveloped.” Error does something to us. It’s not neutral. It acts on the mind and will, and muffles perception. It has the subtle power of making slavery feel like freedom.

At the other end is the splendid conspicui. From conspicio, “to look at, behold, perceive,” conspicuus means “visible, manifest, striking, distinguished, remarkable”. It is opposed to the hidden, the concealed, the furtive, the occult. The Christian is not supposed to be a moral smudge, a grey blur whose Baptism makes no visible, outward difference. The Christian, by grace, is to be conspicuus, seen in the light, not of our own accord but rather by splendor.  The prayer says in splendore veritatis. The sphere in which we are visible is the splendor of truth. Truth has splendor. Being the divine attribute, Truth has radiance. Truth is active because Truth is finally personal: Ego sum via et veritas et vita (John 14:6).

This Sunday’s Collect hums with St. Paul’s “children of light” (Ephesians 5:8, and Galatians 4:5, Romans 8:1-15). The moral implication is unavoidable. Adopted sons must live like sons. Children of light must not crawl back into the cellar.

St. Augustine, preaching on the Song of Songs, links noonday brightness with truth and charity:

Annuntia, inquit, mihi, ubi pascis, ubi cubas in meridie, in splendore veritatis, in fervore caritatis…. Tell me, he says, where you pasture, where you lie down at noon, in the splendor of truth, in the fervor of charity.” (s. 295, 5.5).

There it is: splendor veritatis with fervor caritatis … the light of truth and the fervor of charity belong together.

Centuries later St. Bonaventure (+1274) developed the same spiritual grammar:

Splendor veritatis animam illuminat, reformat et Deo assimilat; fervor caritatis animam perficit, vivificat et Deo iungit… The splendor of truth illuminates the soul, reforms it and assimilates it to God; the fervor of charity perfects the soul, vivifies and joins it to God” (Breviloquium V)

That is a retreat in one sentence. Truth first illuminates and then it reforms, and then it assimilates to God. Charity perfects and vivifies. Then it joins to God. This is the opposite of the zombie-state of habitual self-deception. Grace makes the soul vivid, alert, God-facing, flame-bearing, light shedding.

The phrase splendor veritatis should ring a bell. Pope St. John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical Veritatis splendor took aim at dangerous tendencies in moral theology, especially those which detached freedom from truth, conscience from law, and choice from the objective moral order. The last, almost 15 years saw a systematic attack from those who ought to know and act better precisely against that encyclical.  They sought to erode and then erase it through appeals to “lived experience” and “current magisterium” and historicism, that is, changes in context, like the passing of time, means that ideas that were believed in one historical period don’t hold the same truth as they do today.  As the devious Card. Kasper poured into someone’s ear, teachings of Jesus in Jesus’ time might have been true for Jesus’ time, but in our historical context and lived experience, they aren’t necessarily true in the same way for us today.

So much damage has been done.  A great deal repair and renewal, redirection of the instruction in sound philosophy and theology is needed, urgently.  The German/Kasperite/Rahnerian approach replaces the philosophical grounding of theology with politics (majorities can determine truth, and that might diverge from what people thought in the past). Truth changes according to shifting mores, values, etc. To hell with reason (e.g., syllogisms). Because those like Kasper substituted politics for philosophy, we were even being told that people cannot be held to what are widely perceived as impossible ideals, such as sexual continence.  It’s a sticky, black tarry mess imbued with a sentimentalism that can eventually “involve” you.

I’m reminded of the folktale from Ghana, not unlike the Uncle Remus story about B’Rer Rabbit and the Tar Baby.  A clever spider named Anansi made a figure out of tar to trap villagers.  He did indeed trap one, and Anansi moved in for the kill.   However, unlike B’Rer Rabbit who convinced his captor to throw him into the briar patch, Anansi the spider got himself caught in the tar with his victim.  Ultimately, error will not prevail, though it will take many victims in its tarry grip.

Today’s church spiders place their traps of black tar shot through with sentimentality, soft words of self-confirming affirmation, and plain old lies, all in the name of being pastoral and in accompaniment.

This stands in stark contrast to what Benedict XVI taught in Caritas in Veritate:

“Only in truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived. Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity” (op. cit. 3).

Charity without truth becomes mere feeling, or worse, permission to leave people in darkness. On the other hand, truth without charity can become a cudgel. The Collect gives us the Catholic synthesis: splendor veritatis. In that splendor we become visible as children of light.

Tracking back to the Collect, that errorum… tenebris surrounds involvamur like darkness closing over the verb. We are begging not to be entombed in falsehood. Then comes sed… BOOM!…  sed in splendore veritatis semper maneamus conspicui. The phrase bursts outward. In splendore describes the illumination and veritatis identifies the source. Semper and maneamus point to perseverance, staying put. Conspicui lands at the end with force. In fact, had I written this, I would have been tempted to write conspicui maneamus, to get that nice singable clausula.  But that final “ui” (“oooeee” sound) has force.

Holy Church puts this prayer on our lips this Sunday via the priest’s mediation. She teaches us to beg not to be wrapped up in darkness. She teaches us to ask to remain in the splendor, visible, steady, brightly rightly conspicuous.

This has consequences.

Parents must teach children the truth. Priests must preach the truth. Bishops must defend the truth. Catechists must not replace doctrine with projects. Teachers must not deceive with slogans. Fathers of families must not outsource moral clarity to screens. Mothers must not underestimate the splendor of truth spoken calmly and repeatedly in the home. Lay people in offices, shops, classrooms, legislatures, hospitals and road crews must be brightly conspicuous in word and deed to visible enough in this increasingly foggy world to be as attractive as children of a guiding light.

Visible doesn’t mean loud. Conspicuous doesn’t mean obnoxious.

Today’s Collect gives us a hard examination of conscience. Am I wrapped up in some error? Have I grown accustomed to a darkness because everyone around me calls it normal? Have I chosen shadow because light would require confession, restitution, conversion, humility? Do I prefer the approval of the wrapped-up to the freedom of the children of light?

By the merits of Christ’s Sacrifice, through His sacraments, by the teaching of Holy Church, we can be unwrapped. Lazarus came forth, but the Lord still commanded, “Solvite eum et sinite abire …. Unbind him and let him go”.

GO TO CONFESSION.