Fr. Z's Blog

[A special note for priests alone at the end.  Nobody else look! o{];¬) ]

COLLECT (1962MR & 2002MR):
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus,
da nobis ita dominicae passionis sacramenta peragere,
ut indulgentiam percipere mereamur.

This prayer was in the 1962MR on Tuesday of Holy Week.  It was in the Hadrianum and Paduenese of the ancient Gregorian Sacramentary for the same day, when the Station is at Santa Prisca.  So, it seems that today we have a prayer which The Redactors of the Novus Ordo didn’t fiddle around with.  They left it on the same day as it had always been, and didn’t change or cut out any words.  That’s rare.

The verb perago means, according to the dark blue bound Lewis & Short Dictionary, in its fundamental sense, “to thrust through, pierce through, transfix”.   It can then come to mean by logical extension “to drive about, harass, disturb, disquiet, agitate, annoy a person or thing”.  However, in our context here, it is probably “to carry through, go through with, execute, finish, accomplish, complete”.    However, I ought to remind readers, as well as myself, that “Mentio non fit expositio!” as one of my old profs used to shout.  I cut now to the chase with Blaise/Dumas who says perago is “célèbrer” as in “célèbrer les mystères de la Passion du Seigneur”.

The verb percipio is “to take wholly, to seize entirely”.  Often when you see a prepositional prefix per on verbs, you get an intensification of the concept of the verb.  At the same time percipio is “to perceive, observe” and “to feel” and “to learn, know, conceive, comprehend, understand, perceive”.    Blaise/Dumas gives us “recevoir (l’eucharistie)”.  I think this gets us close to the meaning for our prayer.

So we have perago and percipio.

SLAVISH LITERAL VERSION
Almighty everlasting God,
grant us so to celebrate the mysteries of the Lord’s Passion,
that we may merit to grasp pardon.

The words peragere and percipere underscore the intensity with which we ought to participate in the sacred mysteries especially during this Holy Week.

The per prefix suggests to us a thoroughness of our participation, the one per leading to the other per through the connect of the ita… ut.   The peragere is an invitation to us to participate in the mysteries of Holy Week in a way that is “full, conscious and active”, especially in the interior sense.  In this way we can more completely grasp in all senses of that word what the Lord has to offer to us.

As the Council document Gaudium et spes 22 tells us, and this was a contribution of the young bishop Karol Wojtyla, the Second Person of the Trinity took up our human nature and came into this world to reveal man more fully to himself.

Our participation in the sacred mysteries at all times of the year help us to grasp and perceive many things.  “Grasp” contains both “receive” and “perceive”.

We learn about ourselves, we learn about the magnalia Dei, we grasp and perceive the fruits and graces of the Eucharist and the other sacraments, we deepen our grasp of the Faith’s content.

That content is both things we can learn and contemplate and, more deeply, the divine Person of the Lord Himself.  One of the most important things we grasp, as our prayer reminds us, is pardon for our many and black sins which merit Hell.

By strengthening our grasp on Christ, and His grasp on us, His merit becomes our merit and thus we can receive the saving pardon He grasped for us on the Cross.

It might be a good idea to meditate a bit on the 1 Cor 11:29-31, in which Paul talks about “discerning” the Body and Blood of the Lord before reception.

The Greek verb diakrino for “discern” doesn’t quite match in exact meaning the force of percipio but there is a conceptual connection between discerning verbs.  In any event, this verse came to mind and it is good to examine ourselves carefully in this regard.

NEW CORRECTED ICEL VERSION:
Almighty ever-living God,
grant us so to celebrate
the mysteries of the Lord’s Passion
that we may merit to receive your pardon.

OBOSLETE ICEL:
Father,
may we receive your forgiveness and mercy
as we celebrate the passion and death of the Lord.

Think about the rubbish people had to endure for decades in church.

SUPER DOUBLE TOP SECRET NOTE FOR PRIESTS

Think again about that verb percipio.  Then think about the prayer we, many of us at least, say before our own reception of Communion during Holy Mass.

LATIN TEXT (2002MR):
Perceptio Corporis et Sanguinis tui, Domine Iesu Christe, non mihi proveniat in iudicium et condemnationem; sed pro tua pietate prosit mihi ad tutamentum mentis et corporis et ad medelam percipiendam.

1962 Missale Romanum version:
Let not the partaking [perceptio] of Your Body, O Lord Jesus Christ, which I, unworthy, presume to receive [quod ego indignus sumere praesumo] turn out to be unto my judgment and condemnation: but by Your goodness, may it become a protection of soul and body and remedy to be grasped/received [percipiendam] .…

The older version stresses the priest’s, our, unworthiness.

Our hands and eyes and mouths, Fathers, are close to the Eucharistic species on the altar.

Our breath touches them as we recite this prayer.

We are speaking not just to Christ present in the Host and chalice under the humble appearance of bread and wine, but beyond them and in them and through them to the High Priest Christ glorious and reigning in heaven.  Alter Christus in Christi persona. Even that per-sona refers to the sound moving through the ancient actor’s mask to characterize and amplify the sound.

Baptism washed away our sins, Fathers, but it didn’t remove the wounds to our souls and bodies.  We say this prayer bent down as sinners in need of a Savior, not as the “lords” of what done at the altar or Who is on the altar inches before our eyes.

In this prayer, with its conclusion, we priests must be mindful of our fallen and sinful state even as we – not allowed even to lift our eyes – hope for glory to come, the very purpose of our Mass.