Monthly Archives: March 2006

EXCERPT:
This prayer today was not in the pre-Concilar Missale Romanum. It also has me scratching my head. Once I looked up all the references, I knew why. In effect, this is clearly a cut and paste joband it just doesn’t hang together well. A predecessor (Concede, quaesumus, domine, fragilitate nostrae sufficientiam conpetentem, ut suae reparationis effectum et pia conuersatione recenseat et cum exultatione suscipiat: per.) is in the Gelasianum Vetus in two places, Friday of the 3rd Week of Lent and for Septuagesima. The “et fragilitati nostrae congrua praeparasti subsidia” is in the Veronese in April and references to fragilitas and pia conversatio in a prayer in July. Continue reading →

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EXCERPT:
Christ is the perfect model of all that is mentioned in the prayer. He is the perfect exemplar. St. Augustine, in his monumental City of God is a little cautious about presenting the Lord as being our model and exemplar. He knows that Christ, the perfect model, presents for us an unattainable challenge. For Augustine, the lives of the martyrs and other holy men and women are more helpful and realistic models. In their fully be merely human lives they show us that we fully human but merely human people can live the life to which Christ’s commands and perfect model calls us. Continue reading →

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EXCERPT:
We need to be clear about something. What we do on our own cannot obtain anything from God on its own merits. To paraphrase St. Augustine when God crowns our merits, He crowns His own merits in us.

I wrote this next excerpt from a WDTPRS article for Super Oblata of the 8th Sunday of Ordinary Time. I think it applies. Also, I am really sick right now and just don’t have it in me to do much more, so here goes. Some of the rest of you can dig into the vocabulary and syntax. Continue reading →

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EXCERPT:
Since we are past the half way point in Lent, there has been a shift in the prayers, I think. There is a focus on the coming Triduum now. The vocabulary today with paschale mysterium and praeconium point to the Triduum and Vigil. Praeconium makes you think right away of the great chant of the deacon called the Exsultet, or Praeconium Paschale. The Redactors chose to strip the prayer of it older content, in the replacement of “fasts” (ieiunia) with devotio. Continue reading →

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COLLECTDeus, qui ineffabilibus mundum renovas sacramentis,praesta, quaesumus,ut Ecclesia tua et aeternis proficiat institutis,et temporalibus non destituatur auxiliis.A form of this prayer was in the ancient Gregorian in the Hadrianum manuscript "FERIA VI AD SANCTUM EUSEBIUM" which means that it was … Continue reading →

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EXCERPT:
For our sins we truly deserve damnation. God’s eternal remedy to the damnation we deserve causes us simultaneously to bend ourselves over as humble supplicants and, to raise our hands and hearts heavenward as we rejoice in our good fortune and God’s mercy. Our grateful humility prompts us to beg the Lord to continue His gracious work in us, to make us capable of venerating the gifts properly, and also to make them known to others. We wish others to share in the salvation He has so kindly made possible so that our joy may be increased.

Now put yourself in church at Holy Mass. For weeks now the sanctuary has been bare, stripped in Lenten mortification. Purple has been our visual theme. The liturgy is “dying” until it rises at Easter. Today some bright flowers bedeck the high altar, the only altar, around which the well-trained boys serve in cassock and surplice. The organ was played, sparingly, but well. Father’s sermon was solemnly amusing, spiritually insightful and comprehensively brief, but in a moving way. The echo of the Gregorian chant chased the fragrant incense tendrils aloft into the vaults. You helped to make sure the collection was generous. On the altar’s mensa glittering gold vessels now stand holding your gifts, the hosts and the wine with its water drops. The priest, all draped in rose over white linen, has turned around to face you. For your sake and that of Holy Church he calls upon you to unite your sacrifices to his. Hundreds of voices together with yours rise from the packed nave upward to God in pursuit of the chant and the incense. The priest turns back to face the liturgical East. Silence falls. He opens his hands and sings.

SUPER OBLATA (2002MR):
Remedii sempiterni munera, Domine, laetantes offerimus,
suppliciter exorantes,
ut eadem nos et fideliter venerari,
et pro salute mundi congruenter exhibere perficias. Continue reading →

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EXCERPT:
Each of us has a state in life, a God-given vocation we are duty bound to follow. We must be devoted to that state in life, and the duties that come with it, as they are in the here and now. That “here and now” is important. We must not focus on the state we had once upon a time, or wish we had, or should have had, or might have someday: those are unreal and misleading fantasies that distract us from reality and God’s will. If we are truly devoted and devout (in the sense of the active virtue) to fulfilling the duties of our state as it truly is here and now, then God will give us every actual grace we need to fulfill our vocation. Why can we boldly depend on God to help us? If we are fulfilling the duties of our state of life, then we are also fulfilling our proper roles in His great plan, His design from before the creation of the universe. God is therefore sure to help us. And if we are devoted to our state as it truly is, then God can also guide us to a new vocation when and if that is His will for us. Faithful in what we must do here and now, we will be open to something God wants us to do later. This attachment to reality and sense of dutiful obedience through the active virtue devotio is a necessary part of religion in keeping with the biblical principle in 1 John 2:3-5:

“And by this we may be sure that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says ‘I know Him’ but disobeys His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps his word, in him truly love for God is perfected. By this we may be sure that we are in Him: he who says he bides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked.” Continue reading →

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EXCERPT:
The Latin version identifies some important things. First and foremost in the prayer is our total reliance on God. It is He who gives us the “gifts of the eternal remedy”. Implicit in the need for a remedy, a concept entirely abandoned in the ICEL version, is the illness of sin. Our gratitude for the eternal remedy to the damnation we deserve for sins causes us at the same time to bend ourselves over as humble supplicants at the same time as we rejoice in our good fortune and the goodness of such a merciful God. Our gratitude and humility in turn prompt us to ask that same God to continue His gracious work in us an make us capable of venerating the gifts properly and also making them known (exhibere) to others, whom we also wish to share in the salvation He has so kindly made possible. Whereas in the ICEL prayer there is a petition “bring salvation to the world” in the Latin prayer we recognize that we, entirely dependent on God, are the ones who are to make that salvation know. With the reception of the gift comes a responsibility. Continue reading →

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EXCERPT:
Some ink can be given to rose vestments. This custom is tied to the station churches in Rome. For centuries in Rome there have been celebrations of Mass during the great seasons of Lent/Easter and Advent/Christmas at “station” churches. The station Mass for Laetare Sunday is the Basilica of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem in Rome, where the relics of Cross and Passion are kept. It was the custom on Laetare for the Pope to bless roses made of gold that were then sent to Catholic kings and queens. Thus Laetare was also called Dominica de rosa…. Sunday of the Rose. Rose vestments developed naturally from this occasion. So, rose came to be used on Laetare Sunday in the Basilica of the Holy Cross when the Pope came for the station Mass. The use of rose (the technical term for the color is rosacea) spread to the rest of the City on this day. As a Roman custom it became part and parcel of the Roman Missal promulgated through the world by Pius V. The custom is, thanks be to God, coming back into vogue again. Continue reading →

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