Monthly Archives: May 2006

EXCERPT:
Every once in a while when I need a break, I hop the train and zip up to Orvieto, famous for its white wine and glorious cathedral decorated on the outside with carvings by Maitani. (There is also a really good restaurant I like there.) In the cathedral there is a chapel with frescos painted by Signorelli. One of them depicts the resurrection. Perfect 33 year olds are literally crawling, pushing, drawing themselves up from out of a totally blank, flat, white surface. The white plain represents how matter, even prime matter, is “zeroed out” until it receives its characteristics and properties by a form, which in the case of human beings is the soul. You can see that at first they are skelatal and sort of transparent. Their bones take form and then flesh is added. They seem also to be nearly asleep at first and then they wake up and look around, amazed. One fellow is helping another drawing by pulling him out by his arms. Perhaps they had been friends. There are some rather courtly skeletons elegantly processing in from the right who are yet to be enfleshed. Their illium blades are slightly cocked in that stylish renaissance angle so typical of the era. What I think is happening with some skeletons coming out the the prime matter and some sauntering in is that some of us will need an “extreme makeover”, since our mortal remains will have been entirely consumed into other substances. Some, howver, will still have their bones and the makeover won’t be quite so complete. Above, mighty angels blow trumpets, now in this direction, now in that direction. The newly risen acknowledge them with upraised arms, listening to their call. To our modern eye the expressions on their faces might seem at first to look like boredom. We must remember the convention in painting of the era that the expression represents serene detachment and control of the appetites, peace of soul undisturbed by the impulses of our lower nature due to the wounds in our souls from original sin and bad habits. In the resurrection, these will all be healed. Read More →

EXCERPT:
There are many ways we can render some of these words and thus tease out nuances of meanings. I am glad I don’t have to produce in WDTPRS a liturgically final version. I can be both terse and literal or, when I wish, a little wordy. So, once again I remind you that sacramentum and mysterium are intimately interconnected in liturgical language. This is why I usually say “sacramental mystery” and not just “sacrament”. For fortitudo I choose “strengthening power” instead of simple “strength” so I can involve the concept of a virtue. At the moment the priest is raising this prayer heavenward the Host is intimately, even physically, within us, within our pectus! Therefore, when I get to nostris pectoribus, while I stick here with “souls” I would rather write, “hearts, minds and wills” so as to elaborate the depth of the word pectus and give a larger view of all the dimensions affected by a good reception of Communion.

After investigating these prayers each week, having all the various nuances and wrinkles of meaning of the vocabulary fresh in my mind, I begin to hear more than just the bare words. There is a great deal going on in each Latin prayer, friends. But the task of translating these orations so that they are beautiful, memorable, accurate and concise is daunting in the extreme. The people entrusted with this Herculean task need the support of prayers and positive comments when they have been successful.

We should arise from our Communion simultaneously as gentle as doves before our neighbor, as clever as serpents before the workings of the world, and as indomitable as lions in the face of the evil one (described also as a lion seeking to devour us – 1 Peter 5:8), ready to do battle against every kind of evil attack. When receiving Communion and in the subsequent period of thanksgiving, have an explicit intention, with the help of Mary, to ask God for the virtue of fortitude and the increase of that homonymous gift of the Holy Spirit. A Christian’s choice: lion or gerbil? Read More →