WDTPRS: Thursday 1st Week of Lent – Post communionem (2002MR)

We continue our project of looking at the Post communions of Lent:

Thursday – 1st Week of Lent

Keep in mind that we are also in the context of Ember Week, though that is not a Novus Ordo phenomenon.

This prayer was in the 1962 Missale Romanum on Saturday of Ember Week in Advent.  It is an ancient prayer, as you might have guessed.  It is in the Liber Sacramentorum Romanae Ecclesiae and various manuscripts, such as the Liber Sac. Augustodunensis, Engolismensis and Gellonensis.

POST COMMUNIONEM:
Quaesumus, Domine, Deus noster,
ut sacrosancta mysteria,
quae pro reparationis nostrae munimine contulisti,
et praesens nobis remedium esse facias et futurum.

A munimen is a "a defence, fortification, rampart, enclosure".   My mind is playing with a connect between the words munimen and reparatio, "a restoration, renewal", and English "rampart" and its connection to re-parare through M. Fr. remparar.

LITERAL VERSION:
We beseech You, O Lord, our God,
that the most holy sacramental mysteries
which You conferred as the rampart of our renewal,
you will cause to both a present and a future remedy.

Daily Missal (Baronius Press, 2007):
We beseech Thee, O Lord, our God,
that the most holy Mysteries,
which Thou hast given us for a safeguard of our renewal,
may become for our remedy both now and for time to come.

When this prayer is pronounced by the priest, the Blessed Sacrament is still within those who have communicated. 

This moment of Communion is about the closest one can get to future participation in the joys of heaven to come.  The Eucharist is sometimes called a pignus, a "down payment, pledge" of what God has promised.

Reception of Holy Communion has both immediate and future consequences.