WDTPRS – Friday 3rd Week of Lent – Prayer over the people (2002MR)

A great new feature of the 2002 Missale Romanum in Latin is that for Lent the "Prayer over the people" or Oratio super populum has been revived as an option.

Priests can use this prayer NOW at the end of Mass, but still only in the Latin.

Yah, I know.. I keep posting these as if they were, I dunno, interesting.

Let’s have a look at today’s:

ORATIO SUPER POPULUM (2002MR):
Implorantes, Domine, misericordiam tuam,
fideles tuos propitius intuere,
ut, qui de tua pietate confidunt,
tuae caritatis dona ubique diffundere valeant
.

"But Father! But Father!," some would be liturgists might be saying as they scratch their heads.  "Where does this pray come from?  How do you ferret out its origins?"

Books, friends.  The Corpus Christianorum Latinorum has volumes and volumes of orations.  You sort though the bits and pieces using, especially, the first few words.  And you use your Latin ear.

For example, in today’s prayer, which is I think a "shake and bake" oration, pasted together from pieces of other orations and some new composition, we find a source in this:

You can see some of our old friends, for example, the Liber sacramentorum Gellonensis 387.

Where we find this on p. 47 of its critical edition.  This in the section on the 2nd week of Lent.

So that takes care of the first part of the prayer… which we still haven’t translated.

The second part?  I think it was a new composition.

So, when you scan over these WDTPRS entries you now have a glimpse of a little of what I do in writing them.

Now…  who wants to take this easy prayer and make some comments after a

SLAVISHLY LITERAL VERSION?

 

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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8 Comments

  1. Marius2k4 says:

    A-ha! Much nicer than the last one. Verbs in conjugated forms, hurrah!

    Ahem…

    “Propitiously watch over Thy faithful,
    imploring, O Lord, Thy mercy,
    that, those who trust in Thy lovingness
    may be strengthened to spread the gifts of Thy love everywhere.”

  2. Imploring, O Lord, Your loving kindness [mercy],
    look with favor upon Your faithful people,
    that they who rely on Your goodness
    may be able to dispense everywhere gifts of Your love.

    This is why YOU do this, Father, and I don’t.

  3. Dr. Eric says:

    This is the second time you have commented in the past few days that your translation posts don’t get many hits, Father. I think it’s because we are no longer taught Latin and it’s over the heads of us Joe Twelve Pack Catholics- I know that I read them but I really can’t comment on them.

    I appreciate the service and learn sooooo much from them, thank you for doing this, Father.

  4. Hieronymus says:

    Look with kindness upon thy faithful, O Lord,
    who implore thy mercy,
    that they who entrust themselves to thy pity
    might have the strength to pour forth everywhere the gifts of thy charity.

  5. Marius2k4 says:

    Father, could you educate us as to the abbreviations used in the Liber Gellonensis, such as EBD, SAB, SCM, SCR and P. COM, as well as that within the brackets on the first line of 385?

    Gratias tibi.

  6. Phil says:

    I agree with Dr. Eric, Father. While I learned Latin in college and can usually see the “gist” of something on first try I am still not very good and don’t feel like I can attempt to even come close to a “slavishly literal version.” Translating Cicero and Ovid was difficult enough (and I was never very good there either!) But I have learned loads from your posts on these prayers and finding out what the prayer really says is actually my prime intellectual interest here. All the other stuff is just bonus!

  7. fajalou says:

    Implorantes, Domine, misericordiam tuam,
    fideles tuos propitius intuere,
    ut, qui de tua pietate confidunt,
    tuae caritatis dona ubique diffundere valeant.

    Imploring, O Lord, Your Mercy,
    look favorably upon your faithful,
    and, for those who trust in Your tender Goodness
    give Your Charity where they earnestly desire to pour It out.

    Better English?

    Imploring, O Lord, Your Mercy,
    look favorably upon your faithful
    and give to those who trust in Your Tender Mercy
    the Charity which they desire to pour out to the world.

    Interesting, Thanks Fr Z. Just registered as a user because I feel like I should start translating some of these (why not!)… and because you have been leaving out your own translation!

    Hopefully my Latin is not too skewed, still a student of the language, but hopefully these exercises, spiritually and intellectually, will help me!

    +

  8. JSBSJ says:

    Implorantes [imploring], Domine [o Lord], misericordiam tuam [your mercy],
    fideles tuos [your faithful] propitious [favourable] intuere [inf. to look at] ,
    ut [that], qui [who] de tua pietate [from your mercy] confidunt [should this be “confidant”, they confide] ,
    tuae caritatis dona [your gifts of charity] ubique [everywhere] diffundere [to pour out] valeant [they may want].

    Imploring, o Lord, your mercy,
    to look with favor on your faithful,
    that, [they] who confide in your mercy,
    may desire to pour out everywhere your gifts of mercy.

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