Here is this week’s Collect, for the 6th Sunday of Easter in the Ordinary Form:
Fac nos, omnipotens Deus, hos laetitiae dies, quos in honorem Domini resurgentis exsequimur, affectu sedulo celebrare, ut quod recordatione percurrimus semper in opere teneamus.
This is glued together from bits and pieces gleaned from prayers in the ancient Veronese and Gelasian Sacramentary.
Affectus means “a state or disposition of mind, mood” or “affection” in the sense of “love, desire, fondness” etc. Sedulus, is “busy, diligent, careful”. There is also an adverb, sedulo. Teneo has connotations of “to grasp”, both in the physical and intellectual senses. Recordatio is “a recalling to mind”. It betokens bringing something back to the heart (cor).
SLAVISHLY LITERAL RENDERING:
Almighty God, cause us to celebrate these days of joy, which we are carrying out in honor of the rising Lord with zealous affection, so that we may grasp in deed what we are traversing in remembrance.
We could even say something like “busy love” for that affectus sedulus.
CURRENT ICEL (2011):
Grant, almighty God, that we may celebrate with heartfelt devotion these days of joy, which we keep in honor of the risen Lord, and that what we relive in remembrance we may always hold to in what we do.
In our Collect we call up from memory and call to mind (heart – cor) gifts that are so important that they must summon forth concrete responses from here and now. Certainly this is true during Holy Mass, when the priest does what Our Lord commanded us as a Church to do: “Do this in memory (commemoratio) of me.”
Allow me to digress a little about the concept of “memory”.
St. Augustine of Hippo (+430) makes a connection between recordatio and memoria in a letter to his childhood friend and fellow convert Nebridius (ep. 7). For Augustine, memory was the place of encounter between the self and God in what he calls beata vita, the “blessed life”, which refer to the happiness that comes from unity with God.
When looking for ways to explain the Trinity and to recognize Its reflection mirrored in man himself, Augustine personifies (hypostasizes) memory, intellect and will, having memory correspond to God the Father. For Augustine, memory was both the locus of the self as well as the faculty that connects the here and now with the past and future. Memory is therefore a sort of “vanishing point”, constantly slipping away into the past. It also where the self and God and are found together. God keeps us from vanishing into something even less than a memory.
Our liturgical commemoration during Mass is more than a simple “remembrance of things past.” The rising of the Lord (which some say is symbolized by the reuniting of Christ’s Body and Blood when the priest drops the small particle broken from the Host back the chalice) means that we also, even in this earthly life, are rising in Him.
We are risen, rising, and about to rise all at the same time.
We must respond in concrete ways with gratitude for the gift of life, the gift of being in God’s image, the gift of the dignity this image gives us, the gift Our Lord gave us when He opened again the way to communion with the Trinity and the Beatific Vision. Good works performed by the baptized in charity and in conscience unity with Christ, are simultaneously our acts and His acts. In works of mercy performed in true charity, we experience a liberation, a freeing from the past, present, and even the future. Christians remind and remember who they are by submitting to Christ in the service of others.
Commemorate the mysteries of Easter with busy love.
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Fr. Z wrote: “We are risen, rising, and about to rise all at the same time.” Thanks Fr. Z, I now have a richer understanding of Fr. Neuhaus’ remarks on prolepsis.
Fr. Z also wrote: “For Augustine, memory was both the locus of the self as well as the faculty that connects the here and now with the past and future. Memory is therefore a sort of “vanishing point”, constantly slipping away into the past. It also where the self and God and are found together. God keeps us from vanishing into something even less than a memory.”
Nice. This brings to mind a painting of Augustine reflecting on the Trinity at the seashore, gazing at the waves while a little boy nearby fills a hole with water using a seashell. I could be wrong, but the painter might be Giotto. I know it’s not Gelato, that’s just ridiculous. Tasty, but ridiculous.
Very beautiful commentary, Father. Memory must be cleansed of all sins and the proclivity to sin. God’s leading one into the Dark Night purges the memory and leaves the recollection of God Alone, destroying all those things in memory and imagination which led one from God.
This living memory of the Church, however, which we all see disappearing fast, is not only the cultural identity of Catholics, but the memory of the Tradition.
Lately, I had to explain to old adults what they missed in their upbringing regarding how to think like Catholics when approaching Scripture. No one in the group had ever read or heard of those senses, first shared by St. Augustine, and now in the CCC, and elsewhere. Such a lack of memory impedes an adult Catholic from truly embracing an adult faith.
May I add to your very good post here that to be an adult is to put good things into the pot of memory, such as study and recollection of Church teaching. Too many Catholics now are anti-intellectual and starve their memories.
The great beauty of the Mass is that what is remembered is actually happening. How awesome, how consoling, and this is food for our own memories, and the group memory of all Catholics across the world.
Very beautiful commentary, Father. Memory must be cleansed of all sins and the proclivity to sin. God’s leading one into the Dark Night purges the memory and leaves the recollection of God Alone, destroying all those things in memory and imagination which led one from God.
This living memory of the Church, however, which we all see disappearing fast, is not only the cultural identity of Catholics, but the memory of the Tradition.
Lately, I had to explain to old adults what they missed in their upbringing regarding how to think like Catholics when approaching Scripture. No one in the group had ever read or heard of those senses, first shared by St. Augustine, and now in the CCC, and elsewhere. Such a lack of memory impedes an adult Catholic from truly embracing an adult faith.
May I add to your very good post here that to be an adult is to put good things into the pot of memory, such as study and recollection of Church teaching. Too many Catholics now are anti-intellectual and starve their memories.
The great beauty of the Mass is that what is remembered is actually happening. How awesome, how consoling, and this is food for our own memories, and the group memory of all Catholics across the world.