Thoughts about “walking together about walking togetherity” sparked by a prayer in the Traditional Latin Mass

Today is the Feast of St. John Leonardi whose remains are at not too distant S.M. in Campitelli.

St. John is the patron of pharmacists.  He was one and had a shop before priesthood if memory does not fail.

He was also a member of St. Philip’s Archconfraternity.

Hence, this morning we celebrated the Feast of St. John Leonardi.  However, there was also a commemoration of Sts.St. Dionysius and companions, early martyrs. Something in the prayers caught my eye, as it often turns up in the prayers of the Vetus Ordo, but I think not so much in the Novus Ordo.

Deus, qui hodiérna die beátum Dionýsium, Mártyrem tuum atque Pontíficem, virtúte constantiæ in passióne roborásti, quique illi, ad prædicándum géntibus glóriam tuam, Rústicum et Eleuthérium sociáre dignátus es: tríbue nobis, qu?sumus; eórum imitatióne, pro amóre tuo próspera mundi despícere, et nulla eius advérsa formidáre.

O God, who on this day strengthened blessed Dionysius, Your Martyr and Bishop, with the power of steadfastness in his suffering, and who also were pleased to join with him Rusticus and Eleutherius to preach Your glory to the pagans, grant us, we beseech You, out of love for You, in their imitation to despise the favors of this world and to fear not its enmities.

Let’s recap a couple of things.  “To preach your glory” in the context of martyrdom harks to St. John saying that they saw the “glory” of the Lord, which means His Passion and death on the Cross.  In regard to preaching, martyrdom is a kind of preaching, a “bearing witness”.

What pulls my eye is something that seems to be directly in contrast with “walking together about walking togetherity”.

Note that phrase “prospera mundi despicere… to look down on the advantageous things of this world”.

You find this often in the Vetus Ordo.  For example, “doceas nos terrena despicere,
et amare caelestia…. teach us to disregard earthly things, and to love heavenly things.”

Despicio is “to look down upon; despise; to look away, not to regard.”

It is a commonplace in prayers of the Roman Church, from earliest times, to warn about the things of this world.

The good things God created are not despicable. They become so when their allure makes us closed or we allow them to defile us. We must disregard them when they become stumbling blocks. Paradox: in our material life we stumble when we disregard stumbling blocks, while in the spiritual life we stumble by lending them undue attention.

We must be on guard regarding the good things of this world.   Great Fathers as Tertullian, Sts. Ambrose and Augustine wrote on this theme.   Tracing despicere in the prayers in the Roman Rite, it seems to have been added more and more as time went on to the 20th century when, I guess, we stopped worrying about such things.  Let the air in, right?

Ambrose and Augustine both use military imagery in expressing the idea behind despicere mundum.    In De bono mortis, we must be good soldiers, looking down on the inferior and striving after the celestial and eternal.

Augustine, combatting the Manicheans who claimed that things of this world are evil, nevertheless upholds the superiority of the things that are above.   The Devil is the prince of this world, or rather the Prince of those who give into the things of this world.  We conquer the world by conquering, with grace, attachment to this world.

The heart and mind of the Church in these prayers is not to put in total conflict that which is here below (where we are) with that which is where we desire to be.  That would be unwise and unreasonable, given that we live here and now in the world.  What we pick up over time with the various uses of these phrase about “mundum despicere” is a complementarity in which that which is above (“sursum!”) is superior and can inform our use of the mundum, the prospera.   What is above must also have priority for us to use well the things of this world.

From the heights we look down on the things of this world and see them for what they are.  Here in the world among them, we can be blinded by them and not even lift our eyes heavenward.

In the Novus Ordo this concept is effectively removed.   It lasts in the Collect for St. Dionysius I think… not that anyone outside a place dedicated to him – so many – would ever hear it.   In the Collect for the 2nd Sunday of Advent, which I mention above, it is expunged in the Novus Ordo.

Vetus: doceas nos terrena despicere et amare caelestia. … teach us to look down on earthly things and love heavenly things.

Novus: doceas nos terrena sapienter perpendere, et caelistibus inhaerere…  teach us to weigh wisely earthly things and cling to heavenly things.

It isn’t a bad prayer.  However, there is subtle point.   The prayers of the Novus Ordo tend to emphasize eschatological joy without telling us how to obtain it.  It is as it is our now.  It is and it isn’t.  Christ is victorious true.  We still have to get there.  The Vetus Ordo does not ignore eschatological joy, but it does help us get it, through reminders of penance, propitiation, etc.  In the endings of the prayers, above, the Novus Ordo versions seems to suggest that we have what we want, “heavenly things” and the Vetus expresses a longing for them.  I don’t have a quarrel with “sapienter perpendere“, but together with the second part, I sense a diminishing of the path to attaining the heavenly and the affirmation of the  “already” over the “not yet”.

I bring this up in the context of “Walking Together” because, as it seems to me, the topics and the PROCESS (which is the true content and message of this thing a soft “permanent revolution”) is entirely rooted in the terrena.  There is not a speck of terrena despicere that I can see.   They are determined to enhance worldly things (in the name of the Spirit) and keeping those involved, mired here below.

Those who hate and fear the people who desire the Traditional Roman Rite claim speciously that it is against the Council.  Of course that’s a chimeric Council of their fevered imaginings.   Only they, who have Gnostic level powers of discernment know what the Spirit wants from the Council and now from the “W-T”.   In fact, the older form of Mass of the Roman Church also expresses well the eschatological hope which Christians should have.  However, it has the advantage also of helping us to attain that joy while avoiding being presumptuous about it.

The people who want to suppress the traditional forms despise the content of the Tradition because it reminds them that they are off target, they are mired in the worldly.  They look down on those who want the Traditional Latin Mass and see them as despicable.  It is a rich irony which we have to acknowledge and live with cheerfully.  (Have you notice that none of them have a sense of humor?)

After all, we are right and, as my old pastor used to say, “When you are right, you can’t be wrong.”

So, when you read something of how they despise you, call you schismatics, against the Council blah blah… shrug it off and stay on target, living well in the midst of the worldly things that can allure and longing with love and joyful anticipation of what has been promised.