WDTPRS – 31st Ordinary Sunday: Running and stumbling! Wherein Fr. Z rants.

At the end, I rant.

The Collect for the 31st Ordinary Sunday, which was in the ancient Veronese Sacramentary, is also found in the Extraordinary Form on the 12th Sunday after Pentecost.

Omnipotens et misericors Deus, de cuius munere venit, ut tibi a fidelibus tuis digne et laudabiliter serviatur, tribue, quaesumus, nobis, ut ad promissiones tuas sine offensione curramus.

Servio, “to serve”, is very rarely found in the passive.  We must break “that it be served in reference to You” down into “that You be served”.

Offensio (related to offendo) concerns “a striking against, a stumbling”. It is also “an offense” and “that which causes one to offend or sin” as in a lapis offensionis (a “stumbling-block” cf 1 Pet. 2:8).  Offendo, by the way, can also mean “to meet by chance”.

Munus means, first, “a service, office, post”. Synonyms are officium and ministerium.

These are the key words in dispute in the matter of Benedict XVI’s resignation.   

Some say that Benedict wanted only to resign the active administration of the Diocese of Rome and of the universal Church, the ministerium, without resigning the munus, the office of Vicar of Christ.  However, the terms ministerium and munus, what they mean in relation to each other, is really murky.

For a more clarity about munus we can go to our dictionaries.  On the other hand, we must in any event go by how they are used in Church documents.

I was at one time pretty sure that munus and ministerium were specific and meant obviously different things.  Then I read a paper written by a serious canonist about the problematic meanings of munus, ministerium and officium written back in 1989, long before 2013 and this controversy.  It was written by (future) Cardinal Peter Erdõ, considered papabile now.  Divine providence?  (Cf. ERDÖ, “Ministerium, munus et officium in Codice iuris canonici”, in Periodica, 1989, pp. 411-436.)  It’s in Latin.

Bottom line, between the uses of the three terms in the 1917 Code, Vatican II, and the 1983 Code, according to Erdõ, there is confusion.  It is hard to fix definitions that don’t overlap to the point that they are sometimes interchangeable.  More work is needed on the problem.

However, in this post we are dealing with a liturgical text, not a canonical text. 

When we drill into munus, our thoughts turn right away to a Greek equivalent leitourgia, a needed civic work or service one performs because he ought to for the sake of society; whence our word “liturgy”.

In the New Testament munus/leitourgia points to concepts such as taking up collections for the poor (i.e., what man does for man) and religious services (what man does for God).

Munus also means “a present, gift”.

Moreover, munus is a theologically loaded word, indicating among other things the three offices (tria munera) which Christ passed to His Church, the Apostles and their successors: to teach, to govern, to sanctify.   Prophet – King – Priest.

When the Lord gives us commands (and He does, e.g., love one another as I have loved you; pick up your Cross and follow me; be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect; do this in memory of me, etc.), we can sum them up in the two-fold commandment of love of God and of neighbor.

All followers of Jesus have been given a two-fold munus to fulfill which reflects the three munera Christ gave to the Church’s ordained priesthood.

I invite you to try an experiment.  See what happens to your perception of the Collect if you make munus mean “office” rather than “gift.”

While reading it, hearing it, can you keep both concepts simultaneously in mind?

LITERAL TRANSLATION:

Almighty and merciful God, from whose gift it comes that You be served by the faithful worthily and laudably, grant us, we beseech You, that we may run toward Your promises without stumbling.

This Collect gives me the image of a person hurrying to fulfill a duty or command given by his master or superior.  He is rushing, running.   He might even be carrying a heavy burden.   While dashing forward, he strives to be careful under his burden lest he stumble, fall, lose or ruin what he carries.

Isn’t this how we live our Christian vocations?

God has given us something to do while in this vale of tears.

When we discern God’s will and do our best to live well according to our state in life, we will experience heavy burdens.  Our human nature is wounded and there is an Enemy who hates and tempts us.  When we are faithful to our vocations, we receive many opportunities to participate in carrying the Cross of Jesus.   We also are offered all the actual graces we need to do so.

The Lord Himself told us, through the Gospels, that if we want to be with Him, we must participate in His Cross, even daily (Luke 9:23).  During His Passion, our Lord literally carried His (and our) Cross.  As He was driven by the soldiers over the uneven road, as careful as He must have been, He stumbled and fell.

We stumble and fall, though not like our sinless Lord.  We stumble mostly by choice.

In this Collect do we hear an echo of the petition in the Lord’s Prayer? “Lead us not into temptation.”

There is a diabolical Enemy Tempter who desires us to fall and to give offense to the Lord.  The Enemy places obstacles before our feet.

That one – the Enemy – we do not want to meet with, even by chance.  Or by intention!  Avoid avoid AVOID all things having to do with the occult or idols of false religions.  They are gateways for the Enemy to get at you.  In addition, regularly make use of sacramentals and go to confession often.  Along with those, make good holy Communions and the Devil will have little to say to you.

It is inconceivable that God would give us something to do and then not give us the means to achieve it.

As we draw closer to the end of this liturgical year,  during this Sunday’s Mass Father prays that we run, rather than drag along, toward the reward of heaven.  We beg God that we do so without mishap.   We beg not to give offense by what we do. We ask that the road be made free of stumbling blocks for our running feet.

Run!  Watch for those stumbling blocks but run!

Don’t drag along, moping, resentful of your lot.  Our reward is not here in this vale of tears.  Heaven is our goal.

Help your struggling neighbor.

Our Lord understands the craggy road we travel.  He never abandons us, even when we stumble in sin.

CURRENT ICEL (2011):

Almighty and merciful God, by whose gift your faithful offer you right and praiseworthy service, grant, we pray, that we may hasten without stumbling to receive the things you have promised.

As a final note. I have studied and written about the prayers for the Novus Ordo and Vetus Ordo Sunday formularies for many years, beginning in the 1990’s.  Over time I’ve noted how the Novus Ordo prayers tend to stress the eschatological joy of Heaven.   If the orations were taken from the Vetus Ordo or old sources, they were often edited to eliminate references to guilt, sin, propitiation, etc.; “negative” things.

Some will claim that the Vetus Ordo prayers dwell on those “negative” elements too much without pointing towards the joy of Heaven.  I disagree.

There is nothing wrong in itself with stressing the “positive”, the attainment of Heavenly joy in our prayers for Mass.

However, in the Traditional Latin Mass our prayers also stress how to attain Heaven. That’s something that the Novus Ordo version do not do all that well.   We have to deal with sin, with guilt.  We have to consider Christ’s propitiation.  We must highlight the Sacrifice even while we recognize and long for the Banquet.

Above, I wrote that God would not give us something to do (i.e., live in such a way that we can have the joy of Heaven) without giving us also the means to attain it (i.e., graces, a Savior who made a propitiatory Sacrifice).  Similarly, Holy Church holds out for us the goal of Heaven in our prayers.  Similarly, Holy Church should also tell us how to get there.    We absolutely must deal with our fallen nature, our personal sins.  We need penance.

Hence I repeat my phrase, “We are our rites!”

How we pray, affects what we believe, which affects in turn how we pray and how we live, which again affects what we believe and therefore how we live and pray… it’s all constantly intertwined.  Lex orandi et lex credendi et lex vivendi.   Change the prayers and, over time, you change what we as Catholics believe and, as a consequence, how we live, privately and in the public square.

So, how is that going after the last 50 some years?