What Does The Prayer Really Say? Mass for the Election of a Supreme Pontiff – full of emotion, laden with longing,

Spolier: The Postcommunion is fantastic.  And, forgive typos.  I did this fast.

This morning I said Mass with the formula of the Votive Mass Pro Eligendo Summo Pontifice… for the Election of a Supreme Pontiff.   VETUS ORDO… USUS ANTIQUIOR… It is the very first Mass formula in the section of Votive Mass for “different needs”, which might things like for peace in time of war, safety in time of plague, for the sick who are dying… you know, the little stuff.  In fact, in that section the Masses are presented in order of importance for the good of the whole Church, so they go from choice of a Pope, to choice of a Bishop, to ordinations and blessing of religious and defense and unity of the church, and vocations, etc.

Apparently, Holy Mother Church in her experience and wisdom seems to think that getting the right guy for Pope is pretty important.

The last few decades have borne that out.  Look at what Papa Wojtyla accomplished, and Ratzinger… and… you get it.

What will the next one accomplish, other than get elected.  The conclave starts tomorrow, as I type, not many steps away from where I sit.   And, frankly, if the next Pope does do much other than get elected… that’s okay with me.   Most of the time, the core role of a Pope is, like that of a father, to say “No.” most of the time when big issues come up, which isn’t all that often.

With that as a preamble, let’s see what Holy Mother Church thinks about Popes through the lens of the prayers she chooses.

NB: For a Mass pro eligendo, the priest can also say a Votive Mass of the Holy Spirit, for obvious reasons, but let’s stick with this.

Suscitábo mihi sacerdótem fidélem, qui iuxta cor meum et animam meam fáciet: et aedificábo ei domum fidélem, et coram ambulábit Christo cunctis diébus.

(T.P. Alleluia, Alleluia ). V.  Ps 131, 1.- Memento Dómine, David: Et omnis mansuetúdinis ejus.

The Introit comes from 1 Sam 2:35 which is about a “man of God” coming to old Eli and foretells the death of his wicked sons, very bad priests who treated God with contempt.  The “man of God”, whom I guess was an angel, says  “³⁵ And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind; and I will build him a sure house, and he shall go in and out before my anointed for ever.”

And, as if to predict the Roman Curia and dioceses 1 Sam 2 ends (not part of the Introit, but we always look at context: “³⁶ And every one who is left in your house shall come to implore him for a piece of silver or a loaf of bread, and shall say, “Put me, I pray you, in one of the priest’s places, that I may eat a morsel of bread.”’”

Yeah… some things don’t change.

The verse is from a Psalm about God’s faithfulness to His promises about David and his house.

The Collect runs:

Súpplici, Dómine, humilitáte depóscimus: ut sacrosáncte Romanae Ecclesiae concédat Pontificem illam tua immensa pietas; qui et pio semper et nos stúdio tibi plácitus, et tuo pópulo pro salubri regimine sit ad gloriam assídue tui nominis reveréndus.

Supplex indicates someone humbly bent down.  Pietas when applied to God means “mercy”, and to man “dutifulness” “devotion”.  Here, pietas seems almost like a form of address, “Your Mercy”, like “Your Majesty” or “Your Grace”.  Of course a pontifex is literally a “bridge builder”.

Bowed down in humility we entreat You, O Lord, that Your Immense Mercy will grant to the Roman Church a Pontiff who will please You both in devotion and zeal for us, and that he will be revered by Your people for his advantageous rule assiduously to the glory of Your Name.

As is reasonable, that Pontifex is a key.  It is not only the point (i.e., we don’t have one and we want one) it subtly organizes much of the content of the prayer.  A “bridge builder” connects two sides over a gap, in this case God (then an infinite gap) and us.   Note how the prayer says, in two ways, what the new Pope should do, be devout to God and be zealous for us, provide rule helpful for salvation for us and provide glory for God’s name, and in those things he will be pleasing to God and revered by us.   It’s back and forth in the prayer, God and us, us and God (which is a chiasmus).

A look at the Epistle from Hebrews 4:16 – 5:1-7:

¹⁶ Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. ^5:1 For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. ² He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. ³ Because of this he is bound to offer sacrifice for his own sins as well as for those of the people. ⁴ And one does not take the honor upon himself, but he is called by God, just as Aaron was. ⁵ So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, “Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee”; ⁶ as he says also in another place, “Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek.” ⁷ In the days of his flesh, Jesus^[a] offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard for his godly fear.

At the end of chapter 4 Paul is discussion “the High Priest”.  He ends with that note of drawing near in confidence because he has just finished explaining how Christ (the High Priest) knows well what we are going through: “¹⁵ For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”   Then we move into chapter 5, remembering that these chapter and verse divisions were imposed long after Paul wrote the words (and I leave aside the debate about authorship – it’s Paul and leave it at that).

In the verses from chapter 5, the Church is using the lens of Paul’s presentation of Christ as being priest in the “order of Melchizedek” to focus on the choice of a new Pontifex.   What’s with that?   On the surface, this is obvious from the first verse: “every high priest chosen from among men”.   Okay… that’s what we are doing, right?  Choosing a new Pope.  It gives a job description: “to act on behalf of men in relation to God”.   That’s the “bridge builder” intermediary again.  How is that accomplished: “to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.”   First and foremost, the Pontifex is a priest.  The entire point of priesthood is about offering sacrifice to God and man’s mediator and, as God’s mediator with us, bring us God’s gifts. 

Priesthood is about sacrifice, not community organizing, not committee meetings, not … not… not….   You get it.   Other things have to be done to facilitate what the priest does, but they are not why he was ordained.  At least in a sane Church or diocese.   Once the idea of sacrifice for propitiation and for glorification is obscured, priests go wrong.  Then the people go wrong.  Then the whole thing goes wrong, as history bears out.   

Also, in this passage we find one of the only passages in which there is language about a “vocation” a “calling” to the priesthood: “⁴ And one does not take the honor upon himself, but he is called by God,…”.    God calls, from the Greek kaléo.  Paul uses “calling” imagery for people in general who are “called” to baptism”.  Here it is a “calling” to priesthood.  That’s not for just anyone.  There are requisites.  Paul’s reference to the Old Testament High Priest means that in the old covenant a man had to be from one specific tribe only, the line of Aaron. This is why Paul also brings in the “order of Melchizedek”.   David was High Priest, as were the Davidic Kings.  Christ is of the line of David, not Aaron.  How could David be priest?  That would be a prerequisite for Christ being Davidic Priest King.   

We find Melchizedek in Genesis 14:18-20.   He is called “king of Salem”… so he is King of future Jeru-salem.  He was king and “he was priest of God Most High” who offers sacrifice.  What sacrifice?  Bread and wine.   Melchizedek was a kohen, and the first of all mentioned in the Old Testament, at the time of Abraham, c. 2000 BC, hundreds of years before Moses and Aaron.   So, this priesthood of Melchizedek pre-dates the Aaronic priesthood.  And he was King of Jerusalem.  Hence, when David – not of the Aaronic line – became the King in Jerusalem, he also became the High Priest in Jerusalem by a priesthood that pre-dated that of the Levitical line of Aaron.

The Pope to be chosen is the priest in continuity on earth with the High Priest in Heaven who, by His Ascension, now continually as Priest offers Himself as Victim sacrifice to the Father.

It’s Paschaltide, so we have the doubled Alleluia.

Alleluia, Alleluia. ?. Lv 21, 8.–  Sacérdos sit sanctus quia et ego sanctus sum, Dóminus qui sanctífico vos. Alleluia. ?. Jn 10, 14.– Ego sum pastor bonus: et cognósco oves meas, et cognóscunt me meæ. Alleluia.

The verses:

Lv 21, 8. ⁸ You shall consecrate him, for he offers the bread of your God; he shall be holy to you; for I the Lord, who sanctify you, am holy.  [BTW… the next verses, NOT in our Votive Mass is a little grim…   ⁹ And the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by playing the harlot, profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire.]  John 10:14  ¹⁴ I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me.

This Alleluia follow hard upon our celebration of Good Shepherd Sunday in the Vetus Ordo.  We’ve just had ample space and time to reflect on it.  And here it is.  So apt.

The Gospel is from John 14: 15-21.  In the Vetus Ordo we read this passage on the Vigil of Pentecost.  It makes sense to connect it here.

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples: ¹⁵ “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶ And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, ¹⁷ even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you. ¹⁸ “I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you. ¹⁹ Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also. ²⁰ In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. ²¹ He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

Perhaps it was this passage which prompted such piety in St. Catherine of Siena who referred to the Pope as “sweet Christ on Earth”.

Lest this become too long, I pull at just a couple of threads.   From the beginning the Lord says: “If you love me, THEN…”.

Sometimes we do things because we have obligations or we are brow-beaten into it or guilted or we do it by habit.   It might be important to be done and it may be our duty and we will have done it.  Fine.  But to do it for love is another thing altogether.

Sometimes we might make a confession because we are terrified of the consequences if we don’t.  Fine.  It was right to make our confession and receive absolution and get out lives straight.  However, it is even better to have made the sorrowful confession more for love, rather than mostly for fear.

Christ says He will send another parakletos, which means “advocate” or “counselor” or “comforter”.  The Greek is literally something like, “one called to be next to you”.   Of course the Holy Spirit is God, but this seems to be about the choice of a Pope.  There are ways in which the Pope might be thought of as a Paraclete, given that the Pope is supposed to be the Vicar of Christ, the one who stands for Christ with us, in His stead for us in this Church Militant.   He is thus a “Holy Father”.

Doesn’t Christ in our Gospel also say that he won’t leave us orphans?

A Holy Father who acts from love, who does not exalt himself (for example in “performative humility”), who is the bridge builder with God and man, offering sacrifice, following Christ, as Peter’s Successor, if necessary to the Cross with bound hands.

Please, Lord, give us a Holy Father who is better than we deserve.  We need a Holy Father who fathers and who doesn’t stepfather us.  We’ve been granted the grace to have seen the differences.

The offertory antiphon from RSV 1 Esdras 5 (called 3 Esdras 5:40)

Non participéntur sancta, donec exsúrgat póntifex in ostensiónem, et veritátem. (T.P. Allelúia.)

“Let them not partake in the sacred things, until a pontiff arises who is clothed in demonstration and truth.”

Good luck looking for 3 Esdras.    The actual verse is:

⁴⁰ And Nehemiah and Attharias told them not to share in the holy things until a high priest should appear wearing Urim and Thummim.

?!?!?

In the Old Testament, the Urim and Thummim were a part of the Aaronic High Priest’s hosen (breastplate), attached to the ephod (apron-like garment), used for divinely inspired guidance, particularly in matters of justice and decision-making.

The Greek LXX says for Urim and Thummim “manifestation and truth”. How about “doctrine and truth” (St. Jerome).  According to the Hebrew roots, perhaps something like “to teach” and “to be true”.

Surely this verse has to do with the teaching authority and the power of “binding and loosing” which the Supreme Pontiff exercises supremely.

The Secret prayer, which you won’t hear, but which I spoke:

Tuæ nobis, Dómine, abundántia pietátis indúlgeat: ut per sacra múnera, quæ tibi reverénter offérimus, gratum majestáti tuæ Pontíficem sanctæ matris Ecclésiæ regímini præésse gaudeámus. Per Dóminum nostrum.

O Lord, may the abundance of your mercy kindly concede to us, that through these sacred gifts, which we reverently offer you, we may rejoice that a Pontifex pleasing to Your Majesty presides in the governance of Holy Mother Church.

Not pleasing to us… pleasing to God, but pleasing to us because pleasing to God.  God above all.  This we tie to the offertory we prayed as well: that he will exercise justice in decision making, teach the truth clearly according to God’s will, attached to the office he has been given.

I reflect often on how we, sharing in Christ’s priesthood, the baptized in their way, priests in another, can offer sacrifices pleasing to God.  I recommend to people with cares, and joys but mostly cares, to place those cares, their petitions, their praises, into the chalice when the priest puts a tiny bit of water (our humanity) into the wine (God’s divinity) to be wholly transformed by the consecration, water disappearing into the wine, becoming only more like what the wine is in its being in contact.

So we raise our prayers to God, especially through the offering of this Holy Mass, for a good new Pope.  Please God, better than we deserve.

Communion Antiphon:

Veste sancta utétur póntifex qui fúerit constitútus, et ingrediétur tabernáculum testimónii, ut minístret in sanctuário. (TP Allelúia.). 

Let the Pontifex, who will have been appointed, use sacred vesture, and let him enter into the tent of the covenant in order to minister in the sanctuary.

The whole verses of Exodus 29:29-30.  Notice that the antiphon is much abridged, altered.

²⁹ “The holy garments of Aaron shall be for his sons after him, to be anointed in them and ordained in them. ³⁰ The son who is priest in his place shall wear them seven days, when he comes into the tent of meeting to minister in the holy place.

“Let the Pontifex, who will have been appointed, use sacred vesture…”

O my prophetic soul!

Holy Church could have let the Latin of the antiphon alone and just let it ring out as is.   Even as it is, it is not inappropriate for this Votive Mass.   Garments… successors… sacred place… liturgy.  Nothing wrong with that.  However, what is underscored in the antiphon is the connection of the sacral vesture, the sacred space and service (not domination or performative humility).   I am minded, as I am sure you are, of that wretched spectacle, that harbinger, some 12 years ago and change.

“Let the Pontifex, who will have been appointed, use sacred vesture…”

Just a reminder, the white cassock is just a cassock that happens to be white.  It’s the priest’s street clothes.  For sacred work, you put on sacral garments.  Properly, even when hearing confessions the priest ought to wear a surplice over his cassock.  He will have the stole, which is a garment, but – if not for validly – absolutely for the sake of decorum and the very thing willed by God in the service of his people.  Eradicated in the New Testament?  Not a chance.

Here is the final prayer, the Postcommunion:

Pretiósi córporis et sánguinis tui nos, Dómine, sacraménto réfectos, mirífica tuæ majestátis grátia de illíus summi Pontíficis concessióne lætíficet: qui et plebem tuam virtútibus ínstruat, et fidélium mentes spirituálium arómatum odóre perfúndat. Qui vivis.

Wow!

Here perfundo, literally “pour through” is helped out by odor and aroma.    I am torn.  These is quite elegant.  In Latin odor is principally a pleasant smell, from cooking, spices, perfumes.   When the priest prepares the chalice at Mass, which I spoke above, he raises it to the Father and says, “We offer unto Thee, O Lord, the chalice of salvation, beseeching Thy clemency, that it may ascend before Thy divine Majesty, as a sweet savor [cum odore suavitatis], for our salvation, and for that of the whole world.”  And indeed, the priest can smell the wine in the chalice at that moment.  That’s odor.  Aroma immediately struck me because when I go to the open market to my regular vegetable stand in the Campo de’ Fiori, I will also get the necessary “aromata” (celery, parsley, rosemary, etc.) for my mirepoix, for my bouquet garnis in my cooking.  Aroma is “spice”.  In the Vulgate it is only in the plural for “spices”.

We are asking from our newly elected Pope for outwardly edifying virtues and for worship and teaching that savory.  You know what I mean! Something that makes the mouth of the mind and heart water in anticipation and then slowly savor.

We want the spice, the spiritual fragrances that delight and open the soul to new vistas of the truth and life in God.

I remember how in the days of John Paul and Benedict, when we heard there was going to be another document, we looked forward to it with great anticipation.  When I finally obtained we went through looking for all the good stuff.   Then, more recently, when we – well, many – heard about a new document we dreaded its coming.  When we got it we – how awful is this – looked for the bad stuff.

Not all good, not all bad.  Often unclear or wobbly.  Not… savory.

How to put this into an English version?    The image of the aromatic herbs tied up with string into a bouquet garni…

May the magnificent grace of Your Majesty, O Lord, thrill us who have been nourished by the sacrament of Your precious Body and Blood by the gifting of this Supreme Pontiff: who will instruct Your people by his virtues, and also imbue minds of the faithful with the fragrance of spiritual bouquets.

So much richness in that oration, the culmination of an emotional filled Mass laden with longing and hope.