WDTPRS – Pentecost Monday: Feast of the Lacrimation of Paul VI. 

Let’s have a look at the Collect for today’s Mass of Pentecost Monday.

COLLECT (1962MR):
Deus, qui Apostolis tuis
Sanctum dedisti Spiritum:
concede plebi tuae piae petitionis effectum;
ut, quibus dedisti fidem, largiaris et pacem.

I found this prayer in the 8th c. Liber sacramentorum Gellonensis.

I like that elegant splitting of Spiritum Sanctum with dedisti.

Our trusty Lewis & Short reminds us that effectus, us, (efficio) means basically “a doing, effecting; execution, accomplishment, performance; with reference to the result of an action, an operation, effect, tendency, purpose”.  Blaise & Dumas offers that effectus has to do with the “realization of a prayer”.

LITERAL VERSION:
O God, who gave the Holy Spirit to Your Apostles,
grant to Your people the realization of their dutiful petition,
that you may bestow also peace
upon those whom you have given faith.

What immediately jumps into my mind are the references to peace in the ordinary of the Mass and also in the moderm form for sacramental absolution.

Allow me to stretch to a connection, in view of the Roman Station.

Christ is our Lord and Liberator.  After His Ascension he sent our Counselor and Comforter.

Together, under the eternal aegis of the Father, the Son and the Spirit bring us from bondage to freedom, anxiety to peace.  We need not fear our judgment.

This is accomplished through the ministry and mediation of the Church.

As a People who are members of Christ’s Body the Church we approach God’s mercy with a sense of filial duty, petitioning both the immediate effect of Christ’s merits and also the long-term effect of heavenly peace.

In the words of the Church’s worship, Christ Himself strikes from our limbs the heavy chains of our oppression.

This is true “liberation theology”.  This is a cause of tears of joy.

Meanwhile, for another kind of tears, in the Novus Ordo today it is back to green.  No Octave of Pentecost. 

You know the now infamous story of Paul VI, which a friend of mine dubbed the

Feast of the Lacrimation of Paul VI.   

I wrote about it many times.  One example: HERE

That story has made the rounds, with embellishments.  I’m the source of that anecdote, recounted to me in Rome many years ago by a former papal MC, whose word I have no reason to doubt.

For more on those dark years…

For more on that era check these PODCAzTs:

093 09-11-16 40 years ago… Paul VI on the eve of the Novus Ordo
094 09-11-20 40 years ago… Paul VI on the eve of the Novus Ordo (Part II)
095 09-11-24 40 years ago… Paul VI on the eve of the Novus Ordo (Part III)