Category Archives: WDTPRS

EXCERPT:
All of the above notwithstanding, let Powers That Be today pay close attention to what Joseph Ratzinger (now gloriously reigning as the sovereign Pontiff) wrote in God Is Near Us: The Eucharist, The Heart of Life (Ignatius Press, 2003) on a related topic, the “pro multis” issue: “The fact that in Hebrew the expression ‘many’ would mean the same thing as ‘all’ is not relevant to the question under consideration inasmuch as it is a question of translating, not a Hebrew text here, but a Latin text (from the Roman Liturgy), which is directly related to a Greek text (the New Testament). The institution narratives in the New Testament are by no means simply a translation (still less, a mistaken translation) of Isaiah; rather, they constitute an independent source” (emphasis added – cf. pp. 37-8, n. 10). Read More →

EXCERPT:
Let me ask you. What would the last thirty some years have been like if we had had better translations all along? What would our Church be like today had the mandate of the Council to maintain Latin been obeyed? Would we have a different sense of our identity as Catholics? Would those things have helped us better influence the society we live in? Would we be better prepared to handle the pressures of daily life? Would so many people, including clergy, have been acquiescent in the face of popular cultural trends and the destruction of our education system? I think much of what we see going on today could have been averted. We can’t know anything for sure, but I have little doubt that things would have been very different indeed. This is because I believe that the true Actor at Mass is Christ Jesus the High Priest. Mass is effective and nourishing. Had things been in better shape, Catholics would be different today. Lex orandi, lex credendi! The way we pray has a reciprocal relationship with what we believe. Read More →

EXCERPT:
One of the driving principles of Liturgiam authenticam (LA) is a proper understanding of inculturation. LA is the fifth instruction on how the liturgical mandates of the Council were to be implemented. The fourth instruction Varietates legitimae concerned precisely inculturation. Inculturation must be properly understood. There is a dynamic interchange and influencing process going on constantly between the “world” and the Church. Every different people of the globe has something of value to contribute to the Church at the same time that the Church, at least historically, forms and shapes whole peoples. This dynamic interchange means that the Church influences the world and the world in turn influences the Church. The Church gains many gifts from the world: music, art, architecture, languages and their literature, etc. These are taken in by the Church and made her own. However, and this is the key, everything the Church gives in this exchange must always be logically prior. This commercium goes on back and forth simultaneously with respect to the passage of time, but the Church… as the Church… gives and shapes first and then receives back what the world has done with her formation. That is to say, this is what happened when the Church carried out her role rightly. Read More →

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2003 Some feedback is coming in about the possibility of having a Roman WDTPRS pilgrimage of which I spoke last week. HE of … Read More →

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2006 Those who have been resisting the norms laid down in Liturgiam authenticam appeal to a theory of translation that would peg our … Read More →

EXCERPT:
Our Latin prayer for today conveys a deep sense of total reliance on Almighty God. We need His protection as we face the vicissitudes of life. We know that the Enemy prowls, seeking to devour us (cf. 1 Peter 5:8). If we are honest, we see our present defects and remember our past delicts. With the knowledge that only the pure will see God in His heavenly City, of which our Church is a shadow (cf. Rev 21:27). We are shaped and readied for this reward through grace and elbow grease. God prepares us in His own ways. He also makes us capable of fulfilling our own part, according to our will and intellect by which we shape our words, deeds and that dimension of our spiritual landscape that we command. Through all the challenges this earthly journey brings, the Eucharist is the concrete demonstration that, while there is breath in our bodies, God never ceases to cherish each one of us. Read More →

EXCERPT:
Perhaps we can hear our prayer now and hear some new things. First, given our current contemporary context wherein we are awaiting the preparation of new and better liturgical translations, we Catholics yearn for good and rich nourishment so that we, as individuals and as a Church, can deepen our relationship with Christ and thereby make our proper contributions to the world around us. In the liturgy we receive “pure, spiritual milk” and more. Personally, I want more than the non-fat or 2% we have been given so far in our translations. Second, no matter what we think of the translations, we are still receiving an inestimable gift in Holy Mass. We ought to strive to live up to what Christ Himself imposes on us all: “So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled and then come offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23-24) Read More →

EXCERPT:
Our baptismal character remains forever, on earth, in heaven or in hell. It can never be removed. We are forever changed by this pouring or immersing with water and the Trinitarian formula. Our outward comportment and interior landscape must reflect this deepest of realities. At the moment we hear this Post communionem prayer, the Lord has deigned to allow Himself in the sacred Host to be “dipped” into what should be the pure and clean chalice of our earthly bodies. When the Host is “moistened” by us, our souls are imbued with the grace which it is: a Host does not merely symbolize Christ, it truly is Christ in itself. We must avoid that our baptismal character be, in thought, word and deed, merely “skin deep” as it were, as if the only thing being imbued was the surface of our skin. When a person or plant is parched and dying the surface and skin become terribly dry and cracked. Wetting the surface will momentarily restore it as the moisture imbues the outer part and renews it. It will however quickly dry again. The benefit passes quickly. The surface looks good for a while and then it diminishes in beauty, since the effects were only skin deep. What the organism needs is to be renewed from within so that the outward appearance can be restored and made whole and beautiful again. Our baptism imbues us with grace and makes us temples of the Triune God. This interior and invisible reality must imbue all we do from the inside out so that the dimensions of us most visible to others, and I don’t mean the way we look, are similarly beautiful, reflecting the One within us in whose image and likeness we are made. Read More →

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2005 I have received e-mail from DM (edited): “Thank you for your WDTPRS work, which a friend of mine, a high school Latin … Read More →

EXCERPT:
Just as an aside you might remember once in WDTPRS (on the Super oblata of the 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time – The Wanderer 7 February 2002) we discussed the placement of accents in Latin words and how they can change the meaning. The examples were derivatives of the verbs condio which gives us the word condítor (“pickler”) and condo producing cónditor (“founder”). We must be careful when singing St. Ambrose’s great hymn Cónditor alme siderum not to misplace the accent in such a way that we are singing “O loving pickler of the stars” rather than “creator of the stars”. The connection? The clearest example showing the meaning of baptizô is a text from the Greek grammarian, poet and physician Nicander of Colophon (fl. II c. B.C., not to be confused with an epic poet Nicander son of Anaxagoras). The text is a recipe for making pickles in which Nicander uses both baptô and baptizô. He says that to make a good pickle (I am not making this up) we must first “dip” (baptô) the veggie into boiling water and then “baptize” (baptizô) it in the vinegar solution. Both verbs concern the immersing of vegetables. The first immersion is a preparatory stage while the second, the act of “baptising” the vegetable, produces the permanent change in which the vegetable is “imbued” with new properties.
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