Category Archives: WDTPRS

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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EXCERPT:
In the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass we lovingly offer back to the Father in an unbloody way what was accomplished in a bloody way once for all time upon the Cross of our salvation. Christ, at the same time both Victim and Priest, who is the true actor in the Mass is offering Himself to the Father in a sacramental way. Sacramental reality is just as real as historical reality. In the Mass the Lord applies the fruits of His unrepeatable Sacrifice to us who are present and to those for whom Mass is being offered, living or dead. We are not trying to repeat the historic Sacrifice of Christ which took place at a specific moment in time. That is impossible and, in any event, unnecessary. Christ’s work is perfectly accomplished already. What we do now we do because of Christ’s command: we renew His Sacrifice in an unbloody and sacramental way. Holy Mass truly is the one and same Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, no less real than the event of 2000 years ago. Read More →

The Vox Clara Committee begins meetings in Rome on Monday. A prayer for translatorsAlmighty and merciful God,who hast poured forth the Holy Spirit abundantlyupon the Church of Thine Only-begotten Son,vouchsafe, we beseech Thee, inspiration and constancy to those now laboring … Read More →

The Latin text of the Holy Father’s encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia (EdE) became a battlefield in the pro multis wars being waged in the halls of the Holy See.  You might remember what happened. In that encyclical the late Pope … Read More →

Here is the first entry for today in the Martyrologium Romanum: Beatae Mariae Viriginis de Monte Carmelo, quo Elias propheta populum Israel quondam ad colendum Deum vivum reduxerat et postae eremitae quidam solitudinem quaerentes secesserunt ac denique Ordinem constituerunt ad … Read More →

EXCERPT:
I find frequentatio mysterii quiet evocative. The layers of meaning in frequentatio summon to mind simultaneous superimposed images of the visible and invisible dimensions of Holy Mass, the Eucharistic sacrifice (mysterium). In the earthly building of the church where Holy Mass is being celebrated we have gathered around us many people. Ideally, the church should be virtually thronging (frequentatio) with convinced and participating Catholics properly disposed to participate in the highest mode of active participation by receiving Holy Communion. They are here often (frequentatio), each Sunday and often during the weekdays. Imagine now a superimposed layer of the invisible participants at that Mass: myriads of holy angels and other members of the Church who have died and gone before us. This is a fore glimpse of heaven. Even if, in this imperfect world, we approach this image more realistically and see in our mind’s eye that many at Mass are in fact not in the state of grace and may indeed be wicked, we also see in our two-fold visible invisible image the fallen angelic beings in all their intensely pain-filled fury. Though they suffer the increased agonies of being within a structure which is itself a sacramental, and though they have unimaginable agony in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, their malevolence against us and God is so great that they will endure this intense torture from holy things if, during Mass, they can spur just one person to weaken in his conscience and make a bad Holy Communion. Their pain is great but their malice is greater yet. By our frequent good Holy Communions we ask God to increase in us the effects of salvation which, in this world and our state of “already but not yet”, includes strengthening helps against the persistent and dire attacks of hell’s deadly minons. Read More →

EXCERPT:
When I hear a phrase like ut numquam cessemus a laude tua, which is a result (ut with the subjunctive), my mind quickly sorts through the reasons for the result. We have just been given a share and foretaste of the heavenly life being extended to us by God. A gift as great as that, the bread of angels become the our spiritual and even physical nourishment, undeserved as it is on our part, demands from us who receive it a response that encompasses our whole person, body and soul. In heaven, certainly, we will “never cease or leave off from the praise” of God, whom we shall see face to face. But we are not in heaven now. We are still here on earth. Holy Communion requires a response of praise here and now. How can we praise God in response to the divine gifts He gives us? As the priest would quote (cf. Ps 116) before his own Communion at Mass, “What shall I give back to the Lord for all the things He gives to me?” We must praise Him. And not in words or thoughts only, but also in outward, concrete deeds as well, even if, especially when, it also means taking up the chalice He offers daily. Read More →

You probably know by now that I am a fan of the Martyrologium Romanum, or Roman Martyrology.  This is a book which containsa list, for every day of the year, of martyrs and other saints whose feasts or commemorations are … Read More →