Fr. Z's Blog

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in January 2005

Feedback from readers – MB opines via e-mail about my special column on the use and necessity of Latin: “I have to tell you how much I enjoyed this column in The Wanderer. Of course, I enjoy all of your WDTPRS columns too. … Disappointment with the translation of the prayers of the Mass is right up there with disappointment with any translation I have come across of the Divine Office. Amateur that I am, even I know enough Latin to recognize a ‘creative’ interpretation. How do they get away with this? Thanks again for all your work, and that you can do it with such kindness and yet a sense of humor should show some people I know that those who love the Mass and the Latin are not necessarily curmudgeons.” Thanks, MB, for the kind thoughts.

Today’s prayer was not in the post-Tridentine editions of the Missale Romanum but it does have its origin in the Leonine Sacramentary or, as it is better titled by its editor, the scholarly L. Cunibert Mohlberg, the Veronese Sacramentary. The three most important ancient sacramentaries are the Leonine/Veronese, Gelasian and Gregorian. The Sacramentarium Veronense (SV hereafter), so called because it exists in a single manuscript in Verona, is dated by famed paleographer E.A. Lowe to the first quarter of the 7th c. The material of the SV is a collection of Roman Mass books perhaps made by Maximianus, archbishop of Ravenna from 546-557 and, according to Joseph Lucchesi, its calendar follows that of Ravenna of the time. The prayers in the SV are attributable to Popes Leo I (+461), Gelasius (+496) and Vigilius (+557). Were you to hear this prayer intoned in Latin, or at least in an accurate translation, you would be thereby transported back 1500 years to our most Roman of Catholic roots.

COLLECT – LATIN TEXT (2002MR):
Concede nobis, Domine Deus noster,
ut te tota mente veneremur,
et omnes homines rationabili diligamus affectu.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord our God,
help us to love you with all our hearts
and to love all men as you love them.

Is this what the Latin really says? Lewis & Short, that Dictionary of inestimable value, says the deponent verb veneror means, “to reverence with religious awe, to worship, adore, revere, venerate… to do homage.” We sing in the well-known hymn to the Blessed Sacrament Tantum Ergo by St. Thomas Aquinas, “veneremur cernui…we adore / venerate with religious awe, our heads bowed to the ground.” The noun affectus, –us signifies, “A state of body, and especially of mind produced in one by some influence (cf. affectio), a state or disposition of mind, affection, mood”. In post-Augustan Latin it comes to mean “affection” in the sense of “love, desire, fondness, good-will, compassion, sympathy”. Diligo, dilexi, dilectum is composed from from lego, legi, lectum. “to bring together, to gather, collect” (not from lego, legavi, legatum, “to send with a commission; choose”). The punctilious etymological dictionary of Latin by Ernout & Meillet shows that diligo aims conceptually at distinguishing one thing by selecting it from others. Thus diligo comes to mean, “to value or esteem highly, to love” although Cicero used diligo in a somewhat less strong sense than amo, amare. Diligo can also suggest “thrifty, frugal” and “careful or attentive with regard to things”. English “diligence” and its antonym “negligence” correspond to this. Rationabilis is a post-Augustan word for the more classical rationalis and means “reasonable, rational”.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Grant us, O Lord our God,
that we may venerate you with our whole mind,
and may love all men with rational good-will.

“Affection” just doesn’t cut it for affectus and something more pointed than “love” is needed too. I came up with “rational good-will”. We mustn’t reduce all these complicated Latin words to “love”. Why not? Note in the prayer the contrast of the themes “reason” and “mood”, the rational with the affective dimension (concerning emotions) of man; in short, the head and the heart. The fact is, a properly functioning person conducts his life according to both head and heart, feelings under the control of reason and the will. The terrible wound to our human nature from original sin causes the difficulty we have in governing feelings and appetites by reason and will.

Today’s prayer aims at the totality of a human person: our wholeness is defined by our relationship with God. We seek to know God so that we may the better love Him and His love drives us all the more to know Him. Furthermore, possible theological and Scriptural underpinnings of this prayer are Deuteronomy 6 and Jesus’ two-fold command to love God and neighbor: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets” (cf. Matthew 22:36-38; Mark 12:2-31; Luke 10:26-28). In Deut 6:5-6 we have the great injunction called the Shema from the first Hebrew word, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might….” Jesus teaches the meaning and expands the concrete application of this command in Deuteronomy 6. There is no space here for the subtle relationships between the Latin words St. Jerome chose in his translations and the Greek or Hebrew originals of these verses. Suffice it to say that in the Bible the language about mind, heart, and soul is terrifically complex. However, these words aim at the totality of the person precisely in that dimension which is characteristic of man as “image of God”. Heart, mind and will distinguish us from brute animals. We are made to act as God acts: to know, will and love. Thus, “mind” and “heart” in man are closely related faculties and cannot be separated from each other. Mind and heart are revealed in and expressed through our bodies and thus they point at the “real us”. Love is at the heart of who we are and it the key to our prayer today.

We are commanded by God the Father and God Incarnate Jesus Christ to love both God and our fellow man and God the indwelling Holy Spirit makes this possible. But the word and therefore concept of “love” is understood in many ways and today, especially, it is misunderstood. “Love” frequently refers to people or stuff we like or enjoy using. Bob can “love” his new SUV. Besty “loves” her new kitten. We all certainly “love” baseball and spaghetti. But “love” can refer to the emotional and affections people have when they are “in love” or, as I sometimes call it, “in luv”. Luv is usually an ooey-gooey feeling, a romantic “love” sometimes growing out of lust. This gooey romantic “love” now dominates Western culture, alas. The result is that when “feelings” change or the object of “luv” is no longer enjoyable or useable, someone gets dumped, often for a newer, richer, or prettier model.

There some other flavors of “love” you can come up with, I’m sure. But Christians, indeed every image of God in all times everywhere, are called to a higher love, the love in today’s prayer, which is charity: the grace-completed virtue enabling us to love God for His own sake and love all who are made in His image. This is more than benevolence or tolerance or desire or enjoyment of use. True love is not merely a response to an appetite, as when we might see a beautiful member of the opposite sex, a well-turned double-play, or a plate of spaghetti all’amatriciana. True love, charity, isn’t the sloppy gazing of passion drunk sweethearts or the rubbish we see on TV and in movies (luv). Charity is the grace filled adhesion of our will to an object (really a person) which has been grasped by our intellect to be good. The love invoked in our prayer is an act of will based on reason. It is a choice – not a feeling. Charity delights in and longs for the good of the other more than one’s own. The theological virtue charity involves grace. It enables sacrifices, any kind of sacrifice for the authentic good of another discerned with reason (not a false good and not “use” of the other). We can choose even to love an enemy. This love resembles the sacrificial love of Christ on His Cross who offered Himself up for the good of His spouse, the Church. Rationabilis affectus reflects what it is to be truly human, made in God’s image and likeness, with faculties of willing and knowing and, therefore, loving.

Knowledge and love are interconnected. The more you get to know a person, the more reason you have to love him (remember… love seeks the other person’s good in charity even if a person is unlikable). Reciprocally, the more you love someone or (in the generic sense of love) something, the more you want to know about him and spend time getting to know him. For example, Billy is fascinated by bugs. From this “love” for bugs Billy wants to know everything there is to know about them. He works hard to learn and thus launches a brilliant career in entomology. Given Our Creator’s priority in all things, how much more ought we seek to know and love God first and foremost of all and then, in proper order, know and love God’s images, our neighbors? He is far more important that the bugs He created. Even spouses must love God more than they love each other. Only then can they love each other properly according to God’s plan.

We also have a relationship with the objects of both love and knowledge. What sort of relationship? With bugs or spaghetti it is one thing, but with God and neighbor it is entirely another. In seeking to understand and love God more and more we come to understand things about God and ourselves as his images that, without love, we could never learn by simple study. The relationship with God through love and knowledge changes us. St. Bonaventure (+1274) the “Seraphic” doctor wrote about “ecstatic knowledge”. This kind of knowledge is not merely the product of abstract investigation or analytical study (like Billy with his bugs). Rather, it comes first from learning and then contemplating. According to Bonaventure, by contemplation the knower becomes engaged with the object. Fascinated by it, he seeks to know it with a longing that draws him into the object. Consider: we can study about God and our faith, but really the object of study is not just things to learn or formulas to memorize: the object of our study and faith is a divine Person in whose image and likeness we ourselves are made. To be who we are by our nature we personally need the sort of knowledge of God that draws us into Him. Knowledge of God (not just things learned about God) reaches into us, seizes us, transforms us. To experience God’s love is to have certain knowledge of God, more certain than any knowledge which can be arrived at by means of mere rational examination.

Bring this all with you back to the last line of our prayer and the command to love our neighbor, all of them made in God’s image and all individually intriguing – fascinating, in a way that resembles the way we love God and ourselves. This we are to do with our minds, hearts, and all our strength.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 4th Sunday in of Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in January 2003

As you know by now, I always welcome feedback, delivered either electronically or by post, and I let you in on some of it. This week is no exception. JW writes via e-mail: “I just wanted to thank you for the great work you’ve done proving us by providing us with accurate translations of the prayers from the Sacramentary. I eagerly wait for your column in The Wanderer each week. Being fluent in Spanish, I also attend Mass in that language. I have come to note that the prayers in the Spanish language Sacramentary were “literally” translated from the Latin. I came to this conclusion by comparing them to your translations, as I am not fluent in Latin. Do you find this true for translations into other languages?”

Thanks for the kind words, JW! All in all, from what I have seen the Latin liturgy fares better in other European languages than in English. Those other translations are, however, not without flaws. As a matter of fact, now that the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments (CDW) has focused for no little time on ICEL and English, it is turning its sharp-eyed glance to other languages. They, too, must be brought into line with the norms laid down in Liturgiam authenticam (LA), the CDW’s document establishing new norms for vernacular liturgical translations. Sometimes we English speakers fall into the mistake of thinking that everything the Holy See does is really about us (and it probably is, when you consider it for a while….). So, my impression has usually been, when I have used them, that the Italian is pretty good, though it could be improved. I would say the same for Spanish. German and French are less accurate, though not corrupted to the point that the 1973 ICEL version was. I don’t have any experience with other language than those, though I hope to get my Mandarin Chinese into good enough shape so that I can say Mass. In the meantime, struggling with how the translators for ICEL came up with their choices way back when is good preparation for Chinese studies.

LH writes by e-mail: “I am writing in regards to one of your more recent columns in The Wanderer. My mom pointed it out to me (I’m 14 yrs. old). When you said that you guessed that the famous British author J.R.R. Tolkien might have gotten the name for his main character, Frodo, from the French monk Frodobertus, you were incorrect. But it was a good guess. Mr. Tolkien was fascinated with languages, especially that of Norse cultures, and he also knew a lot about their legends. One story in particular tells of the Viking named Frodo, and his adventures;…. Anyway, I just thought you might like to know. I hope that you continue to do well in writing your column.”

Thanks much, LH, but I must point out that I do not, in fact, guess any such thing. What I wrote about in the column for the Baptism of the Lord was that a reader wrote asking about St. Frodobertus and I was guessing that the reader had made a connection between the sounds of the saint’s name and the character in Prof. Tolkien’s great work. I appreciate, LH, that you took the time to write and I am impressed that you have looked into the origins of this name. Perhaps someday you will be translating Latin prayers yourself. And a special thanks also to your parents, who are clearly doing something right in your regard. Start ‘em while their young!

In Mr. John L. Allen, Jr.’s informative weekly feature “The Word From Rome” (17 January 2003) published in website of the National Catholic Reporter and, alas, not somewhere else, we find a very interesting liturgical/sacramental decree from the CDW. “… The decree, signed on Sept. 14, Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, specifies that if a priest wishes to administer any blessing whatsoever, even if the appropriate ritual book does not specifically require it, he must trace the Sign of the Cross using his right hand. The decree has worldwide validity, and hence overrides any local practice to the contrary. The decree was published in the November 2002 edition of the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, the official compendium of Vatican documents, and is signed by the former prefect of the congregation, Cardinal Jorge Medina Estévez, and the secretary, Francesco Pio Tamburrino. Though the decree does not supply a reason, Vatican sources say the concern was to preserve the specifically Christian character of a blessing by a Catholic priest, especially in cultures with other ritual forms that some priests may be tempted to substitute under the guise of “inculturation.” One source told NCR that the congregation got the idea for issuing the decree after an ad limina visit of bishops from Brazil, where indigenous and syncretistic folk religions have a large popular following.” This issue of inculturation is getting to be a problem and will become more and more troublesome over time, I predict, until greater attention is paid to a true and authentic inculturation.

Insightful readers of WDTPRS remember that at the basis of the CDW’s document LA is a sound understanding of inculturation. Without a doubt there is a dynamic exchange constantly going on between the Church and the world. So long as what the Church has to give is logically prior in this exchange to what the world gives back to her, then we are in good shape. The Church must form and shape the world first. This formation is not a chronologically staggered process of formation and reception, naturally. It is ongoing, taking place simultaneously. However, what the Church does must always have a logical, if not chronological, priority. Once it is formed by the proper spiritual values, then the world through its various cultures has many and wonderful human achievements to contribute and integrate back into the life of the Church. However, when the logical priority is reversed, and the Church allows the world to shape her without first having put in place the proper formation in the faith and in morals, then we get into all sorts of problems. As St. Paul wrote in the beginning of the moral section of his letter to the Romans: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect” (12:2 RSV).

It is enough to consider some of the goofy liturgical things done in the name of “inculturation” to see that the Church is not always being given logical priority in many places. Some people might consider what His Eminence Cardinal Medina Estévez did in that decree sited above as being overly picky, but I would demure. What he did is important because it refocuses us on the gift Christ gives and which the Church mediates: the blessing of a thing so that it becomes a sacramental, separation from the material realm of the prince of this world and set apart for God. In other words, the thing being blessed isn’t just “special” from a sentimental point of view. It isn’t merely an aesthetically pleasing object or possession. It is a spiritual help from which the devils of hell reel back in dismay. Christ and the Church’s agent in this is the priest, himself separated from the world through Holy Orders, conformed to Christ, exercising His power and authority. By the power of the Cross, invoked in the sign of the Cross the priest makes with the proper intention, He strips away any presence of and authority of the Enemy and cast it away when he intends to confer a constitutive blessing on a thing. We who are not angels, and who learn by our senses, need to see and experience outward signs of invisible realities. Requiring the sign of the Cross when blessing is a return, in a way, to the Church’s having a logical priority in the dynamic exchange between the Church and the good things the world has to offer.

POST COMMUNIONEM
LATIN (2002 Missale Romanum):
Redemptionis nostrae munere vegetati, quaesumus, Domine,
ut hoc perpetuae salutis auxilio
fides semper vera proficiat.

This was the Postcommunio for “Sabbato in albis”, the Saturday during the Octave of Easter, having antecedents in the Gelasian Sacramentary.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord,
you invigorate us with this help to our salvation.
By this eucharist give the true faith continued growth
throughout the world.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
We who have been quickened by the gift of our redemption, O Lord,
beseech you, that true faith may always gain ground
by means of this aid for eternal salvation.

The mighty Lewis & Short Dictionary tells us that the late Latin verb vegeto means “to arouse, enliven, quicken, animate, invigorate.” There are three kinds of living beings with material bodies, i.e., vegetative, animal and human (angels are living beings too, but without bodies). Proficio has a range of meanings. Basically, it is “to go forward, advance, gain ground, make progress”. In different contexts is can mean this and also, “to grow, increase” and “to be useful, serviceable, advantageous, etc., to effect, accomplish; to help, tend, contribute, conduce”. Think of what it means in English to be “proficient”. So, we might make the choice here to say “that the true faith may always grow”, which would be in keeping with the imagery invoked in vegetati (“quickened, enlivened”) or perhaps we might say “that the true faith may always advance” which would hark to how we are pilgrims in this world. Perhaps “gain ground” captures both? I am reminded of how my (vegetative) oregano and thyme plants tend to “gain ground” over their neighbors, as they creep and spread and take more and more surface as they grow.

By our baptism we are made capable of receiving the benefits of the “gift of our redemption”. By the spiritual (and physical) nourishment offered us in the Eucharist, we simultaneously progress toward our ultimate goal of heaven and we are strengthened for our work here. Chronologically heaven comes later. At the same time, if we desire to be spiritually healthy and later attain that heaven, we must adhere closely to the here and now. Nevertheless, our goal of heaven must always have a logical priority over what we are doing here. The “now” is important because the “later” is more important. We cannot let the present, or the world, blind us to the priority that lies in the future bliss of heaven and the spiritual realm. Our liturgy (music, art, vestments, architecture, gestures, etc.), being a foretaste of the heavenly banquet must give priority to the spiritual and not the worldly, while at the same time it embraces and transforms the world. The Eucharist is the food which changes us into what It is, rather than the other way around.

Baptism makes us all priests in this ineffable dynamic exchange. Some are priests by baptism, others are priests by baptism and by Holy Orders. These are two very different kinds of priests, of course, but they still must embrace both elements of Christ’s priesthood: He is the one who offers sacrifice at the same time as He is the Sacrifice who is offered. Perhaps we can take a clue from the writings of a Father of the Church and reflect on how we can both “gain ground” and also keep in balance the proper relationship of the Church and the world, inculturation:

“If I renounce everything I possess, if I carry the cross and follow Christ, I have offered a holocaust on the altar of God. Or if I burn up my body in the fire of charity…, I have offered a holocaust on the altar of God; … if I mortify my body and abstain from all concupiscence, if the world is crucified to me and not me unto the world, then I have offered a holocaust on the altar of God and I am becoming a priest of my own sacrifice.” (Origen (c. 185-254), In Leviticum homiliae., 9, 9).

What Does the Prayer Really Say? Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE WANDERER in January of 2002

Before we begin, I have a some proof that there are indeed readers of WDTPRS west of the mighty Mississippi. JFW of UT writes by snail-mail: “Your column is really a shot in the arm, but it indirectly reinforces my opinion that the ICEL should have been fired years ago.” To be fair, JFW, we may not like what ICEL produced, but we are looking at this now with hindsight. When ICEL was working on translations, there were many new ideas and much confusion. We must have a critical eye and ear when examining what ICEL gave us, to be sure. Still, let us learn from the mistakes that were made (more than likely not maliciously) and, fortified by the CDW’s gift of Liturgiam authenticam, look forward to something better.

SUPER OBLATA:

LATIN (1970 Missale Romanum):
Altaribus tuis, Domine, munera nostrae servitutis inferimus,
quae, placatus assumens,
sacramentum nostrae redemptionis efficias.

Right away you will be struck by the alliterative ‘s’ sounds.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
We are bringing in to place upon your altars, O Lord, the gifts of our service,
which, having been appeased and as you take them up,
you make into the sacrament of our redemption.

Flipping swiftly through the dense pages of the Lewis & Short Dictionary we find that servitus is (despite its usually masculine –us ending) a feminine noun meaning “the condition of a servus; slavery, serfdom, service, servitude.” Infero is “to carry, bring, put, or throw into or to a place” and it is constructed with the prepositions in and accusative, ad, or the dative case, which later we find in our prayer today in altaribus. This verb also can mean “to conclude, infer, draw an inference.”

Part of the problem of translating from Latin into English is the way the Latin “moods” are supposed to sound. Most of you who studied Latin remember that this most noble language has the subjunctive mood. In Latin, the subjunctive mood represents the predicate as an idea, as something merely conceived in the mind, something abstracted from reality. Often it is translated into English with the auxiliary verbs “may, can, must, might, could, should, would.” So, the subjunctive is often used for expressing views and wishes. However, the subjunctive can also be applied to things that are in fact very concrete but in the sentence are somewhat logically remote from the subject and verb of the main sentence and are thus logically abstract. This is the case in many relative sentences. In these relative sentences the thing being treated can be very concrete and real but, because it is in a relative sentence, the subjunctive is used. It is very tempting for many who have had some Latin always to use those auxiliary verbs listed above whenever they see a subjunctive. However, in many cases it is really more accurate to make some Latin subjunctive sound indicative when putting them into English. This is what I do today with our prayer. That efficias is clearly a subjunctive. The temptation is to say something like “which you may make into the sacrament of our redemption.” But in this case it is more accurate to give that efficias an indicative sound.

ICEL:
Lord,
be pleased with the gifts we bring to your altar,
and make them the sacrament of our salvation.

Let us look for a moment at what the ICEL translator did to the Latin prayer. The most obvious change how the Latin altaribus, which is clearly plural, is made a singular English “altar.” This bears some examination and, I will admit, some speculation.

When I put these WDTPRS articles together I do my very best to give the ICEL version the benefit of the doubt: when I see something that clearly strays from the Latin original I strive to make sense of it if at all possible. Still, I have learned over the last year of writing these offerings to be a bit suspicious. I suspect the translators had underlying reasons for their choices. To put it bluntly, it is too incredible to believe that the bishops purposely employed translators so fantastically incompetent that they utterly botched the prayers out lack of skill. They must have picked people with at least a minimum competency in Latin. The translators therefore must have seen that, in today’s prayer, the Latin had a plural. Therefore, they wanted to change the Latin into something else.

Let us make this concrete. Why might they have wanted to change Latin “altars” into “altar” in their final version? It occurs to me that, dum aliquid sciam…. for all I know, that there could be a theological reason for making the change. This is a big assumption, of course. But let’s run with it for a while and see what happens.

First, consider that Catholics (which word in its roots means “universal”) have never been about making things or people smaller, in the sense of unreasonable restriction. Our Church is not really into placing unreasonable limits. As a matter of fact, it is a guiding principle of interpretation of law that the advantages people have should be amplified while the things that place restrictions on them are interpreted as strictly or narrowly as possible so as to favor the rights of the individual. That said, consider also that as members of a Church we belong to something not only spread through the world but that also transcends the passage of death. Yet, when I read the ICEL prayer, I get the feeling that the translator neglects the fact that people all over the world are presenting their gifts on myriads of altars (altaribus), grand and small, simple and ornate, fixed to a wall and also free-standing, marble with gilt reredos as well as on the camouflaged hood of a jeep. Countless altars and people of many cultures may be involved, but still the one and same Sacrifice of the Mass is being raised to God the Father for the sake of the living and the dead of every age and place. It is a good thing to help a congregation to recognize its particular identity as it is gathered to its particular altar. I do not think that should be done at the expense of the universality of the Church. Altars are, after all, a sign of the presence of Jesus Christ, who cannot be limited to one place and time alone.

Second, it occurs to me that the change to singular might have something to do with the whole business of requiring that Mass be said facing the congregation. This might be a jump, but consider the fact that a long tradition of the Roman Church’s architecture, churches were built with more than one altar. There was clearly a main altar, a principle altar, which was the focus of the whole building. That was the main place of celebration of the sacred mysteries at those special times when the people were gathered there for Mass. Other altars in the church might be used at different times, particularly when the church was entrusted to a religious order and many priests (yes, O younger reader, there was a time when many priests might staff a parish) needed to say Mass each day. This was certainly the case at a monastery or seminary. This was also during the time before “concelebration”.

However, there has been a movement for a long while amongst so-called “liturgical experts” to emphasize, even in an exaggerated way, the importance of one sole altar in the sacred space of the church. Understand: this principle of the unicity of the altar is not to be trifled with. It is very important and a legitimate theological concern. Much serious ink has been spilled over this issue. However, as with anything good and worthy, the otherwise good principle can be applied with so heavy a hand that damage is done. Thus, for decades there has been nearly a maniacal effort to tear “extra” altars out of churches, even historic churches. When this was coupled with the goofy idea that the priest must face the people over a table-like altar, the result was that the main altars of churches, often placed in the back of the apse contiguous to the wall, were liturgically reformed with crowbars and jackhammers. At best they were turned into shelves for potted plants. Now, as it turns out, the whole cobbled-together historical foundation for mass facing the people has been debunked with real scholarship. Still, the damage has been done in countless older churches. The “experts” have got their one altar in most places. The high altars or main altars of our churches are gone in favor of a table-style structure, sometimes not even in the center of the eye’s focus. In some places the altar is absurdly juxtaposed to and counterbalancing the ambo where the Scriptures are read. My comments here are more than a mere laus temporis acti… a praise of times gone by. Anyone who reads good liturgical theology today knows that the orientation of an altar is truly significant and that perhaps by turning altars around we have lost as a Church far more than we imagine we have gained.

About the main or “high” altar, where it has remained intact…. In some places, as in cathedrals or historically important and beautiful churches, where the high altars remain (perhaps those in charge were simply too afraid of the laity’s reaction to eliminate… thank God for the laity…) a table altar is nevertheless erected. I don’t know about you, but when I go into some large church and see a huge and magnificent high altar and then see that some other altar has been set up in front of it, I simply shake my head in incredulous disbelief. It is so sad how so many people have been so duped into thinking that it is so important to say Mass facing the people that they can so callously and so pointlessly set up in front of the church’s main altar something that looks like an ironing board or a picnic table compared to what stands behind it. The same people who so such a thing also will harp on “diversity” to the point where virtually any liturgical abuse is tolerated. However, they will also clamp down in draconian ferocity on anyone who might suggest that it really is okay to have Mass also… get this… also oriented so that the priest and congregation are together facing the liturgically symbolic East, the direction from whence the Church traditionally believed the Lord would return. So much for openness and flexibility.

The discussion above is not irrelevant to the issue of liturgical translations, which is what WDTPRS is about. The document of the Conference of Bishops in the USA called “Built of Living Stones: Art, Architecture, and Worship“, when treating the position of altars, uses an incorrect translation of the new GIRM’s paragraph 299. This paragraph and its meaning and mistranslations by others had been specifically explained and clarified by the Congregation for Divine Worship long before the American bishops promulgated their own document.

Please, dear reader, include our bishops in your prayers and ask their angel guardians to guide them when they are called upon to fulfill their duty in overseeing the development of new liturgical translations. We must approach this as positively as we can.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE WANDERER in January 2001

This prayer comes in a time when we see in the newsworthy activities being covered by the media that love of God and neighbor should be prayed for with great and intense fervor. The season of the liturgical year called “Ordinary Time” is particularly helpful in guiding us into a proper Christian approach to the nitty-gritty details of the routine of daily living through the year. It might not be an exaggeration to suggest that the two-fold great command of Jesus is to be found at the foundation of daily life.

COLLECT:

LATIN (1970 Missale Romanum)
Concede nobis, Domine Deus noster,
ut te tota mente veneremur,
et omnes homines rationabili diligamus affectu.

A probably not very significant detail: the phrase Domine Deus noster is used in only three collects of Ordinary Time, this week, the 5th and 33rd.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Grant us, O Lord our God,
that we may venerate you with our whole mind,
and may love all men with rational good-will.

We are asking God to permit us, to allow us as a great gift and favor granted, to “venerate” God with our whole mind. This veneror, as the great Lewis & Short Latin Dictionary provides, has a deeply religious connotation and means, “to reverence with religious awe, to worship, adore, revere, venerate… to do homage.” Think of its use in the well-known Tantum Ergo, which describes us as cernui, “heads bowed to the ground.” To “venerate” as we should, it will be necessary to seek to know Him for we are to do this with our “whole mind.” But there is a close link between knowing and loving. More on this below.

What we are hearing in this Collect is clearly an echo of the two-fold command of Jesus, teaching and expanding the repeated command in Deuteronomy (cf. especially 6:5, the Shema – “Hear, O Israel…”), to love God and neighbor (cf. Matthew 22:36-38; Mark 12:2-31; Luke 10:26-28 – which has omni mente rather than tota). In the three Synoptic Gospels where a version of the two-fold command appears we have the Greek word dianoia for “mind.” Jerome in the Vulgate used mens to translate the Greek dianoia. Dianoia is used in the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint (usually abbreviated LXX). But looking at the Deuteronomy passage, we find in English translations “heart.” Dianoia translates the Hebrew lebab: heart…. and a lot more besides. Furthermore, in the Latin Vulgate for the Deuteronomy, we find for dianoia the word cor – “heart”. Like the English “heart”, Hebrew lebab can mean very many things, including “inner man, mind, will, heart, soul, understanding, mind, knowledge, thinking, reflection, memory, inclination, resolution, determination (of will), conscience. “Heart” can mean the seat of moral character or courage. Biblical anthropology and the relationship of “mind, heart, soul” is a complicated study, and we do not have time and space for it here. By looking into that mens of our prayer we are digging for a road map to avoid the pitfalls and traps that the word “love” carries around today like so much baggage. “Mind” and “heart” are closely related faculties in man and cannot be separated from each other.

We are commanded by the Savior to love. Mother Church remembers this in this week’s prayer. But “love” can mean so many things today. Many of you reading this will remember C.S. Lewis’ book The Four Loves. Commonly used, “love” today usually refers not to the kind of love which is really Christian “charity”, that sacrificial love which in seeking always the good of the other resembles the sacrificial love of Christ, the theological virtue that permits us to love as images of God. Bob can “love” his Ferrari, Susie can “love” her kitty, and without doubt we all “love” baseball and spaghetti. We can talk about the different tenors of love, such as the love of benevolence, or of complacence, of enemies, concupiscence. But we are called to a special sort of love in this prayer… true charity: the infused virtue which makes it possible for us to love God for His own sake and love all those who are made in His image. This is more than benevolence or tolerance, more than appetitive desire. Love is not merely a response to some appetite, like seeing a beautiful member of the opposite sex, a well-turned double-play, or a plate of spaghetti all’amatriciana. It isn’t the sloppy gazing of passion drunk sweethearts or what we see on TV primetime. I call that luv. Real love is the adhesion of the will to an object which is grasped by the intellect to be good. Real love, the sort of love invoked in our prayer, is an act of will. This love delights in the other and is informed by a longing for the good of the other. It makes two resound with one spirit. Love, in the sense this prayer offers, is an act of will based on the work of a discerning intellect that is reshaped and informed by grace. This why we find in our prayer that phrase rationabilis affectus. Rationabilis is an adjective meaning: rational, reasonable. Our stupendous Lewis & Short Dictionary shows us that affectus indicates “A state of body, and esp. of mind produced in one by some influence, a state or disposition of mind, affection, mood: Love, desire, fondness, good-will, compassion, sympathy.” Rationabilis affectus reflects what it is to be truly human, made in God’s image and likeness, with faculties of willing and knowing and, therefore, loving.

We come back to the connection of knowledge and love, mentioned above. It seems to me that these two are so closely related that they cannot be easily distinguished at times. I am willing to bet that all of us have had the experience of getting to know something or someone and then, “falling in love.” Billy might be fascinated by bugs. From this love for bugs he simply must come to know everything there is to know about them, thus setting the stage for a brilliant career in entomology. On the other hand, we get to know a person or a city and, the more we learn about this complex object of our intellectual effort, we slowly come to appreciate their beauty and come even to a genuine love. Simply put, when we love someone, we want to know everything about him or her and the more we learn the more we love. This is how we must be with God: constantly seeking to understand Him more and more so as to love Him more and more, and by that very love coming to understand things about God that, without love, would not be possible for us to learn. The desire for both love and knowledge are built into who we are and we have a relationship with the objects of both love and knowledge. The great 13th century saint and doctor of the Church Bonaventure described “ecstatic knowledge.” This kind of knowledge is merely the product of abstract investigation. Rather, it starts first from standing back and contemplating. By contemplation, the knower becomes engaged with the object, becomes fascinated by it and wants to know it more deeply. This longing draws the knower into the object. Consider: we can study about God and our faith. But really the object of study is a living Person, not a set of abstractions. We need the sort of knowledge of God that draws us into Him. This is a “knowledge” which reaches into us, seizes us, pulls us into itself and transforms us. To experience God’s love is to have certain knowledge, more certain than any knowledge which can be arrived at by means of merely rational examination (but not in opposition to it).

And we are commanded to love our neighbor, all made in God’s image and all individually intriguing – fascinating, in a way that resembles the way we love God and ourselves. This we are to do with our minds, hearts, and our strength.

ICEL:
Lord our God,
help us to love you with all our hearts
and to love all men as you love them.

This version of the Collect we examine this week leaves me a bit disappointed. The sound of it is really quite flat and uninteresting, repetitive, rather like the 1967 John Lennon/Beatles song: “Love… love… love… all you need is luv”. I wholeheartedly embrace the sentiment it expresses: “Help us to… love all men as you love them”, is a fine thing if we consider with what sort of love God loves. Also, there is a profound difference between concede (“grant”) and “help.” Concede indicates our dependance on God, whereas “help” indicates a much more limited role for God. God does more than “help” us and we fallen human beings need more than “help.” When I hear “help” over and over again in ICEL prayers, I get a whiff (imagined or not) of Pelgaianism. That said, I don’t see how this really translates the Latin original.

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE WANDERER in January 2005

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

I am glad to have received a note via snail-mail from Fr. VY, OFM who has corrected an error I made about the pre-Conciliar liturgical calendar. I had said that in the 1962MR 1 January was the Feast of the Circumcision when, as Fr. VY points out, by 1962 it was simply Sunday in the Octave Christmas. While 1 January had been still the Feast of the Circumcision in 1959 I gratefully stand corrected about the 1962MR. I received an undated letter from Fr. BF, OSB who included some a copy of an article in The Tablet (22 May 2004) called “The Draft Order of the Mass”. Apparently he shared his thoughts about the draft with Fr. Bruce Harbert, the Executive Secretary of ICEL but didn’t hear back from him at the time of his writing. I note that The Tablet’s article says of the new draft that some people may be “alarmed” at the “hieratic, archaic nature of God’s relationship with humanity implicit in some of the prayers”. I respond saying, “Goodie!” and “It’s not implicit in the Latin so why should it be in the English? Let’s just make it all explicit for the sake of accuracy and honesty.” I want to acknowledge also kind written notes from CC of IL and EL of AZ and others. Your feedback is valuable.

We have into the Sundays “Ordinary Time” (once called the Season of Epiphany) during which we wear the green vestments that some say symbolize of hope. Even though these Sundays are not part of a sacral cycle such as Advent/Christmas with a focus on specific mysteries of Our Lord’s life and saving work, each Sunday is always an echo of Easter. Pre-Conciliar liturgical books called the Sundays after Epiphany and the Sundays after Pentecost the tempus per annum… “the time through the year” and this terminology has remained in the Novus Ordo. We are entering the liturgical span stretching from the adoration of kings and shepherds at the feet of the infant King to the end of the year and the solemn feast of Christ the King, the King of fearful majesty who will come as judge and will separate the goats from the sheep and usher in the unending reign of peace.

COLLECT – LATIN TEXT (2002MR):
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus,
qui caelestia simul et terrena moderaris,
supplicationibus populi tui clementer exaudi,
et pacem tuam nostris concede temporibus.

This prayer was the Collect for the Second Sunday after Epiphany in the 1962MR. We should look at some words before getting at what the prayer really says. The unrivaled Lewis & Short Dictionary says that simul et connects two or more co-ordinate terms or facts and represents them as simultaneous and is the equivalent of simul etiam meaning “and at the same time, and also”. The deponent verb moderor means “to manage, regulate, rule, guide, govern, direct”. The word moderator is what we use in Latin for people like the state governor or the president of the United States: governing officials. A gubernator was the steersman or pilot of a sailing ship.

When we pray in Latin we often ask God to pay attention in some way, usually by “hearing” us. Exaudio signifies “listen to” in the sense of “harken, perceive clearly.” The imperative exaudi is more urgent than a simple audi (the imperative from audio, not the car). I like “harken.” Different words are used for this in Latin and though they mean subtly different things, they are all pretty much the same thing. A good example is the beginning of one of the Litanies in Latin: Christe audi nos… Christe exaudi nos… which is often translated as “Christ hear us… Christ graciously hear us.”

Clementer is an adverb from clemens, means among other things, “mild in respect to the faults and failures of others, i.e. forbearing, indulgent, compassionate, merciful.” We have seen this many times in the last four years. In the religious language of the ancient Romans a supplicatio was a public prayer or supplication, a solemn religious ceremony in consequence of certain public events, good or ill. So, what we have here is a phrase something like, “in an indulgent manner graciously pay close attention to the humble petitions of your people, bent down in prayer.” Tempus means many things but primarily, “time in general, or a season of time; the state of the times, position, state, condition; circumstances.” It can also be “the appointed time, the right season, an opportunity (Greek kairos)”. In the plural tempora gives us the word for the “temples” of the sides of your head. The word “temporal” ultimately derives from tempus and it often indicates worldly or earthly things, material things, as opposed to sacred, eternal or spiritual.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Almighty eternal God,
who at the same time does govern things heavenly and earthly,
mercifully harken to the supplications of Your people,
and grant Your peace in our temporal affairs.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Father of heaven and earth,
hear our prayers, and show us the way
to peace in the world.

In the past we discovered in the course of this WDTPRS series that the ICEL versions of the prayers for the festal seasons of Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter were marginally better than those of Ordinary Time. Now that we are in Ordinary Time again you will see a change in the quality of the “translations”. They must have had a different committee work on the prayers of Ordinary Time. First take note that the ICEL prayer is shorter than the Latin version, which set off flares and rings claxons. Normally when you render a Latin text in English, the English will be considerably longer than the Latin. This is a superficial but solid clue that not all is well.

To my mind the ICEL prayer is sterile, not just terse. We can all agree that God is the “Father of heaven and earth”, but the Latin addresses “Almighty eternal God.” “Father of heaven and earth” makes God smaller than He is, it seems to me, and is not what the Latin prayer really says. “Hear our prayers”, indicates little of our humble posture before God which the Latin clearly proposes with “mercifully give ear to the supplications of your people”. I suppose this is what The Tablet article mentioned above was referring to, namely, the “hieratic, archaic nature of God’s relationship with humanity implicit in some of the prayers”. In the Latin, we are cast down, bent in prayer, asking the almighty God, indulgently to spare us a little attention. I am perfectly content to grovel with penitentially confident joy before God even if the translators of the lame-duck ICEL version were not. From what I have seen of the draft of the Ordinary we will be pleased in the future when a new translations finally comes forth.

The old ICEL version of the first Collect we see in Ordinary Time isn’t terribly successful when compared to the Latin, is it? The bishops’ conferences, the Vox Clara Committee, the restructured, restaffed ICEL and the Holy See have their work cut out for them. If the draft of the Ordinary of Mass is well under way, where are we with the Proper (i.e., the prayers which change according to the day). Translating prayers is a daunting task and thus these people need our prayerful support and, may I say it, incessant positive urging and input. I have provided addresses for the major figures involved on the internet (https://zuhlsdorf.computer) or you can write e-mail to me for or snail-mail to The Wanderer. Never forget when reading this column to say a prayer for our bishops and ask the Holy Spirit to guide them in their challenging mandate. Also, be kind and respectful when writing. Bishops are peculiar creatures to be sure, but they are still human beings. They have more than enough to do in their busy days to deal with all the negative things which besiege them without getting some snippy letter from a disgruntled critic. You can make your points and observations without being rude or demanding. Look at it this way: if you want a cardinal or bishop or priest to read your thoughts and take them to heart, be nice, otherwise your note will probably wind up in the garbage can.

Getting back to our Collect we are begging God as omnipotent disposer of all things for peace in our temporal affairs now, not just later in heaven. And we want not just any peace man can cobble together, but rather the peace which comes from Him. During Holy Mass (before the entirely optional “sign of peace”) the priest repeats Christ’s words in John 14:27: “Pacem relinquo vobis, pacem meam do vobis… Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” Catholic Christians are confident. Christ said He was going to give it to us.

There is a great difference between the peace the world can offer and the peace that God offers. This world of temporal goods (and ills) is passing and fragile, always susceptible to loss. The goods of heaven are lasting, enduring, solid and dependable. We must never fall into the sin of putting any created thing or person in the place which only eternal God may properly have. No infinite and passing thing can provide lasting joy or eternal peace. Any created thing can be lost through theft, wear and time. The vicissitudes of this passing world roar over us like an inexorable wave and can sweep away any material thing to which we have clung, perhaps even in idolatry. Our wealth, our family, our health, our appearance and our reputation can be taken in the blink of an eye. God alone endures.

God knew each one of us outside of time, before the creation of both the visible and invisible universe. He called us into existence at a precise moment in His eternal plan. We have something to do in God’s plan. He gives us work to fulfill and the talents and graces to fulfill it. We must cooperate with Him, making His plan for us our own so that He can then make us strong enough to carry it out. God knows our needs and in turn we confidently come to Him in prayer asking humbly in our trials during this earthly journey for peace only He can give, the peace which alone can make sense of what we experience in life. Our sins lost this peace for us but it has been restored through the merits of Christ’s Sacrifice which we renewal and remember with each Holy Mass. We ask God to bless us in this new year of salvation. We beseech Him to give aid to all who suffer. With bended knee and foreheads to the ground, bodies and wills both bent in supplication, we beg His patient indulgence and His peace.

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE WANDERER in January 2003

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

The orbit of our globe brings us by God’s plan back to “Ordinary Time”, Sundays not having a specific festal or penitential meaning though they remain echoes of Easter. We see again green vestments, symbols of hope. This season was once the Season of Epiphany and time “after Epiphany” and together with the Sundays “after Pentecost” it formed the tempus per annum… the “time through the year”. So, as we entering into the long cycle of Sundays per annum we set out as a Church on the annual pilgrimage leading from the adoration of the Magi at the Crib to the end of the world and the coming of Christ the King of fearful majesty. Our first last prayer of Ordinary Time to consider, taken verbatim from the Postcommunio of the Friday after Ash Wednesday in the 1962MR, is today’s….

POST COMMUNIONEM
LATIN (2002 Missale Romanum):
Spiritum nobis, Domine, tuae caritatis infunde,
ut, quos uno caelesti pane satiasti,
una facias pietate concordes.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord,
you have nourished us with bread from heaven.
Fill us with your Spirit,
and make us one in peace and love.

Gravely we open the cover of the hefty Lewis & Short Dictionary and look beyond the surface meanings of the words. At the end of our prayer we find concordes from concors, itself a fusion of the preposition cum with cor, cordis, “heart”. Concors means “of the same mind, united, agreeing, concordant, harmonious.” We should also glance for a moment at facio, that polyvalent verb: “to make in all senses, to do, perform, accomplish, prepare, produce, bring to pass, cause, effect, create, commit, perpetrate, form, fashion, etc.”. By now you regular readers of WDTPRS can almost teach a workshop on the meaning of pietas as not merely “piety” in the commonly understood sense today, but also as “dutiful conduct” toward God or parents or benefactors or society. It carries with it the sense of conscientiousness and loyalty. Pietas is not just a nice feeling about these agents in our lives. It resonates in outward conduct, in actions reflecting that interior pietas. At the root of our outward conduct there must be a clear and carefully considered recognition of the different relationships we have with the objects of our pietas. Who am I before God, before parents, before benefactors and parents? What is my authentic part to play in these relationships? How are they bound in pietas to behave toward me? Is this a relationship of equals or one in which I am an inferior or superior? In the present egalitarian climate, we must get this straight if we are going to understand what the prayer really says.

Infundo is “to pour in, upon, or into”. Infundere alicui aliquid, would be “to pour out for, to administer to, present to, lay before” as in to administer a medicine to someone. Infundo is also “to pour into, spread over, communicate, impart.” Much of our theological language sounds funny to many people today because they loose the meaning of the Latinate words of the technical vocabulary, as in the case of “preventing” grace from the column a couple weeks ago. We speak of baptism by “infusion” for example, how water is poured onto rather than into the person, rather than boiling the person in the water as one might a tea bag or coffee when making those homonymous infusions. We also speak of certain things being “infused” into someone at baptism, such as the theological graces of faith, hope and charity (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church 1813).

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Infuse in us the Spirit of your charity, O Lord,
so that those whom you fill with the one heavenly bread,
you may cause to be of one heart and mind in one sense of dutiful conduct.

Since the word Spiritum is the first word in the sentence of the prayer we cannot tell if this is the Holy Spirit or a more general “spirit of charity”. I think it is the Holy Spirit. This gives the prayer a clearly Trinitarian character, since we are praying to the Father about receiving the infusion grace by the presence of the Holy Spirit in our reception of the Son in the Communion just made. The word concordes also implies more than one person.

Concors itself must be examined. In its basic sense it means “of one heart” (cor). This word, therefore, leads us into consideration of the very makeup of man. I say in my literal version “heart and mind”. In the theology of man’s make up teased out from the writing of the blessed Apostle Paul, we find distinctions about what man is, though Paul does not clearly give us a theological anthropology. Rather, Paul hints at who and what man is through man’s relationships with God and the world around him. He uses terms such as “body” (soma), “soul” (psyche), “spirit” (pnuema), “mind” (nous), “heart” (kardia), “flesh” (sarx) which all point to different aspects of a whole person rather than the parts he is assembled from. For example, psyche or “soul” is not simply the vital life force making the biological flesh live but also a whole person, particularly identified in consciousness, the intellect and power of willing things. It is, for Paul, a natural rather than supernaturalized life principle. A person living without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is a psychikos, a materially spiritual person rather than a supernaturally spiritual person. Pneuma is used by Paul for the Holy Spirit and also for man. In the case of man, when joined to soma and psyche it seems to indicate the dimension of man capable of receiving the Holy Spirit, a pneumatikos man. Nous or “mind” is in Paul’s view seemingly the knowing powers and intellect of a person able to understand and make judgments. There is a close tie between nous and kardia, or “heart”, the more affection dimensions of the intellect. “Heart” is rather like the one’s interior emotional landscape, the thing in us that loves and grieves and fears and suffers and plans. This is the element in us that can be “hardened” (cf. 2 Cor 3:14) or “strengthened” (cf. 2 Cor 1:20-22). Thus, in trying to render concordes in our prayer today, I say “one in heart and mind”, as I am blending the intellective and affective landscapes of a baptized person.

But our prayer does not leave the intellective and affective dimensions of our personhood to rest inert as an painted landscape or interior still life. Despite the fact that many and fascinating things are going on in fine still life paintings, especially of the Flemish school, the Italian term for a still life is a “natura morta” a “dead nature”. In our prayer we also have the powerful image of the grace charity being poured or infused into us by the Holy Spirit. Charity is, of course, not simply “love”, as might be mistaken for the word we use when talking about spaghetti, Fluffy the cat, Suzie, or the Cubs. This sort of love is simultaneously oriented to God and to our neighbor, as described in Christ’s command. The love of charity describes the bond of love between us and God. Charity is also sacrificial love, in its most perfect form exemplified by Christ upon the Cross and which we imitate and exercise by choice with our neighbors. This love is a choice of will, which always considers first the good of the other. Without this sort of two-fold, bidirectional love, our prayer after communion is just a still life. It is a beautiful but static and lifeless work of aesthetic beauty. It has a lovely ring, as the struck brass of Paul’s 1 Cor 13 might have: “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” This love calls us to act outwardly as we ought according to our vocations.

The other word which can serve to keep us honest in this prayer is pietas. Does this concept of duty not drive us to a deep examination of conscience? We must be honest about who we are and who we aren’t. Placed with concors and caritas, pietas challenges us to be real and vital, well-integrated images and portraits of God in our words and actions, rather than a mere still life. If that is true at the moment of our Post communionem, then it is true for every aspect of the liturgy. Mass is, in fact, not so much about us and what we do, but about what God is doing for us. We have a duty to act according to the truth of who we are, who God is, and what is really going on in the Mass. In this we must often give up things for which we long or which we personally might prefer. This applies to the whole of our Catholic lives, too.

Clearly this word “duty” is swaying my thoughts this week. I had the great privilege of meeting again with two men for whom I feel a great admiration and gratitude. Both of them embody a sense of duty befitting men of God. Both men are military men, both US Marines, one retired, one on active duty. The older man, who served at the nation’s highest level in the military, is a retired general, highly decorated, wounded, the winner of two Navy Crosses in service as a captain in command of a company in Vietnam. The other is presently the captain of an infantry company earning distinction for his leadership. The one is the father of a lovely daughter, the other the lovely daughter’s fiancé whom he hopes to marry in May. The captain just returned from a long overseas deployment shortly before Christmas and visited me with the retired general, his wife and daughter when they came to this area to firm up wedding plans for next May. All of them are dedicated, edifying, and deeply involved Catholics. While they were here, perhaps two weeks after his return to the States, our captain was suddenly recalled and will ship out again in a week or so for what we must all assume is an indefinite period of time. What I saw in this family, at this sad and upsetting unforeseen news, helps today to shape my own attempt at rendering what our prayer really says.

There was sorrow and fear on the part of the daughter, her captain, the mother and the father the general. What might have gone through the mind of the older Marine who was in his turn, captain of men, a commanding general sending youth to war, and also a father of a daughter set on marrying a younger version of himself, going out again as the tip this nation’s spear? I saw them all recover quickly and place his orders in their proper place in their lives. They lived pietas. They were slightly subdued from that point, but in no way were they crushed or despondent, as would be those who have no faith or hope or sacrificial love. The morning after the news of his orders, I said Mass which they attended using the votive texts for those making a journey or pilgrimage. The general served, making all the responses he learned in his childhood, deeply engrained in him: “Introibo ad altare Dei… I will go unto the altar of God, the God who gives joy to my youth….” That morning I gave the captain a rosary of knotted cords, dark green, which an elderly sister had made. I have long used it for travel, since it is not metal. When the captain got it, he said something that struck me hard and put his sense of duty into focus for me. While I was thinking the rosary was inconspicuous, light and easily stowed, the moment he took hold of it he said, “It won’t make any noise.” It was a tool to be used, a weapon he understood. It occurs to me that he just might be the sort of man whose Catholic faith, present vocation and their duties are so integrated into who he is that he sees all things in his life from that perspective. We who by baptism and confirmation are soldiers of Christ in this Church Militant can learn a great deal from this.

I am grateful to this family for the reminder of how to live.