ROME 23/04 – Day 06: Holy Thursday – Ravioli and Habit

Posted on 6 April 2023 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

On this anniversary of the Eucharist and Priesthood, the Roman sunrise was at 6:43.  The sunset will be at 19:43, when we will be deep into our solemn rites and then Tenebrae.   The Ave Maria should ring at 20:00.  The Moon is full.  The Roman Station is St. John Lateran.  It is, among others, the feast of St Galla.

In a proper Church, the Chrism Mass would be celebrated today during the day and then the Mass of the Lord’s Supper in the Evening at St. John Lateran.  I think concelebration should be safe, legal and rare, but I did avail myself of concelebrating with Benedict XVI on one Holy Thursday in the apse of the Lateran Basilica.  It seemed the right thing to do.

Yesterday was blustery and cold and intermittently rainy, everything one doesn’t like about Rome at this transitional time of year.  We managed nonetheless to survive and not entirely starve, though I skipped my evening meal.

Lunch.  Lovely ravioli with a filling of bollito.

My view during Tenebrae as this lesson was being sung by a member of the Archconfraternity founded by St. Philip Neri at Ss. Trinità.

You will recognize the habit from the figures in the wonderful presepio which was displayed during the Christmas season.    HERE

The confraternity has been revived.  Its membership is growing and they are undertaking wonderful corporal works of mercy along with liturgical participation.

Meanwhile,…

White to move. NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

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In other chess news… Fabiano Caruana defeated Hikaru Nakamura in the Winners division of the Chessable Masters 2023 Champions Chess Tour. Meanwhile in the the Losers Quarterfinals, Magnus Carlsen eliminated Wesley So (too bad) and Levon Aronian beat Chesscomshop BannerVladislav Artemiev. The winner of the “loser” bracket rises from the dead to play the winner of the winner bracket. Hence, now Nakamura will face the winner of Carlsen v. Aronian today and the winner of that match will play Caruana in Grand Final on Friday. They are not observing the Sacred Triduum, so I will have to catch up on the final on Saturday via YouTube replay.

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WDTPRS – Spy Wednesday: The final prayers

Posted on 5 April 2023 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Judas Vitrail_Cathédrale_de_MoulinsThe term “Spy” Wednesday is probably an allusion to Christ’s betrayal by Judas.

In the ancient Roman Church at the time of St. Pope Leo I, “the Great” (+461), there was no Mass during the day.  Instead, many of the feria days were without Mass.  There would be gatherings at “station” churches, however, where there would be vigils with preaching.  We have sermons of Leo the Great preached on several of these Wednesdays of the 6th Week, the day before the Triduum.   Mass would be offered at St. Mary Major in the evening, as if to entrust all that had been brought from Lent as well as everything upcoming to the Mother of God for its perfection.

This prayer was the Collect for this same day in the 1962 Missale Romanum. It was also in the ancient Gregorian Sacramentary in both the Hadrianum and Paduense manuscripts.

This is the final Collect before the Triduum.  It serves as a summation and a starting point.

COLLECT

Deus, qui pro nobis Filium tuum crucis patibulum subire voluisti, ut inimici a nobis expelleres potestatem, concede nobis famulis tuis, ut resurrectionis gratiam consequamur.

This is an austere prayer, a razor, cutting to the heart of the matter.

The impressive and informative Lewis & Short Dictionary informs us that patibulum (deriving from pateo, “to open, stretch out, extend”) is “a fork-shaped yoke, placed on the necks of criminals, and to which their hands were tied; also, a fork-shaped gibbet”. In turn, English “gibbet” means “an upright post with a projecting arm for hanging the bodies of executed criminals as a warning”.

The patibulum is “the stretcher”, and not in the carrying sense.

The verb subeo in its basic meaning is “to come or go under any thing” and by logical extension “to subject one’s self to, take upon one’s self an evil; to undergo, submit to, sustain, endure, suffer”. The L&S explains that “The figure taken from stooping under a load, under blows, etc.)” There are other shades of meaning, including “to come on secretly, to advance or approach stealthily, to steal upon, steal into”. Keep this one in mind.

Consequor is interesting. It signifies “to follow, follow up, press upon, go after, attend, accompany, pursue any person or thing” and then it extends to concepts like “to follow a model, copy, an authority, example, opinion, etc.; to imitate, adopt, obey, etc.” and “to reach, overtake, obtain”. Going beyond even these definitions, there is this: “to become like or equal to a person or thing in any property or quality, to attain, come up to, to equal (cf. adsequor).” I know, I know – mentio non fit expositio. Still it is helpful to make connections in the words, which often have subtle overlaps.

Remember that meaning of subeo, above?  There are shades of “pursuit” and “imitation” in the prayer’s vocabulary.

Finally, a gratia is a “favor” or “reward”, but we Christians hear in it God’s freely given gift to us which we don’t on our own merits deserve.

WDTPRS LITERAL TRANSLATION:

O God, who desired Your Son to undergo on our behalf the yoke of the Cross so that You might drive away from us the power of the enemy, grant to us Your servants, that we may attain the grace of the resurrection.

CURRENT ICEL:

O God, who willed your Son to submit for our sake
to the yoke of the Cross,
so that you might drive from us the power of the enemy,
grant us, your servants, to attain the grace of the resurrection.

Judas TheLastSupperdetailBy our sins we are in the clutches of the enemy, who mercilessly attacks us.

Christ freed us from dire consequences of slavery to sin by His Passion.

The ancient Romans forced their conquered foes pass under a yoke (iugum), to show that they were now subjugated.

Their juridical status changed by that “going under”.

Christ went under the Cross in its carrying and then underwent the Cross in its hideous torments.

In his liberating act of salvation, we passed from the servitude of the enemy to the service of the Lord, not as slaves, but as members of a family.

We are not merely household servants (famuli), we are accorded the status of children of the master of the house, able to inherit what He already has.

So, there’s that Collect.

However, at the end of the ferial Masses during Lent and Passiontide we have also had a final final Collect in the guise of the Oratio super populum, the Prayer over the People.   This is the last oration of the Mass before the Triduum begins.  It lines up well with the Collect we looked at, above.

Réspice, quaésumus, Dómine, super hanc famíliam tuam, pro qua Dóminus noster Iesus Christus non dubitávit mánibus tradi nocéntium, et Crucis subíre torméntum:

Even more than the 2nd Collect from the Spy Wednesday Mass, above, this oration serves as a summing up of all of Passiontide as well as the stepping off point for the whole of the Triduum.  This oration will be repeated throughout the Triduum at the end of Tenebrae and in other moments such as in the much abbreviated, austere prayers at table for meals during the Triduum.

You already the vocabulary notes for subeo, above.

Bl. Ildefonso Schuster writes of this terse prayer…

The Blessing over the people is so beautiful that the Church uses this collect during the three following days at the conclusion of each hour of the divine office: “Look down, we beseech thee, upon this thy family, for which our Lord Jesus Christ hesitated not to be delivered up into the hands of wicked men and to undergo the torment of the cross.” There is no better way of moving our heavenly Father to pity for us than by reminding him of the Passion of his only-begotten Son, and more especially of the immense love with which he loved us.

 

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ROME 23/04 – Day 05: Spy Wednesday

Posted on 5 April 2023 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The Roman sunrise, had it been seen through the clouds, was at 6:45, about the time I left for church.  The sunset is slated for 19:42.  The Ave Maria bell should ring at 20:00.

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The full moon is tomorrow, as one would expect.

The Roman station is Santa Maria Maggiore.

It is the Feast of St. Irene, virgin and martyr (+304).

It has been cold and rainy here, which has brought a measure of discomfort to my knees.   One perseveres.

Caccio e pepe, somewhat spiffed up.

A street in Trastevere.

Meanwhile,… in the Chessable Masters, Magnus had his hat handed to him by Vladislaw Artemiev.  He falls to the “losers” bracket.  Meanwhile, Hikaru and Fabiano will face off for the big prize.  Alas, my favorite, Wesley was defeated.

Meanwhile, black to move.
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

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You might order some wine from the monks at Le Barroux for your post-Paschal repasts.

I warmly endorse these conferences for priests. I plan on going to the July offering.

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ROME 23/04 – Day 04: Holy Tuesday

Posted on 4 April 2023 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The sunrise in Rome was 0647 and the sun just set at 1941.  The Ave Maria is at 2000.

It is the Feast of St Isidore (+636).  Some people believe that he could be a good Patron of the Internet.  There is the “Internet Prayer” which I wrote many years ago and which has been translated into many languages.

It’s rainy this afternoon but the morning was lovely.

Some views.

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ROME 23/04 – Day 03: Holy Monday

Posted on 4 April 2023 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The City saw a 6:48 sunrise and will have its sunset at 19:40.   The Ave Maria bell is to ring at 20:00.  The full moon is coming: 6 April: important for the dating of Easter, of course.  It is the Feast of Sixtus I and of St. Richard of Chichester.   The later always makes me think of the limerick my old pastor had in his back pocket for this day.   Posted earlier.

I had mentioned yesterday my gratitude to my Roman Donors.   I said Mass for your intention as soon as I arrived on Saturday.   And with my mention of donations a few more came in which I am please to acknowledge here.

Thanks…

EL, MP, PJMcD, HB, AFC, DMcN, KS, TO’R (wow)

I hope I didn’t miss anyone.  Donations come in via different services and it gets complicated.  Also, sometimes there are no email addresses, so it is hard to write thank you notes.

I’d like also to thank some of the past “200” and “100” campaigners who have persevered.   Sometime ago, I had campaigns to add monthly subscribers.   Each time I was blessed with a good response.  Of course there are those who silently drop away for one reason or another which is understandable.   I have lists of donors past and present and you are remembered in my prayers, in particular when I am informed that someone has passed away.  They are remembered in prayer.

Palm Sunday was wonderful at my adoptive parish of Ss. Trinità dei Pellegrini.  The place was packed as you can imagine.  All the images in the Church are covered and not haphazardly: many have individually made to cover the image just to the edge of the frame.  Striking.  Since there are a lot of large images, there is a lot of purple.  The altar, however, was dressed in Roman purple, which has a reddish cast.

You can see the deacon has his broad stole.

Lunch lunch with The Great Roman™ and the Great Roman Wife™ – a real treat since she can’t always join in – along with my Chicagoans.

Rigatoni alla carbonara.

And puntarelle.  What a pleasure.  They were perfect.

I ran into a few blog readers after Mass.  It is great to meet people whose names I’ve seen the combox and in donations over the years.  That’s one of perks.

Meanwhile,…

White to move in this unbalanced situation.

NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

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Tenebrae at Ephesus

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These are the RESPONSORIES of Tenebrae for all three days of the Triduum.  They are, arguably, the most beautiful chants of the entire liturgical year.

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WDTPRS – Tuesday in Holy Week: Strengthening our grasp on Christ and His grasp on us

Posted on 4 April 2023 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

[A special note for priests alone at the end.  Nobody else look! o{];¬) ]

COLLECT (2002MR):
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus,
da nobis ita dominicae passionis sacramenta peragere,
ut indulgentiam percipere mereamur.

This prayer was in the 1962MR on Tuesday of Holy Week.  It was in the Hadrianum and Paduenese of the ancient Gregorian Sacramentary for the same day, when the Station is at Santa Prisca.  So, it seems that today we have a prayer which The Redactors of the Novus Ordo didn’t fiddle around with.  They left it on the same day as it had always been, and didn’t change or cut out any words.  That’s rare.

The verb perago means, according to the dark blue bound Lewis & Short Dictionary, in its fundamental sense “to thrust through, pierce through, transfix”.   It can then come to mean by logical extension “to drive about, harass, disturb, disquiet, agitate, annoy a person or thing”.  However, in our context here, it is probably “to carry through, go through with, execute, finish, accomplish, complete”.    However, I ought to remind readers and even comment posters here, as well as myself, that mentio non fit expositio as one of my old profs used to shout.  I cut now to the chase with Blaise/Dumas who says perago is “célèbrer” as in “célèbrer les mystères de la Passion du Seigneur”.

The verb percipio is “to take wholly, to seize entirely”.  Often when you see a prepositional prefix per on verbs, you get an intensification of the concept of the verb.  At the same time percipio is “to perceive, observe” and “to feel” and “to learn, know, conceive, comprehend, understand, perceive”.    Blaise/Dumas gives us “recevoir (l’eucharistie)”.  I think this gets us close to the meaning for our prayer.

SLAVISH LITERAL VERSION
Almighty everlasting God,
grant us so to celebrate the mysteries of the Lord’s Passion,
that we may merit to receive pardon.

The words peragere and percipere underscore the intensity with which we ought to participate in the sacred mysteries especially during this Holy Week.  The per prefix suggests to us a thoroughness of our participation, the one per leading to the other per through the connect of the ita… ut.   The peragere is an invitation to us to participate in the mysteries of Holy Week in a way that is “full, conscious and active”, especially in the interior sense.  In this way we can more completely grasp in all senses of that word what the Lord has to offer to us.

As the Council document Gaudium et spes 22 tells us, and this was a contribution of the young bishop Karol Wojtyla, the Second Person of the Trinity took up our human nature and came into this world to reveal man more fully to himself.

Our participation in the sacred mysteries at all times of the year help us to grasp and perceive many things.

We learn about ourselves, we learn about the magnalia Dei, we grasp and perceive the fruits and graces of the Eucharist and the other sacraments, we deepen our grasp of the content of the Faith.

The content is both things we can learn and contemplate and, more deeply, the divine Person of the Lord Himself.  One of the most important things we grasp, as our prayer reminds us, is pardon for our many and black sins which merit Hell.

By strengthening our grasp on Christ, and His grasp on us, His merit becomes our merit and thus we can receive the saving pardon He grasped for us on the Cross.

It might be a good idea to meditate a bit on the 1 Cor 11:29-31, in which Paul talks about “discerning” the Body and Blood of the Lord before reception.

The Greek verb diakrino for “discern” doesn’t quite match in exact meaning the force of percipio but there is a conceptual connection between discerning verbs.  In any event, this verse came to mind and it is good to examine ourselves carefully in this regard.

NEW CORRECTED ICEL VERSION:
Almighty ever-living God,
grant us so to celebrate
the mysteries of the Lord’s Passion
that we may merit to receive your pardon.

OBOSLETE ICEL:
Father,
may we receive your forgiveness and mercy
as we celebrate the passion and death of the Lord.

Think about the rubbish people had to endure for decades in church.

SUPER DOUBLE TOP SECRET NOTE FOR PRIESTS

Think again about that verb percipio.  Then think about the prayer we, many of us at least, say before our own reception of Communion during Holy Mass.

LATIN TEXT (2002MR):
Perceptio Corporis et Sanguinis tui, Domine Iesu Christe, non mihi proveniat in iudicium et condemnationem; sed pro tua pietate prosit mihi ad tutamentum mentis et corporis et ad medelam percipiendam.

1962 Missale Romanum version:
Let not the partaking [perceptio] of Your Body, O Lord Jesus Christ, which I, unworthy, presume to receive [quod ego indignus sumere praesumo] turn out to be unto my judgment and condemnation: but by Your goodness, may it become a protection of soul and body and remedy to be grasped/received [percipiendam] .…

The older version stresses the priest’s, our, unworthiness.

Our hands and eyes and mouths, Fathers, are close to the Eucharistic species on the altar.

Our breath touches them as we recite this prayer.

We are speaking not to Christ present in the Host and chalice under the humble appearance of bread and wine, but beyond them and in them and through them to the High Priest Christ glorious and reigning in heaven.  Alter Christus in Christi persona. Even that per-sona refers to the sound moving through the ancient actor’s mask to characterize and amplify the sound.

Baptism washed away our sins, Fathers, but it didn’t remove the wounds to our souls and bodies.  We say this prayer bent down as sinners in need of a Savior, not as the “lords” of what done at the altar or Who is on the altar inches before our eyes.

In this prayer, with its conclusion, we priests must be mindful of our fallen and sinful state even as we – not allowed even to lift our eyes – hope for glory to come, the very purpose of our Mass.

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“Avaunt and defiance!” A limerick on a feast day.

Posted on 3 April 2023 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

My old pastor Msgr. Richard Schuler used to trot out this limerick on this Feast of St. Richard.

There was an old Bishop of Chichester,
Who said thrice (the Latin for which is ‘ter’),
“Avaunt and defiance,
Foul spirit called Science,
And quit Mother Church, thou bewitchest her.”

Of course the Church is not anti-science, unless it is HACK-science.  At least in sane times the Church is against HACK-science.  Sane times, mind you.

On this topic of the Church and Science I recommend the book, Galileo in Rome: The Rise and Fall of a Troublesome Genius by William R. Shea and Mariano Artigas and Dava Sobel’s A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos (UK edition HERE).  In addition, there is Heilbron’s The Sun In The Church and Galileo by the same.

BTW… St. Richard called for a Crusade against the Saracens.  Bless him.

Happy feast of St. Richard!

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ROME 23/04 – Day 02: Palm Sunday

Posted on 2 April 2023 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Sunrise in Rome was 6:50 and sunset 19:38.  The Ave Maria rings at 200o.

It was Palm Sunday.

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Your Sunday Sermon Notes – Palm Sunday 2023

Posted on 2 April 2023 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

It is Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week.

Was there a GOOD point made in the sermon you heard at your Sunday Mass of obligation?

Tell about attendance especially for the Traditional Latin Mass. I hear that it is growing. Of COURSE.

Did you have a procession with palms or olive branches?

Any local changes or (hopefully good) news?

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1987: Faithful Catholics locked out of their church on Palm Sunday employ a battering ram

Posted on 2 April 2023 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Over at Ann Barnhardt’s place you will find a video of something that happened in France in 1987.  Catholics who desired the Traditional Latin Mass were locked out of the parish church on Palm Sunday… much like what now-incredibly-Cardinal Cupich once did in 2002 to people in Rapid City on Good Friday.   At the time that was called an “invitation to unity” and painting himself as the victim: “I would ask them, ‘Why do they find it so difficult, on the day of the Lord’s death, to celebrate with their bishop, who is the sign of the Lord’s unity?'”

Indeed, why?

These folks in France had Mass outside the church and then used a battering ram to go in while singing “Christus Vincit“.

Just 10 years before, in 1977, a large group of people with their priest commandeered the Parisian church St-Nicholas du Chardonnet.  After some years, the SSPX took the place over.  They still have it now and it is hardly to be doubted that it is the single most vibrant Catholic “parish” in the city.

Sometimes “pastors of souls”, perhaps not clearly holding in mind that they are servants, drive their flocks to strong measures.

 

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