What passed through my mind when I read this… I’ll say, below.
From NASA:
Watch Live as NASA Spacecraft Collides With Far-Off Asteroid
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), the world’s first mission to test technology for defending Earth against potential asteroid or comet hazards, will impact its target asteroid—which poses no threat to Earth—at 7:14 p.m. EDT on Monday, Sept. 26.
DART’s target is the binary near-Earth asteroid Didymos and its moonlet, Dimorphos. Launched in November 2021, the mission will see if intentionally crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid is an effective way to change its course, should an Earth-threatening asteroid be discovered in the future. This test will also show that a spacecraft can autonomously navigate to a target asteroid and intentionally collide with it in a way that can be measured using telescopes on Earth.
You can tune in for our live broadcast coverage of DART’s impact with Dimorphos starting Monday, Sept. 26 at 6 p.m. EDT on NASA TV, the agency’s?website, and on Facebook,?Twitter,?or?YouTube.
The phrase, “What could go wrong?”, occurred to me when I read this. Wouldn’t it be a kick if, in changing the course of this asteroid, it became the danger to Earth that they are trying to figure out how to avert?
“Quod Deus avertat!”, and all that.
And yet, some are praying for The Meteor… or the return of the Lord.
Maranatha?
That word has been used both for “come”, as in “come Lord”, and in formulas of excommunication and pronounced anathemas, as in “go away”.
The Catholic Encyclopedia says:
Anathema remains a major excommunication which is to be promulgated with great solemnity. A formula for this ceremony was drawn up by Pope Zachary (741-52) in the chapter Debent duodecim sacerdotes, Cause xi, quest. iii. The Roman Pontifical reproduces it in the chapter Ordo excommunicandi et absolvendi, distinguishing three sorts of excommunication: minor excommunication, formerly incurred by a person holding communication with anyone under the ban of excommunication; major excommunication, pronounced by the Pope in reading a sentence; and anathema, or the penalty incurred by crimes of the gravest order, and solemnly promulgated by the Pope. In passing this sentence, the pontiff is vested in amice, stole, and a violet cope, wearing his mitre, and assisted by twelve priests clad in their surplices and holding lighted candles. He takes his seat in front of the altar or in some other suitable place, amid pronounces the formula of anathema which ends with these words: “Wherefore in the name of God the All-powerful, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, of the Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and of all the saints, in virtue of the power which has been given us of binding and loosing in Heaven and on earth, we deprive N– himself and all his accomplices and all his abettors of the Communion of the Body and Blood of Our Lord, we separate him from the society of all Christians, we exclude him from the bosom of our Holy Mother the Church in Heaven and on earth, we declare him excommunicated and anathematized and we judge him condemned to eternal fire with Satan and his angels and all the reprobate, so long as he will not burst the fetters of the demon, do penance and satisfy the Church; we deliver him to Satan to mortify his body, that his soul may be saved on the day of judgment.” [Sound familar?] Whereupon all the assistants respond: “Fiat, fiat, fiat.” The pontiff and the twelve priests then cast to the ground the lighted candles they have been carrying, and notice is sent in writing to the priests and neighbouring bishops of the name of the one who has been excommunicated and the cause of his excommunication, in order that they may have no communication with him. Although he is delivered to Satan and his angels, he can still, and is even bound to repent. The Pontifical gives the form for absolving him and reconciling him with the Church. The promulgation of the anathema with such solemnity is well calculated to strike terror to the criminal and bring him to a state of repentance, especially if the Church adds to it the ceremony of the Maranatha.
Yes, there’s more! Continuing from the Encyclopedia:
At the end of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, xvi, 22, St. Paul says, “If any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema, maranatha,” which means, “The Lord is come.” But commentators have regarded this expression as a formula of excommunication very severe among the Jews. This opinion, however, is not sustained by Vigouroux, “Dict. de la Bible” (s.v. Anathème). In the Western Church, Maranatha has become a very solemn formula as anathema, by which the criminal is excommunicated, abandoned to the judgment of God, and rejected from the bosom of the Church until the coming of the Lord. An example of such an anathema is found in these words of Pope Silverius (536-38): “If anyone henceforth deceives a bishop in such a manner, let him be anathema maranatha before God and his holy angels.” Benedict XIV (1740-58–De Synodo dioecesana X, i) [“walking together”] cites the anathema maranatha formulated by the Fathers of the Fourth Council of Toledo against those who were guilty of the crime of high treason: “He who dares to despise our decision, let him be stricken with anathema maranatha, i.e. may he be damned at the coming of the Lord, may he have his place with Judas Iscariot, he and his companions. Amen.” There is frequent mention of this anathema maranatha in the Bulls of erection for abbeys and other establishments. Still the anathema maranatha is a censure from which the criminal may be absolved; although he is delivered to Satan and his angels, the Church, in virtue of the Power of the Keys, can receive him once more into the communion of the faithful. More than that, it is with this purpose in view that she takes such rigorous measures against him, in order that by the mortification of his body his soul may be saved on the last day. The Church, animated by the spirit of God, does not wish the death of the sinner, but rather that he be converted and live. This explains why the most severe and terrifying formulas of excommunication, containing all the rigours of the Maranatha have, as a rule, clauses like this: Unless he becomes repentant, or gives satisfaction, or is corrected.
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BTW… I looked up the solemn anathema in the Pontificale Romanum and, yep, there it is!
Here is some of the Latin, animi caussa!
[…]
Igitur quia mónita nostra, crebrásque exhortatiónes contémpsit, quia tértio secúndum Domínicum præceptum vocátus, ad emendatiónem, et pæniténtiam venire despéxit, quia culpam suam nec cogitávit, nec conféssus est, nec missa legatióne, excusatiónem áliquam præténdit, nec véniam postulávit, sed diábolo cor eius induránte, in incépta malítia perséverat, iuxta quod Apóstolus dicit: Secúndum durítiam suam et cor impǽnitens thesaurízat sibi iram in die irae: idcírco eum cum univérsis complícibus, fautoribúsque suis, iudício Dei omnipoténtis Patris, et Fílii, et Spíritus Sancti, et beáti Petri príncipis Apostolórum, et ómnium Sanctórum, necnon et mediocritátis nostræ auctoritáte, et potestáte ligándi et solvéndi in cedo et in terra nobis divínitus coláta, a pretiósi Córporis et Sánguinis Dómini perceptióne, et a societáte ómnium Christianórum separámus, et a limínibus sanctæ matris Ecclésiæ in cælo et in terra exclúdimus, et excommunicátum et anathematizátum esse decérnimus; et damnátum cum diábolo, et ángelis eius, et ómnibus réprobis in ignem ætérnum iudicámus: donec a diáboli láqueis resipíscat, et ad emendatiónem, et pæniténtiam rédeat, et Ecclésiæ Dei, quam læsit, satisfáciat: tradéntes eum sátanæ in intéritum carnis, ut spíritus ejus salvus fiat in die iudícii.
Et omnes respondent: Fiat. Fiat. Fiat.
Quo facto, tam Pontifex, quam Sacerdotes debent proiicere in terram candelas ardentes, quas in manibus tenebant.
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