In the Bolletino today we find liturgical decrees and texts pertaining to the celebration (in the Ordinary Form) of the recently canonized Paul VI.
His optional memorial will be 29 May, the annivesary of his ordination to the priesthood. He died on the Feast of the Transfiguration, so that date didn’t work.
DECREE ON THE INSCRIPTION OF THE CELEBRATION OF SAINT PAUL VI, POPE, IN THE GENERAL ROMAN CALENDAR
ADDITIONES IN LIBRIS LITURGICIS RITUS ROMANI DE MEMORIA AD LIBITUM SANCTI PAULI VI, PAPÆ – LATIN [English not available]
Shall we look at the Collect to see what the prayer really says?
Deus, qui Ecclésiam tuam regéndam
beáto Paulo papæ commisísti,
strénuo Fílii tui Evangélii apóstolo,
præsta, quaesumus, ut, ab eius institútis illumináti,
ad civílem amóris cultum in mundum dilatándum
tibi collaboráre valeámus.
Per Dóminum.
Committo primarily regards “to join two things, connect”, or also “bring men or animals together to fight” (which certainly happened in Paul’s day), or “to perpetrate a crime”. Here, rather, we have the meaning of “to place, commit to” constructed with aliquem alicui. There are a couple of precedents in the post-Conciliar Missale Romanum.
Strenuus is “brisk, vigorous, restless”. Illumino gives us illuminati. Illumino means, surprise, “to light up”. There is a precedent in the new MR on the Feast of the Presentation. An institutum is an “intention, plan, mode of life, instruction”. Dilato is “to spread out, amplify, extend”.
It might be trick to entangle what the last part means because of two words. Cilivis is “pertaining to citizens, civil, civic” or, digging down into the dictionary page, “relating to public or political life”. Cultus means, “care, a laboring at” or “training, education”, and “an honoring, veneration”, “manner of life”.
VERY LITERAL VERSION:
O God, who entrusted the governance of the Church
to blessed Pope Paul,
restless apostle of the Gospel of Your Son,
grant, we pray, that, enlightened by his teachings,
we may be able to collaborate with You
to make widespread the public cultivation of love.
This prayer is wordy, which is consistent with prayers of modern composition and inconsistent with the Roman liturgical genius.
QUAERITUR: What are we to do with that last bit?
“to spread a political movement of working for love”?
(And, there will be those wags who remind us that amor can mean sex. I’ll head that off here.)
Put that way, it seems that this is a call for some kind of “pacem in terris… peace on earth” is a highly desirable goal, this is not the primary role of the Pope or of the Church. All you need is luv… luv. Luv is all you need. However, our goals are not, primarily, earthly. Our sights are set on heavenly things, or at least that is what prayer after prayer after prayer in the Roman liturgy has prompted.
Nope, none of that was intended.
What is intended by that phrase, civilis amoris cultum is “civilization of love“, a phrase coined by Paul VI in a Regina caeli address on Pentecost Sunday, 17 May 1970.
È la civiltà dell’amore e della pace, che la Pentecoste ha inaugurato; e tutti sappiamo se ancor oggi di amore e di pace abbia bisogno il mondo! … It is the civilization of love and of peace which Pentecost has inaugurated— and we are all aware how much today the world still needs love and peace!”
So, we should read at the end…
…grant, we pray, that, enlightened by his teachings,
we may be able to collaborate with You
to spread far and wide a civilization of love.
How did that little phrase – “civilization of love” – become so tied to Paul VI ? After that first use in 1970, Paul used the phrase in 23 other documents during the last three years of his life, from 1975-1978.
Clearly, Paul wanted that phrase to linked to his teaching as a legacy.
He got it.
From a priest…
In my copy of the 1964 – I don’t have a 1961 – I’ve put post-it notes over the English translation columns in those moments when only Latin must be used (chiefly exorcisms) and over Latin when I can use English. Hence, I can use the 1964 book, but I use it in conformity with the 1961 edition.
