Saturday, September 15, 2018

Ps 31:22

I had said in my alarm,
     'I am driven far from thy sight.'
But [in fact (אָכֵ֗ן)] thou didst hear my supplications,
     when I cried to thee for help.

     Ps 31:22 RSV.  In the Septuagint and Vulgate "But in fact" (אָכֵ֗ן) becomes "Therefore" (ergone, Divine Office:  ideo; διὰ τοῦτο):
Therefore thou has heard the voice of my prayer (Douay-Rheims).... 
Therefore you listened to the voice of my petition (NETS)....

Sunday, September 9, 2018

"conduct her along the narrow byways of time to the eternal joy of your kingdom"

"With mighty hand and outstretched arm you led your people Israel through the desert.  Now, as your Church makes her pilgrim journey in the world, you always accompany her by the power of the Holy Spirit and lead her along the paths of time to the eternal joy of your Kingdom [(eamque per temporis semitas in gaudium aeternum regni tui conducis)] through Christ our Lord."

     "Eucharistic Prayer for Use in Masses for Various Needs II:  God Guides His Church along the Way of Salvation," Missale Romanum, 3rd typical edition (CTS new daily missal, people's edition (London:  Catholic Truth Society, 2012), 1136|1137).  The phrase "per temporis semitas" is very close to the "in temporis semitis" of the post-synodal apostolic exhortation of John Paul II Pastoris gregis (On the Bishop, Servant of the Gospel of Christ for the Salvation of the World) 12, 16 October 2003:
the Bishop will be able to show his brothers and sisters that he is their father, brother and friend only if he has entered the dark yet luminous cloud of the mystery of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Radiant with the light of the Trinity, he will be a sign of the merciful goodness of the Father, a living image of the love of the Son, and transparently a man of the Spirit, consecrated and sent forth to lead the People of God along the paths of history on their pilgrimage to eternity [(ut Dei Populus in temporis semitis ad aeternitatem peregrinans ducatur)].
I was unable to turn "temporis semit*" up in the Vulgate at Bible Gateway, and indeed this Eucharistic Prayer appears to be a post-Vatican II composition.  In Mt 7:14 the phrase is "arcta via" ("narrow . . . way").
     For some moving images, see the amazing series of photographs by Amos Chapple in Alan Taylor, "The shepherds of the Tusheti Mountains," The Atlantic, 31 October 2017.

The question is how to become "capable and fit" for such friendship

"Angels have not, nor affect not other knowledge of one another, then they lift to reveal to one another.  It is then in this onely, that friends are Angels, that they are capable and fit for such revelations when they are offered."

     John Donne to Sr H[enry]. G[oodyer]., Letters to severall persons of honour (London, 1651), 109-110, as quoted by David Marno in Death be not proud:  the art of holy attention (Chicago:  The University of Chicago Press, 2016), 90.