Saturday, May 2, 2015

'''There is separation of colored people from white people in the United States. It is not a disease of colored people, but a disease of white people. I do not intend to be quiet about it.'"

     Albert Einstein, Lincoln University, 3 May 1946, as quoted by J. W. Woods, in "Lincoln U. confers degree on Einstein," Baltimore Afro American, May 11, 1946, p. 2, col. 5 (continued from p. 1, col. 5).  No version of this statement appears in the "On race and prejudice" section (pp. 309 ff.) of Alice Calaprice's The ultimate quotable Einstein (Princeton University Press, 2010).  Other versions:

"'There is separation of colored people from white people in the United States.  That separation is not a disease of colored people.  It is a disease of white people.  I do not intend to be quiet about it.'"

     As quoted by Fred Jerome and Rodney Taylor, in Einstein on race and racism (Piscataway, NJ:  Rutgers University Press, 2005), 142, citing the Baltimore Afro American (above).


Friday, May 1, 2015

"at your nod"

. . . we who by the death of your Son have been redeemed,
to the glory of his resurrection
are, at your nod, [immediately] summoned forth.

     Preface IV for the Dead, Missale Romanum, 3rd edition, my translation.  This has to be seen in the context of the vigorous language of the whole:

It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation,
always and everywhere to give you thanks,
O Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God[,]
at whose summons [(imperio)] we are born [(nascimur)],
by whose will [(arbitrio)] we are governed [(regimur)],
at whose command [(praecepto)] we return [(absolvimur)],
by the law of sin,
to that earth from which we came [(sumpti sumus)].
And we who by the death of your Son have been redeemed
          [(redempti sumus)],
to the glory of his resurrection
are, at your nod [(nutu)],
          [immediately] summoned forth [(excitamur)].

     "Nod" (nutus) can, of course, mean also "command, will, pleasure".     

"It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation,
always and everywhere to give you thanks,
Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God.
For it is at your summons that we come to birth,
by your will that we are governed,
and at your command that we return,
on account of sin,
to that earth from which we came.
And when you give the sign, we who have been redeemed by the Death of your Son,
shall be raised up to the glory of his Resurrection."

"Vere dignum et iustum est, aequam et salutare,
nos tibi semper et ubique gratias agere:
Domine, sancte Pater, omnipotens aeterne Deus:
Cuius imperio nascimur, cuius arbitrio regimur,
cuius praecepto in terra, de qua sumpti sumus,
peccati lege absolvimur.
Et, qui per mortem Filii tui redempti sumus,
ad ipsius resurrectionis gloriam
tuo nutu excitamur."

     According to Ward & Cuthbert (The prefaces of the Roman missal:  a source compendium with concordance and indices (Rome, 1989), 513-514)), this Preface, new to the new Missal, is heavily influenced by no. 40 of the 9th-century "Fragmentum Sancti Mauricii" (no. 40 being itself a preface):
VD. Aeterne deus. Cuius imperio nascimur, cuius arbitrio regimur, cuius misterio redempti sumus, cuius etiam praecepto in terram, de qua sumpti sumus, praevaricationis lege dissolvimur, atque tuo nutu resurrectionis ad gloriam pulvis ex homine in hominem reparatur. Nostri est, domine, meriti quod perimus, tuae vero pietatis et gratiae, quod morte consumpti, redivivo cinere perpetuam revocamur ad vitam. Per Christum.

Sunday, April 26, 2015

"I will spew you out of my mouth."

"God, who by the light of thy truth guidest wanderers back into the path of righteousness, grant that all who are accounted Christians may embrace those things which befit their faith and reject what is hostile to it".

     Collect for the Third Sunday after Easter, as translated in The missal in Latin and English, being the text of the Missale Romanum with English rubrics and a new translation (New York:  Sheed & Ward, 1949), 471.

"Deus, qui errantibus, ut in viam possint redire iustitiae, veritatis tuae lumen ostendis:  da cunctis qui christiana professione censentur, et illa respuere, quae huic inimica sunt nomini; et ea quae sunt apta, sectari."

     Collect for the Third Sunday after Easter, Missale Romanum, as reproduced therein.  The punctuation is slightly different in Corpus orationum no. 1582 (=Bruylants no. 336), which places it (with slight variations) in the 6th/8th-century "Leonine" or Veronense sacramentary.

"Almighty God, who shewest to them that be in errour the light of thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness; Grant unto all them that are admitted into the fellowship of Christs religion; that they may eschew those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same, through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen."

     1662 Book of common prayer, as reproduced in The book of common prayer:  the texts of 1549, 1559, and 1662, ed. Brian Cummings (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2011), 329.  The prayer was also present in that position in the first prayer book of 1549.

     See Fr. Hunwicke on respuere here.  At Rev 3:16 the word is rather evomere.