We adore the cross (as, of course, an image of Christ himself) with the adoration of latria

Blackfriars, Oxford

"there is a twofold movement of the mind towards an image:  one indeed towards the image itself as a certain thing, another, towards the image in so far as it is the image of something else.  And . . . the latter movement, which is towards the image as an image [(in imaginem inquantum est imago)], is one and the same as that which is towards the thing [(in rem)]. . . . Consequently the same reverence should be shown to Christ's image as to Christ himself.  Since, therefore, Christ is adored with the adoration of latria [(adoretur adoratione latriae)], it follows that His image should be adored with the adoration of latria [(sit adoratione latriae adoranda)]. . . . no corporeal image could be put for the true God Himself, since He is incorporeal. . . . But because in the New Testament God was made man, He can be adored in His corporeal image [(in sua imagine corporali adorari)]."
And so, even "if we speak of the effigy of Christ's cross [(effigie crucis Christi)] in any other material whatever [rather than of the very cross on which Christ was crucified (ipsa cruce in qua Christus crucifixus est)]—for instance, [of the effigy of Christ's cross] in stone or wood, silver or gold—thus we venerate [(veneramur)] the cross merely [(tantum)] as Christ's image, which [image] we [venerate] with the adoration of latria [(veneramur adoratione latriae)], as stated above."

     Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae III.25.3.Resp. and ad 1, and III.25.4.Resp., trans. FEDP, i.e. Shapcote.  Latin from Corpus Thomisticum.  Note that there is no difference in meaning here between adoro and veneror.  The sole distinction is that between movement "towards the image itself as a certain thing", and movement "towards the image in so far as it is the image of [Christ himself]".

The humility of the eternal Son

Cod. Vat. Reg. lat. 316, fol. 85v

"O God, who by the lowliness of thy Son hast raised a fallen world: Grant to thy faithful people perpetual gladness; and as thou hast delivered them from eternal death, so do thou make them partakers of everlasting joys; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord."

"God, who by the humiliation of thy Son hast lifted up a fallen world, grant abiding gladness to thy faithful, so that we whom thou has rescued from the perils of eternal death may come to enjoy everlasting bliss:  through."

"Deus, qui in filii tui humilitate iacentem mundum erexisti:  fidelibus tuis perpetuam concede laetitiam; ut, quos perpetuae mortis eripuisti casibus, gaudiis facias perfrui sempiternis.  Per" (Bruylants no. 364 (vol. 2, p. 100)).

"Deus, qui in filii tui humilitate iacentem mundum erexisti, laetitiam concede fidelibus tuis, ut, quos perpetuae mortis eripuisti casibus, gaudiis facias sempiternis perfrui" (Corpus orationum no. 1737).

     Gelasian sacramentary no. 541.  And others of the 8th century.  Lots of variant readings.  Heading taken from Bruce Lindley McCormack, The humility of the eternal son:  Reformed kenoticism and the repair of Chalcedon (Cambridge, UK:  Cambridge University Press, 2021).  Current Roman missal, Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time:

"O God, who in the abasement of your Son have raised a fallen world, fill your faithful with holy joy, for on those you have rescued from slavery to sin you bestow eternal gladness.  Through."

“that entity—beloved of modern sectarians and romantics, but unknown to the early Middle Ages—‘the Celtic Church’.”

     T. M. Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2000), chap. 6 ("The organization of the early Irish church"), p. 241.
     I have not read this book, nor even this chapter.

"ideological extremism. . . . happens whenever a social movement requires us to deny reality. . . ."

     R. R. Reno, "The gay movement," First things no. 252 (April 2015):  6 (4-6).

"The Catholic Church was willing to lose the kingdom of England, and by extension the entire English-speaking world, over the principle that when a first marriage is valid a second is adulterous".

"And on communion for the remarried, the stakes are not debatable at all. The Catholic Church was willing to lose the kingdom of England, and by extension the entire English-speaking world, over the principle that when a first marriage is valid a second is adulterous, a position rooted in the specific words of Jesus of Nazareth. To change on that issue, no matter how it was couched, would not be development; it would be contradiction and reversal."

     Ross Douthat, "The Pope and the precipice," New York times, 25 October 2014.

misericordiae ianua

Wikimedia Commons

"O God, Who hast willed that the gate of mercy should stand open to the faithful; look on us, and have mercy upon us; that we who by Thy grace are following the path of Thy will, may never turn aside from the ways of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord."

     William Bright, Ancient collects and other prayers (Oxford:  J.H. & J. Parker, 1857), 73.  Though others have attributed this to the "Leonine" sacramentary (could they have confused it with the Leofric?), Bright attributes it rightly to the 8th-century Gelasian.  It is no. 557 in the Old Gelasian sacramentary (paradigmatically Rome Vatican Reg. 316), no. 951 in the late 8th-century sacramentary of Gellone (Paris, B.N. lat. 12048), no. 749 in the 8th/9th-century Sangallensis (Sankt-Gallen Stiftsbibl. 348), and no. 945 in the 8th/9th-century Gelasian sacramentary of Angoulême (Paris B.N. lat. 816):

"Deus qui misericordiae ianuam fidelibus patere uoluisti, respice in nos et miserere nostri, ut qui uoluntatis tuae uiam donante te sequimur, a uitae numquam semitis deuiemur. Per Dominum nostrum. . . ."

See also p. 104 of the edition of the Old Gelasian as ed. Wilson:

"Deus, qui misericordiae ianuam fidelibus patere voluisti, respice in nos et miserere nostri, ut, qui voluntatis tuae viam donante te, sequimur, a vitae numquam semitis deviemus: per."

"O God, who willed that the gates of mercy should stand open for your faithful, look upon us and have mercy, that as we follow, by your gift, the way you desire for us, so may we never stray from the path of life.  Through."

It is no. 103 in Bruylants (vol. 1, p. 47) and no. 1802 in Corpus orationum.

     Cf. the second of the two alternative Collects for Saturday of the Second Week of Easter, current Roman missal:  

"O God, who willed that through the pascal mysteries
the gates of mercy should stand open for your faithful,
look upon us and have mercy,
that as we follow, by your gift, the way you desire for us,
so may we never stray from the path of life.
Through", etc.

"Deus, qui misericordiae ianuam fidelibus tuis per paschalia mysteria patere voluisti, respice in nos et miserere nostri, ut, qui voluntatis tuae viam, te donante, sequimur, a vitae numquam semitis deviemur. Per Dominum."

Searching the online as well as the scholarly concordances to the "Leonine" or Veronese sacramentary (including both the Initienverzeichnis and the Wortverzeichnis of the critical edition edited by Mohlberg) on "Deus, qui misericordiae" and the word "gate" (ianu* (ianua), ost* (ostium), port* (porta)), I have not found it in the "Leonine", though the phrase "ianuam misericordiae" does occur there in no. 629 (p. 80, l. 17 of the edition of the "Leonine" edited by Mohlberg):

Online:

Scholarly (Bruylants, Concordance verbale des Sacramentaire Léonien, ALMA 18 (1945):  355):

Scholarly (Wilson, Classified index to the Leonine, Gelasian and Gregorian sacramentaries (Cambridge:  1892), 40):

A variation in English:

"O God, who hast willed that the gate of mercy should stand open to the faithful: Look on us, and have mercy upon us, we beseech thee; that we who by thy grace are following the path of thy will may continue in the same all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord."

    
     It also made its way into the 1906 and 1932 Presbyterian Book of common worship.  Interestingly, the Church of England's Common worship attributes it to Kenneth Stevenson, Bishop of Portsmouth, thus passing over its origin in the Gelasian: 

God of our pilgrimage,
you have willed that the gate of mercy
should stand open for those who trust in you:
look upon us with your favour
that we who follow the path of your will
may never wander from the way of life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

     Common worship:  services and prayers for the Church of England (London:  Church House Publishing, 2000), 414 (Post Communion for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity) and 822 (attribution to "The Rt Revd Dr Kenneth Stevenson", but with an asterisk indicating that "the prayer has been adapted" (818)).  Dr. Bridget Nichols, who contributed the chapter in the Companion to Common worship on "Collects and post communion prayers" (ed. Paul Bradshaw, vol. 1 =Alcuin Club collections 78 (London:  SPCK, 2001), 193), agrees that "There is no doubt about the relationship of the prayer you have identified to the Trinity 10 post communion" in Common worship (note in response to me dated 15 March 2015).

     Janus was the god of doors and gates and covered passage- or archways, and therefore of beginnings (commencements; cf. January) and endings (reentries).  Because the Republic especially was so continuously at war, the doors of the Temple of Janus Geminus (Janus the Two-Faced; probably a four-way arch) stood mostly open, but were closed once under Numa, thrice under Augustus, "and more frequently in the imperial period" (OCD⁴, sv Janus, by Nicholas Purcell).

     So does "the gate of mercy" ("misericordiae janua"), standing always open in "the peace of Christ" (misericordia, rather than war or enmity), effect a reversal of the old Roman usage, or is the phrase entirely innocent of any such freight?
     If the allusion is rather to something like Is 60:11,

thy gates shall be open continually: they shall not be shut day nor night.....aperientur portae tuae iugiter die et nocte non claudentur....

then why porta there, but ianua here?  (But of course it must be to something like Is 60:11 as well.)

"God does not will the damnation of anyone under the formality of damnation, nor anyone's death as death, because he wills all men to be saved, but he wills it under the formality of justice."

"Deus non vult damnationem alicuius sub ratione damnationis, nec mortem alicuius inquantum est mors, quia ipse vult omnes homines salvos fieri, sed vult ista sub ratione iustitiae."

     Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II.19.10.ad 2, trans. Ralph McInerny (Thomas Aquinas:  selected writings, ed. & trans. Ralph McInerny (London:  Penguin Books, 1998), 600).  Latin from Corpus Thomisticum.
     And of course "under the formality of damnation [(sub ratione damnationis)]" = "with respect to the reason for willing [(quantum ad rationem voliti)]".  Cf. "under the common formality [(secundum rationem communem)]".  Both of the latter from ad 1.