"the blessed, ever-virgin Mary, dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit"

Barbara Brocato

"O God, by whose will the blessed, ever-virgin Mary, dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, was on this day presented in the temple, we pray thee grant that through her pleading we may be found worthy to be ourselves presented in the temple of thy glory:  through our Lord . . . in the unity of the same Holy Spirit."

"Deus, qui beatam Mariam semper Virginem, Spiritus Sancti habitaculum, hodierna die in templo praesentari voluisti:  praesta, quaesumus, ut, eius intercessione, in templo gloriae tuae praesentari mereamur.  Per Dominum . . . in unitate eiusdem."

     Collect for the the Presentation of the BVM on 21 November, Tridentine missal.  This prayer was completely re-written after Vatican II, and now lacks the lovely phrase above, which echoes Eph 2:22 at least (for habitaculum occurs 48 times in the Vulgate):

Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners; but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and the domestics of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone: in whom all the building, being framed together, groweth up into an holy temple in the Lord.  In whom you also are built together into an habitation of God in the Spirit.

Ergo jam non estis hospites, et advenae: sed estis cives sanctorum, et domestici Dei, superaedificati super fundamentum apostolorum, et prophetarum, ipso summo angulari lapide Christo Jesu: in quo omnis aedificatio constructa crescit in templum sanctum in Domino, in quo et vos coaedificamini in habitaculum [(κατοικητήριον)] Dei in Spiritu.

Cf. Lk 1:35. 

"Christ in his mercy . . . did not wish to be alone as the Son"

"As for our being the brothers and sisters of Christ, we can understand this because although there is only one inheritance and Christ is the only Son, his mercy would not allow him to remain alone.  It was his wish that we too should be heirs of the Father, and co-heirs with himself."

     St. Augustine, Sermon 72A.8 (417/418), as trans. Liturgy of the hours for the Feast of the Presentation of the BVM.  WSA III/3, trans. Edmund Hill (1991), 288.  Latin from Miscellanea Agostiniana 1 (1930), 163 ll. 13-16 (155-164):

I can understand brothers, I can understand sisters; it's because there is one inheritance, and therefore Christ in his mercy, while being the only Son, did not wish to be alone as the Son, but wished us to be heirs of the Father, his own fellow heirs. That inheritance, you see, is such that it cannot be reduced in value by any number of co-heirs.

fratres intellego, sorores intellego: una est enim hereditas; et ideo Christi misericordia, qui, cum esset unicus, noluit esse solus, voluit nos esse Patri heredes, sibi coheredes.

Faith and reason in the Missale Romanum, or Two rather different collects for the feast of St. Albert the Great

Pre-Vatican II missal, as translated in 1949 by J. O'Connell & H. P. R. Finberg (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), 1271):

God, who didst make thy blessed bishop and doctor Albert truly great in setting divine faith above his own human wisdom [(in humana sapientia divinae fidei subjicienda, in subjecting human wisdom to divine faith)], we pray thee grant that by closely following the path of his teaching we may come to enjoy perfect enlightenment in heaven.  Through.

Current Roman missal:

O God, who made the Bishop Saint Albert great by his joining of human wisdom to divine faith [(in humana sapientia cum divina fide componenda, in putting human wisdom together with divine faith)], grant, we pray, that we may so adhere to the truths he taught, that through progress in learning we may come to a deeper knowledge and love of you.  Through.

The latter in Universalis:

God our Father, you endowed Saint Albert with the talent of combining human wisdom with divine faith.  Keep us true to his teachings that the advance of human knowledge may deepen our knowledge and love of you.  Grant this through.

The real Bellarmine on Chemnitz

"Martin Chemnitz is, in the Examen Concilii Tridentini, so rich in lies, that in four short sentences he is capable of encompassing five."

"Martinus Kemnitius in examine concilii tridentini, ita dives mendaciorum est, ut quatuor sententionlis, quinque mendacia comprehenderit [(will/may have included)]."

     Robert Cardinal Bellarmine, Disputationes de controversiis Christianae fidei adversus huius temporis haereticos 2 (1588) =Robert Cardinalis Bellarmini opera omnia 2 (Neapel, 1857), 10a, as quoted by Theodor Mahlmann in "Der zweite Martin der lutherischen Kirche:  zu einem Martin Chemnitz beigelegten Epitheton," in Rezeption und Reform: Festschrift für Hans Schneider (Darmstadt: Verlag der Hessischen Kirchengeschichtlichten Vereinigung, 2001), 122n97 (99-136).  Vol. 3 (1593) =vol. 3 (Neapel, 1857), 616b =vol. 4 (Paris, 1873), 481b:

Chemnitz is always, self-consistently [?], a calumniator, and mendacious.

Kemnitius semper est sui similis calumniator[,] et mendax.

Mahlmann thus destroys the notion, dear to a number of Lutheran theologians (in this case Johannes Fecht, writing no. 25 in 1725), that Chemnitz was greatly admired by his Catholic opponents; indeed that one of them was the very source of the epitheton "Si alter Martinus non venisset, primus non stetisset" (and variants):  "Yet [the later] Rehtmeyer’s version [('Ipsimet Pontificii ad hunc virum digitum intendentes dicere solent:  "Vos protestantes duos habuistis Martinos, si posterior non fuisset, prior non stetisset"' (Historiae ecclesiasticae inclytae urbis Brunsvigae pars III.  Oder:  Der brühmten Stadt Braunschweig Kirchen-Historie Dritter Theil (Braunschweig, 1710), 524))] is rightly called historically false.  Roman theologians never—[not] even 'with raised forefinger'—said what Rehtmeyer makes them say [(Dennoch ist Rehtmeyers Version genau genommen historisch falsch.  Römische Theologen hatten nie gesagt, was Rehtmeyer sie, sogar 'mit erhobenem Zeigefinger,' 'sagen' läßt)]" (123-124).  Etc.
     This does not make Bellarmine right or even fair, just Rehtmeyer and the Lutherans wrong on the reputation of their champion among his opponents, whether contemporary or otherwise, the one exception being, possibly, the unnamed but theologically sophisticated Cardinal sympathetic to Catholic reform fingered enigmatically by the Lutheran pastor Johannes Gasmer in 1588 (Mahlmann, 126, 101-104 (no. 3), and throughout, insofar as this was thought by the Lutherans to be Diego Payva de Andrade (103), Bellarmine, and so forth; cf. also the references to Bossuet (118-124), Du Pin (124 (no. 27) and 125 (no. 31)), etc.)

"purity of life is part of religion"

"Religious virtue is divided into two parts, into that which pertains to the Divine and that which pertains to right conduct (for purity of life is part of religion)."

Διχῆ δὲ τῆς κατ' εὐσέβειαν ἀρετῆς διῃρεμένης, εἴς τε τὸ θεῖον καὶ τὴν εἰς τὴν τοῦ ἤθους κατόρθωσιν (μέρος γὰρ εὐσεβείας καὶ ἡ τοῦ βίου καθαρότης ἐστί), . . .

     Gregory of Nyssa, The life of Moses 2.166, trans. Everett Ferguson and Abraham J. Malherbe (Gregory of Nyssa:  The life of Moses, Classics of Western spirituality (New York; Mahwah, NJ:  Paulist Press, 1978), 96).  The footnote at this point reads, "This fact was not commonly recognized by the Greeks of the pre-Christian centuries.  See A. D. Nock, Conversion (Oxford, 1933), pp. 215 ff." (179n206).  Greek from the 3rd rev. & corr. (1968) ed. of SC 1, 212, 214.  Cf. GNO 7.1, p. 88 ll. 5-7.

"Before those who stood by | thou wast my helper and didst deliver me"

ἔναντι τῶν παρεστηκότων ἐγένου βοηθὸς καὶ ἐλυτρώσω με

     Sir 51:2 RSV.  Or "in the presence of those who stood by".  51:2-3 NETS:  "against those who stand by | you have been a help, and you have redeemed me".

The sacraments as an education in the use of things temporal

Source

"Grant, O Lord, we pray, that, benefitting from participation in heavenly things, we may be helped by what you give in this present age and prepared for the gifts that are eternal.  Through."

"Fac nos, quaesumus, Domine, caelestium rerum frequentatione proficere, ut et temporalibus beneficis adiuvemur, et erudiamur aeternis.  Per."

Cause us, we pray, O Lord, [so] to profit from the frequentation of things celestial, that we may be both helped by benefits temporal, and educated in [benefits] eternal.  Through.

     Prayer after Communion, Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Roman Missal.