Friday, November 15, 2024

Dialogue is all the rage


     "The word 'dialogue' is in fashion; I regret this, not having myself any of the virtues of the dialoguist, which are not to hear what is said to one, or to take [what is said to one] in a sense that renders it easy to refute."

     "Le mot dialogue est à la mode; je le regrette, n’ayant moi-même aucune des vertus d’un bon dialoguiste, qui sont de ne pas écouter ce qu’on lui dit, ou de le prendre dans un sens qui le rende facile à réfuter."

     Étienne Gilson, "Le dialogue difficile," in Les tribulations de Sophie:  essais d’art et de philosophie (Paris:  Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 1967), 103.  I was put on to this by the description to the recent translation of this book by James G. Colbery:  "the virtues of a skilled dialoguer ... are not to listen to what is being said and to take it in a sense that makes it easy to refute."  To this I would add the virtue of treating the process as a form of maneuver.

"This sacrament is the fruit of the tree of life"

 "Est . . . hoc sacramentum ligni vitae fructus".

     St. Albert the Great, Commentary on Luke 22.19 as trans. Liturgy of the hours (Universalis).  Opera omnia 23 (Paris:  1890-1899), 673, col. 1.

Saturday, November 2, 2024

Make it possible for me to see them, live with them II

"Deus, qui nos patrem et matrem honorare praecepisti, miserere clementer animabus patris et matris meae, eorumque peccata dimitte, meque eos in aeternae claritatis gaudio fac videre.  Per."

O God, who have commanded us to honor father and mother, kindly have mercy on the souls of my father and mother, forgive their sins, and make [it possible for] me to see them in the joy of eternal splendor.  Through.

"Deus, qui nos patrem et matrem honorare praecepisti, miserere clementer animabus patris et matris meae, eorumque peccata dimitte, meque cum illis in aeternae claritatis gaudio fac vivere.  Per."

O God, who have commanded us to honor father and mother, kindly have mercy on the souls of my father and mother, forgive their sins, and make [it possible for] me to live with them in the joy of eternal splendor.  Through.

     Two forms of the Oratio pro patris et matris, Orationes pro defunctis, Officium defunctorum (Mass for the dead), late medieval/early modern Sarum missal (if not also other uses), translations mine.  Missale ad usum insignis et praeclarae eccleslae Sarum, ed. Dickinson (Burntisland:  E Prelo de Pitsligo, 1861-1883), 873*.  Note:  these are Corpus orationum no. 1903, where the earliest of the 17 sources listed is the 11th-century Missale Drummondiense (Drummond Missal, London, British Library, C 35 i II (but unless it's only a fragment, this implies, rather, Morgan Library MS M.627 ("or early 12th century"); G. H. Forbes, ed., The ancient Irish missal in the possession of the Baroness Willoughby de Eresby, Drummond Castle, Perthshire (Edinburgh:  1882), p. 37) =Bruylants, vol. 2, no. 407:  Missel du Latran, 11th/12th cent.; Missel de la Curie, beg. 14th cent.; no. 491 in the 1st ed. of the printed Roman Missal of 1474; 1st typical edition of the 1570 Roman Missal of Pius V; 2nd typical edition of the 1604 Roman Missal of Clement VIII.  I was put onto this by the dedication to Eamon Duffy's The stripping of the altars:  traditional religion in England 1400-1580, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 2005 [1992]), though I should have noticed it also in the third typical edition of the current Missale Romanum, under Masses for the Dead, IV. Various Prayers for the Dead, 11. For the Priest's Parents (Saint Paul Daily Missal:  Sunday and Weekday Masses . . . (2012), pp. 2596-2597):

Deus, qui nos patrem et matrem honorare praecepisti, miserere clementer patri et matri "(parentibus nostris), eorumque peccata dimitte, meque (nosque) eos in aeternae claritatis gaudio fac videre.  Per" etc.

"O God, who commanded us to honor father and mother, have mercy in your compassion on my father and mother (our parents), forgive them their sins, and bring me (us) to see them one day in the gladness of eternal glory.  Through" etc.

Any updates to this post placed here only.

 

Friday, November 1, 2024

"make us love what you command"

"Almighty ever-living God, increase our faith, hope and charity, and make us love what you command, so that we may merit what you promise.  Through."

"Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, da nobis fidei, spei et caritatis augmentum, et, ut mereamur assequi quod promittis, fac nos amare quod praecipis.  Per."

Almighty ever-living God, give to us an augmentation of faith, hope, and charity, and, in order that we may merit to obtain what you promise, cause us to love what you command.  Through.

     Collect for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Roman missal.  =Corpus orationum no. 3819, where it is traced back to no. 598 in the Leonine/Veronese "sacramentary", which Mohlberg places in "Datierungsversuche" no. 6 (366/384), 28 (mid-5th-century anti-Semipelagian), 37 (468/483), 51 (492/496), 63 (498/514), and 68 (537/555).  So anywhere between 366 and 555 as of 1956.

1549 BCP, Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity:

 "ALMIGHTYE and euerlastyng God, geue unto us the increase of faythe, hope, and charitie; and that we may obteine that whiche thou doest promise; make us to loue that whiche thou doest commaunde, through".

1662 BCP, Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity:
"Almighty and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain that which thou dost promise, make us to love that which thou dost command, through."

1976 BCP, Proper 25 (Contemporary), Sunday closest to November 2:
Almighty and everlasting God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command, through."

1973 ICEL, as above:  "Almighty and ever-living God, strengthen our faith, hope, and love.  May we do with loving hearts what you ask of us and come to share the life you promise.  We ask this through".

     Cf. this one.

     Image:  Fragment of a 3rd/5th-century vessel of gold glass in the British Museum that Princeton University's Index of Medieval Art treats as "possibly" an image of Pope Damasus of Rome (366-384), the earliest figure to whom this prayer is attributed in the scholarship indexed in 1956 by Mohlberg, above.

Saturday, October 19, 2024

"the whole life and substance of the Church is in the Word of God"

"The gospel is, before bread and Baptism, the sole most certain and most noble mark [(symbolum)] of the Church, since [it is] by the gospel alone [that] it is conceived, formed, fed, produced, educated, led out to pasture, clothed, adorned, fortified, armed, conserved; in a word, the whole life and substance of the Church is in the Word of God, as Christ says:  'Man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"

"Euangelium enim prae pane et Baptismo unicum, certissimum et nobilissimum Ecclesiae symbolum est, cum per solum Euangelium concipiatur, formetur, alatur, generetur, educetur, pascatur, vestiatur, ornetur, roberetur, armetur, servetur, breviter, tota vita et substantia Ecclesiae est in verbo dei, sicut Christus dicit 'In omni verbo quod procedit de ore dei vivit homo.'"

     Martin Luther, Ad librum eximii magistri nostri Mag. Ambrosii Catharini, defensoris Silv. Prieratis acerrimi, responsio (1521), WA 7, 721 (705-778), ll. 9-14, quick-and-dirty translation mine.  I have not read around in this treatise, which has not yet (?) appeared in English, but is no. 1.42 on the Prospectus for the supplement to Luther's works.

Friday, October 18, 2024

"There is but one single utterance of God amplified throughout all the scriptures"

St. Augustine preaching, Morgan Library
& Museum M.1175 (1525/30), fol. 192r (cropped)

     "There is but one single utterance of God amplified throughout all the scriptures [(sit unus sermo dei in scripturis omnibus dilatatus)], dearly beloved. Through the mouths of many holy persons a single Word makes itself heard [(unum uerbum sonet)], that Word who, being God-with-God in the beginning, has no syllables, because he is not confined by time. Yet we should not find it surprising that to meet our weakness he descended to the discrete sounds we use [(propter infirmitatem nostram descendit ad particulas sonorum nostrorum)], for he also descended to take to himself the weakness of our human body."

     St. Augustine, En. Ps. 103.4.1 (Ennaratio 4.1 on Ps 103), as trans. Maria Boulding in WSA III/19, 167.  Latin from CAG, i.e. CCSL 40, 1521, ll. 1-7).  Image identified the Index of Medieval Art.

Monday, October 14, 2024

"no power of oureselues to helpe ourselues"

"O God, Who seest that in our own weakness we do continually fall, make, in thy mercy, the examples of thy holy children a mean whereby to renew in us the love of thyself. Through."

As trans. Divinum Officium (online).

"Deus, qui nos conspicis ex nostra infirmitate deficere, ad amorem tuum nos misericorditer per sanctorum tuorum exempla restaura. Per."

     The Anglican breviary containing the Divine office according to the general usages of the Western church put into English in accordance with the Book of common prayer (1955), E474 (Feast of St. Calixtus, 14 October, and possibly elsewhere in the Proper of the saints, Tridentine breviary and missal):

"O God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves:  we pray thee, that, by the examples of thy Saints; thou wouldest mercifully restore us to the perfect love of thee.  Through."

     This is no. 1876 in Corpus orationum, and no. 44 in Bruylants.  According to the former it is present in two strictly 8th-century sacramentaries, Prague (before 788, a "Gregorianized Gelasian" from Ratisbonne originally) and Gellonensis (late 8th), as well as a number of 8th/9th century (and later) manuscripts, too.

The collect for the Feast of St. Calixtus in the contemporary Liturgy of the hours is very different, and much less interesting.  Indeed, there does not seem to be a single occurrence of the clause "qui nos conspicis ex nostra infirmitate deficere" anywhere in the contemporary Liturgia horarum.

BCP 1549:  "we haue no power of oureselues to helpe ourselues", followed by a different text:  seconde Sonday [of Lent].

BCP 1662:  "we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves":  Second Sunday of Lent.

BCP 1979:  "no power in ourselves to help ourselves":  Third Sunday of Lent.