"the triumph of action and technologism over contemplation"

     "The crisis in liturgy is therefore a crisis of the first order that goes right to the heart of the 'social question,' and thus the human question.  Objectively, the loss of a transcendent horizon signals the eclipse of what Cardinal Ratzinger calls liturgy's 'cosmic dimension,' the relationship between the paschal mystery and the meaning and destiny of the universe.  Liturgy thus loses its connection with life.  Subjectively, it represents a deficit of adoration, wonder, and gratitude.  Both are reflected in the inorganic and a-cultural character of contemporary liturgical development and its failure to generate a culture of festive gratitude capable of reflecting the mysteries of creation and redemption in time and space or to penetrate the world of human making.  The crisis in liturgy thus reflects the triumph of action and technologism over contemplation.  To acquiesce to this crisis is ultimately to deliver up the laity to the inhuman dynamism of technological culture.  For if there is no place for beauty and for contemplative making in the life of the contemporary Church, what hope is there for the future of human making as a whole?  Those who would argue for the 'democratic' leveling of liturgy, for removing of all trace of grandeur or mystery or transcendence in the name of 'the people' argue at cross purposes with themselves."

     Michael Hanby, "Homo faber and/or Homo adorans:  on the place of human making in a sacramental cosmos," Communio:  international Catholic review 38, no. 2 (Summer 2011):  234-235 (198-236).

"You do not pay any attention to what you are praying, yet you want God to?"

Σὺ οὐκ ἀκούεις τῆς εὐχῆς σου, καὶ τὸν θεὸν θέλεις εἰσακοῦσαι τῆς εὐχῆς σου;

     Pseudo John Chrysostom, De Chananaea (On the Canaanites) =PG 52, col. 458.  Literally, "You do not hear your prayer, yet you want God to hearken to your prayer?"  The subject is those who "'recite innumerable verses of prayer, yet are withdrawn; but they know not what they have said.  Their lips move but their ears hear not'" (DS, sv Attention (tom. 1, col. 1063), by R. Vernay).

Cardinal Bellarmine warns Pope Clement VIII in 1602 that he is no theologian

From the autobiography of 1613:

"Nevertheless [Bellarmine] himself often warned [(admonuit)] the Pope that he should beware of self-delusions [(fraudes)]; and that he should not think himself capable, by personal study (since he was not a theologian), of arriving at an understanding of the most obscure matters; and openly predicted to him that that question was not to be defined by His Holiness; and when [His Holiness] reiterated [that it] would be self-defined [(replicaret se definiturum)], [Bellarmine] responded:  ‘Your Holiness will not define it,’ and he predicted this same thing to Cardinal del Monte, who later reminded [Bellarmine] himself [of this]."

"Ipse tamen N. saepe admonuit Pontificem, ut caveret fraudes, et ut non putaret, se studio proprio, cum theologus non esset, posse ad intelligentiam rei obscurissimae pervenire, et aperte illi praedixit, a Sanctitate sua quaestionem illam non esse definiendam, et cum ille replicaret se definiturum, respondit N.:  Sanctitas vestra non eam definiet, et hoc idem praedixit Cardinali de Monte, qui postea ipsi N. in memoriam revocavit."

From the letter of 1602, as translated into German, with the original Italian (which I do not really read) inserted:

"the way [of self-study that] you have taken [will] turn out to be too long and too hard for Your Holiness."

"la via che ha preso riesce molto lunga e molto laboriosa a V. Beatitudine."


"such a great effort on the part of Your Holiness is not necessary, and you have already seen and read enough."

"tanta fatica della Sta Vra non è necessaria, e già ha visto e letto assai."


"many popes have, without struggling away at studying, happily condemned many errors with the help of councils and universities, and others have by much studying brought themselves and the Church into great suffering."

"molti Pontefici senza faticarsi in studiare hanno felicemente dannati molti errori con ajuto di concilii ed accademie, ed altri con molto studiare hanno messo in gran travaglio se stessi e l chiesa."


"Most Holy Father!  I do not mention these things to prevent you from studying, but to encourage you to consider that the way is too long, and that on this way the Church suffers the greatest harm."

"Bmo. Padre non dico queste cose per divertirla dallo studio ma per metterle in considerazione che questa via è troppo lunga, et in questo mezzo la Chiesa riceve grandissimo danno."


"commend the matter to God and then . . . decide to put this fire out quickly."

"raccommandi il negozio a Dio, e poi si risolva di estinguere presto fuoco."

     For the sources, go here.  Bellarmine was profoundly opposed to Pope Clement VIII's determination to master the intricacies of the de auxiliis controversy because he didn't think him capable of grasping and then deciding correctly on his own a matter that the Jesuit Bellarmine himself had been studying professionally (in opposition to the Dominicans) for thirty years.

The primary sources on Cardinal Bellarmine's slap-down of Pope Gregory VIII in 1602

Letter to Pope Clement VIII (1602):

* Italian original:

• Beiträge zur politischen, kirchlichen und culturgeschichte der Sechs Letzten Jahrhunderte 3 (1882), pp. 83 ff.
• Delizie delli eruditi bibliofili Italiani 7 (1865), pp. 57 ff.:  Internet Archive; BSB

* German translation:  Selbstbiographie des Cardinals Bellarmin (Bonn, 1887), pp. 260 ff. 

Autobiographical account (1613):

* Vita ven[erabilis] Roberti cardinalis Bellarmini (Louvain, 1753 (Rome, 1676, but composed in 1613)), p. 43 

* Sammlung der neusten Schriften, welche die Jesuiten in Portugal betreffen 4 (1762):  Latin/German, p. 84/85 ff.

 

* Selbstbiographie des Cardinals Bellarmin (Bonn, 1887)

• Latin, pp. 45-46
• German:  p. 71

     For some excerpts, go here.

Semper ambigua

"The concept of the semper reformanda has been popular with persons of very different views.  And this popularity lies undoubtedly in the vagueness in which the semper reformanda is wrapped."

"de semper reformanda-gedachte bij personen van zeer uiteenlopende opvattingen populair is geweest.  En deze populariteit ligt ongetwijfeld in de vaagheid waarmee het semper reformanda omhuld is."

     J. N. Mouthaan, "Besprekingsartikel:  Ecclesia semper reformanda:  modern of premodern?," Documentatieblad Nadere Reformatie 38, no. 1 (2014):  89 (86-89), translation mine.  One of Mouthaan's contributions to the history is Anna Maria van Schurman's reference to "een 'ware particuliere gereformeerde, ofte sig reformerende kerke'" in 1670.  But unlike Johannes Hoornbeeck, who wielded the reformanda against schism, Schurman used it as an expression of schism.

     For much more, go here.

interior intimo meo

Communio

"Although being is not irrational, it is nonetheless always more than what a mind can comprehend just by looking at it.  As created being, it is not infinite; yet even as finite being it can never be so exhaustively captured that there is nothing further to grasp.  The infinite Creator has equipped it with the grace of participation in the inexhaustibility of its origin.  You are never finished with any being, be it the tiniest gnat or the most inconspicuous stone.  It has a secret opening, through which the never-failing replenishments of sense and significance ceaselessly flow to it from eternity [(Es hat eine geheime Öffnung, durch die ihm immer neue Vorrätte an Sinn und Bedeutung vom Ewigen her zufließen)]."

     Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-logic:  theological logical theory, vol. 1, The truth of the world (San Francisco:  Ignatius Press, 2000):  107, underscoring mine.  I was put onto this by Michael Hanby, "Homo faber and/or homo adorans:  on the place of human making in a sacramental cosmos," Communio:  international Catholic review 38, no. (Summer 2011):  216 (198-236).  The quote appears on p. 113 of the German edition of 1987.

redemptio-libertas, adoptio-hereditas

"O God, by whom we are redeemed and receive adoption, look graciously upon your beloved sons and daughters, that those who believe in Christ may receive true freedom and an everlasting inheritance.  Through."

"Deus, per quem nobis et redemptio venit et praestatur adoptio, filios dilectionis tuae benignus intende, ut in Christo credentibus et vera tribuatur libertas, et hereditas aeterna.  Per."

O God, by whom to us both redemption comes and adoption is offered/accomplished, turn, [being] benificent, your attention to the sons/children of your love, to the end that, upon those who believe in Christ, both true liberty is bestowed, and an eternal inheritance.

     Collect for the Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Roman Missal.  This is present in the Wilson edition of the mid-8th-century Gelasian sacramentary.  Bruylants, nos. 96 and 98 (vol. 1, pp. 45-46), fingers the post-790 sacramentary of Gellone, a sacramentary in the Gelasian tradition.  It also occurs as no. 427 in the post-790 Hadrianum, a sacramentary in the Gregorian tradition.  Father Z gives the pre-2010 "translation" as

God our Father, you redeem us, and make us your children in Christ. Look upon us, give us true freedom and bring us to the inheritance you promised.