The collect for Ash Wednesday was this:

Concede nobis, Domine, praesidia militiae christianae sanctis inchoare ieiuniis, ut, contra spiritales nequitias pugnaturi, continentiae muniamur auxiliis. Per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus per omnia saecula saeculorum.

If you went to Mass in English, you heard:

Lord, protect us in our struggle against evil. As we begin the discipline of Lent, make this day holy by our self-denial. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever.

The English–like many of the collects–is completely different. Now, I’ll admit that the Latin is hard to translate for a number of reasons. Like all collects, it is one sentence containing several clauses. Also, this particular prayer uses extensive military imagery, which really sets the tone for Lent.

A more reasonable English translation might be (though it sounds clumsy):

Grant, O Lord, that we might begin the defense of the Christian army by holy fasting, so that, we who will fight against spiritual evils, might be safeguarded by the reinforcements of continence. Through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever.

Let’s look at the Latin again, with the military terms bolded:

Concede nobis, Domine, praesidia militiae christianae sanctis inchoare ieiuniis, ut, contra spiritales nequitias pugnaturi, continentiae muniamur auxiliis. Per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum Filium tuum, qui Tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus per omnia saecula saeculorum.

praesidium = defense, protection, garrison, detachment, support
militia = army, host, campaign
pugnaturus = about to fight
munire = to fortify, to strengthen, to defend (with a wall)
auxilia = auxiliary troops

In the Breviary, we say the Philippians 2 Canticle fairly often (I Vespers of Sunday Week I and III, to be precise). It’s beautiful in how it describes the Incarnation and the Ascension of Christ.

In the English Liturgy of the Hours, we read:

Though he was in the form of God,
Jesus did not deem equality with God
something to be grapsed at.

Rather, he emptied himself
and took the form of a slave,
being born in the likeness of men.

This is close to what many modern translations read (e.g., I believe the NIV, the NAB, and the RSV), but in the New Vulgate (which matches the Vulgate) the first line reads:

[Iesus] Qui cum in forma Dei esset
non rapinam arbitratus est
esse se aequalem Deo.

That is,

[Jesus] Who, since he was in the form of God
thought that it was not robbery
that he was equal to God.

Doesn’t that sound like almost the opposite idea? In the modern English, it sounds like Jesus was in the form of God but didn’t even begin to imagine that he could be equal with God. In the Latin, it sounds like Jesus was in the form of God and of course he knew that he was equal with God.

To be fair, translating that cum in the Latin is a little tough (the Greek lacks it for simple linguistic reasons but matches the Latin perfectly otherwise). Because esset is subjunctive, cum doesn’t refer to simple time (i.e., it does not just mean “when”), but since there’s not a hint of a tamen or anything else of the sort, the cum can’t be concessive (i.e., it doesn’t mean “though,” which is exactly what the English says). Rather, it seems like it should be causal (i.e., “because” or “since”). However, since the Greek lacks it, it may be better to omit it in English. Thus, something like “Being in the form of God …,” as I believe the Douay-Rheims has it, might be best.

The original reason for starting the website www.ipsissima-verba.org/ was to provide a place to archive Latin texts and translations. I wrote the original PHP software myself, and it was highly specialized for this task.

Once I made the switch to Drupal for content management, I could no longer achieve the same functionality, but the advantage was a stronger and more generic overall architecture.

Having learned a little bit about Drupal module writing for the Kenrick Liturgical Ministries website, I decided to try to improve the Latin Text Archive.

I now have the site in a much more usable configuration. When you view a Latin text, the translations, analysis, etc. that are associated with it appear in the right sidebar. If you view a translation or another piece of associated content, it appears side by side with the original text for comparison.

If I keep up this work, I’d like to develop a specialized way of categorizing texts. Right now, free tagging seems to be the best option since a hierarchy gets quite unwieldy when you have so many contingents (What is it? Which book is it in? Which edition of the book? Where is it in the book? etc.).

In part of a collection of religious and liturgical images from Musica Sacra, I found this image containing the opening words and symbols of each of the four Gospels surrounding the Lamb of God as well as various figures which signify Christ.

It even contains explanations of the Christological symbols:

“The monoceros (The Greek word for “unicorn”) figures the form of the birth of Christ of the Most Holy Virgin.”

“The eagle figures the form of the ascent of Christ into Heaven to the Father.”

“The pelican figures the form of the suffering of Christ for the salvation of men.”

“The lion figures the form of the raising of Christ from the dead on the third day.”

In the Office of Readings this morning, we read (From Malachi):

Ab ortu enim solis usque ad occasum magnum est nomen meum in gentibus, et in omni loco sacrificatur et offertur nomini meo oblatio munda …

My translation:

For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place a pure offering is sacrificed and offered to my name …

Eucharistic Prayer III has this line:

[...] ut a solis ortu usque ad occasum oblatio munda offeratur nomini tuo.

My translation:¹

[...] so that from the rising of the sun to its setting, a pure offering may be offered to your name.

Usually, I think of Eucharistic Prayer III as referencing Psalm 113 (”a solis ortu usque ad occasum laudabile nomen Domini“), but this reading from Malachi seems quite apt as well, especially since it mentions the “pure oblation” (oblatio munda), which is a clear type of Christ. It even mentions how this sacrifice is offered (or re-presented) throughout the world and at every time.

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1The currrent ICEL translation says “so that from East to West a perfect offering may be made to the glory of your name.” This translation is incorrect, and much has been said about it. Thankfully, it will be corrected.

This reflection came about because of a discussion on the Catholic Answers Forums.

A definition of art might be “an authentic human expression in a sensible medium.”

This means that art comes from human nature and human experience. Therefore, art is directed in some way to the Truth and the Good. These correspond to man’s spiritual faculties of intellect and will. Now, what makes art to be art rather than a purely intellectual exercise is the sensible expression. This is also why art is human: the visible is in harmony with the invisible. We are material bodies informed by spiritual souls.

To say that some art is ‘better’ than other art is to say that it accomplishes its end more effectively, namely, it expresses more profoundly human nature and human experience. Even art that is not explicitly Christian, to the degree that it expresses Truth or Beauty, references Christ in an implicit way. This is not only because Christ is the Truth and is Beauty in his divine nature but because Christ is fully human and without sin. Therefore, in his Person humanity and divinity are united perfectly, and Christ himself is the authentic expression of what it means to be human.

Now, if a piece or genre of art by its nature is misleading about human nature or about the human end (Truth, Good), then it could also be an occasion of sin because it could frustrate in those who experience it the achievement of man’s end: this is sin by definition.

This is not to say that art can never depict or express sinful things. By no means! Sometimes art presents a conflict. It could present a division in man between the visible and the invisible or between man’s end and where he actually finds himself. This does not make art less an authentic expression of human nature because it is expressing the truth of where man finds himself due to original sin. This very conflict makes us desire the resolution for the conflict–Christ–even more and, therefore, helps man to achieve his end.

We have to avoid, therefore, even aesthetic relativism. There is no Beauty without Truth, and there is no Good apart from these. This is simply because God himself is the Truth, the Good, and Beauty.

Some art, then, is more fully art than other art because it is more fully human.

Christ, then, is art par excellence: he is more fully human than we are because sin makes us less human. Why? Man is “in the image and likeness of God” (Note that this is the language of art). Sin defaces that image, but Christ is “the image of the invisible God.” In other words, Christ is “art of God”–a sensible expression of the invisible.

This is on a divine level in Christ’s divine nature: the Second Person is the perfect image of the First Person such that he is actually consubstantial with the First Person.

This is on a human level in Christ’s human nature: Christ’s human nature was flawless and perfectly subordinated to his divine nature. Thus, Christ in his human nature was a perfect human image of the Father: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”

Therefore, if Christ is perfect art in himself, divine and human, what are the sacraments? The sacraments–and especially the Eucharist–become more fully than anything art because in them is Christ. The sacraments are our visible, bodily, human encounter with Christ. This is more powerful than any other art because the sacraments not only point to Christ, but they were instituted (or “authored” or “composed”) by Christ and Christ is contained in them.

Because Christ is man’s end and also a perfect man himself, these sacraments instituted by him are a more authentic expression of true human nature and true human experience than anything we could come up with.

Not only that! The sacraments bring about grace in us. By our very reception of them, they help us achieve our end (if we do not resist). They not only dispose us to grace as other types of art might, but they confer grace to us: they give us the Holy Spirit.

Why is Gregorian chant the music most suited for the liturgy of the Roman Rite? Isn’t which music we find most beautiful or sacred a subjective judgment? No. We are in constant danger in this age of regarding beauty as subjective. In fact, God is Beauty. Beauty, therefore is beauty insofar as it corresponds to God, that is, to the Truth, that is, to the Good.

Gregorian chant has several qualities that make it sacred in an objective sense. One is that its instrument, properly speaking, is the human voice. Thus, in a very direct way, the instrument for chant was devised by God himself and calls to mind Christ’s perfect prayers to the Father and the psalms he chanted with a human voice.

Gregorian chant, also, has for its content primarily Scripture. Chant is not only for the liturgy or for the Scripture; it is of the liturgy and of the Scripture. The nature of the melodies, too, is such that it serves the text most effectively. The text and its musical expression are scarcely considered as separate in Gregorian chant. Thus, God may be said to be the author of the chant since its content is given by him in the Scriptures.

We must also not forget the Church’s role in the liturgy. Indeed, the essential and primary liturgies are given by God to the Church (e.g., the essential elements of the sacraments). However, the other rites and things which embellish these essential forms are given to us by the traditions of the Church. The Church, then, is a true mother because she teaches us how to pray, that is, she responds to God because she is united to Christ who perfectly responds to God.

We, then, are taken into the Church’s response, which is Christ’s response to the Father. The Church, therefore, teaches us an authentic and integral human response to God through her liturgical rites and by her presence in the world. We absolutely must pray, then, in continuity with the Church’s tradition. This is not only by following the rubrics but also by praying in the same words and with same melodies which are very ancient.

The traditional liturgical expressions of the Church can never be foreign to us because they are an authentic human response to God. We must allow ourselves to be formed by them so that we may be more fully human. In this way, the Church’s traditional liturgical responses to God: the rites, Gregorian chant and the Latin language (in the Roman Rite) etc. become an authentic personal response to God. We become conformed to the mind and heart of the Church and in doing so become conformed to the mind and heart of Christ. Thus, we become more authentically and integrally the image of God.

St. Augustine, Confessions:

O eternal truth, true love and beloved eternity.

The other day, we were watching a video on St. Paul, and at one point they showed a temple for pagan gods. Briefly, the camera caught a glimpse of the words “SIMVLACRA CASTORVM.” I thought it was funny because the word castor means “beaver,” so the phrase could mean “idols of beavers.”

Of course, it does not really mean this. The ambiguity (in a grammatical sense, not a logical one) comes because of the coincidence of the ending “orum” (Genitive, 2nd Decl. Masculine/Neuter Plural) and the ending “um” (Genitive, 3rd. Decl. Plural). Many third declension nouns that refer to people, especially as agents, end in “-or” such that the genitive plural ends with the letters “orum.”

For example, “peccatorum” on the face of it means either “of sins” or “of sinners.”

So, the phrase really means “the idols of the pure/holy/chaste.” Now … why does the word for “chaste,” castus, seem so similar to the word for “beaver,” castor? The answer the ancients gave is that the beaver makes himself chaste.

Thus, there is the ancient folklore surrounding the beaver, that is, that the beaver is hunted for its testicles, the oil of which can be used to make medicine. When it sees that it is being hunted and cannot escape, therefore, the beaver bites off its testicles and throws them to the hunter so that it preserves its life.

In this way, the beaver became a symbol of the Christian who casts off his attachment to sin so that the devil, seeing nothing he wants, does not pursue.

All this makes me wonder whether we get “castor oil” from this legend?

The Vox Clara committee recently expressed its hope that the new English translation of the Missale Romanum will be completed by the end of 2009.

This makes me wonder what it will be like trying to learn to celebrate Mass with so new a text. The congregation and I will be in the same boat of non-familiarity. Of course, if I already know all the silent prayers in Latin, that will help. The real danger is that out of nervousness, etc. I would revert to current-ICEL versions.

Imagine trying to break the “and also with you” habit when the greeting “the Lord be with you” is exactly the same.

This new translation is very sorely needed, however, and unlearning poor translations and learning accurate and beautiful translations will be of immense benefit.

While praying the Office of Readings the other day, I noticed the following phrase:

sed humiliasti nos in loco vulpium *
et operuisti nos umbra mortis (Psalm 43(44):20, Further revised New Vulgate)

My translation:

But you have set us low in a place of foxes *
and covered us with the shadow of death

When I read that, I remembered that foxes were considered as symbols of death and desolation because they scavenge for the dead.

For instance, Lamentations 5:18 says:

For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate: The foxes walk upon it.

And Nehemiah 4:3:

Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, Even that which they are building, if a fox go up, he shall break down their stone wall.

However, the reason I was startled by the verse at first was that I didn’t remember seeing it before.

The American version of the Liturgy of the Hours has this:

You have crushed us in a place of sorrows
and covered us with the shadow of death (Grail Psalter)

The Revised Standard Version renders it:

that thou shouldst have broken us in the place of jackals,
and covered us with deep darkness. (RSV, Psalm 44:19)

But, the Vulgate has:

quoniam deiecisti nos in loco draconum et operuisti nos umbra mortis (Vulgate, Psalm 44:20)

My translation of the Vulgate:

since you have cast us down in a place of dragons and covered us with the shadow of death

The Septuagint says:

οτι εταπεινωσας ημας εν τοπω κακωσεως και επεκαλυψεν ημας σκια θανατου (LXX, Psalm 43:20)

My translation of the LXX:

because you have set us low in a place of affliction and covered us with a shadow of death.

The relevant words from the Hebrew are: בִּמְקֹ֣ום תַּנִּ֑ים (WLC, Psalm 44:20) which literally means “in a place of dragons.” The word for ‘dragon’ is the same word that is used to describe sea-monsters, the golden serpent that Moses makes, etc.

Hmmm…

This came in handy on the Catholic Answers Forums the other day regarding a question about whether water had to be poured over the head in baptism.

Tractatus Canonico-Moralis de Sacramentis by Felix Cappello (Vol. 1, Fourth edition, p. 105) says this:

1 Aqua immediate tangere debet corpus baptizandi. Id ex ipso conceptu et fine ablutionis liquet. Nomine capitis intelligitur frons, vertex, visus.

Invalidus est Baptismus, si, prole nondum in lucem edita, matris corpus abluatur; item, si aqua tangat solum vestes baptizandi; validus, contra, est Baptismus, si aqua effundatur super caput crusta ulcerosa opertum aut sordibus ante lotionem adhuc obductum, quia corpus vere tangitur.

Dubius est Baptismus collatus super secundinam, i.e., super membranam qua usque ad partum infantis corpus involvitur.

Baptismus collatus super crines validus est, quia crines revera ad corpus pertinent ideoque, dum ipsi abluuntur, caput vere proprieque abluitur. Contraria opinio quavis caret solida probabilitate; quare attendenda non est.

2 Aqua super caput effundi debet. Id affirmatur, ut certa omnino sit validitas Baptismi. Probabilissime est validus Baptismus, speculative loquendo, si in alia notabili corporis parte, ex. gr., in pectore, vel scapulis, puer ablatus fuerit. Tamen certum omnino est, Baptismum in casu habendum esse practice ut dubium, et consequenter sub conditione postea repetendum.

My translation:

1 The water should directly touch the body of the person to be baptized. This is proved from the concept and purpose of washing. By the name head is understood the forehead, the crown, it seems.

Baptism is invalid, if, while the child has not yet been drawn into the light [read "born"], the body of the mother is washed; likewise, if the water only touches the clothes of the person to be baptized; Baptism is valid, on the other hand, if the water is poured over the head covered over by scabs or drawn out [read "delivered"] still covered in filth before being washed, because the body is truly touched.

Baptism is doubtful if conferred over the amniotic sac, i.e., over the membrane in which the body of an infant is wrapped up even till birth.

Baptism conferred over the hair is valid, because the hair in fact pertains to the body therefore, when it is washed, the head is truly and properly washed. Whatever opinion there is to the contrary lacks solid probability; therefore it should not be regarded.

2 The water should be poured over the head. This is affirmed, so that there might be the altogether certain validity of Baptism. Baptism is very probably valid, speculatively speaking, if the child is washed on other notable body parts, e.g., on the chest or shoulders. Nevertheless it is altogether certain, that Baptism in that case should be regarded practically as doubtful, and consequently should afterward be repeated under condition.