Lost in Translation #137
Following the Communicantes, the priest prays the Hanc igitur:
Hanc ígitur oblatiónem servitútis nostrae, sed et cunctae familiae tuae, quaesumus, Dómine, ut placátus accipias: diesque nostros in tua pace dispónas, atque ab aeterna damnatióne nos éripi, et in electórum tuórum júbeas grege numerári. Per Christum Dóminum nostrum. Amen.
Which the 2011 ICEL edition translates as:
Therefore, Lord, we pray: graciously accept this oblation of our service, that of your whole family; order our days in your peace, and command that we be delivered from eternal damnation and counted among the flock of those you have chosen. (Through Christ our Lord. Amen.) [1]
And which I translate as:
We therefore beseech You, O Lord, graciously to accept this oblation of our service, but also of Your whole family; that You may dispose our days in Your peace and deliver us from eternal damnation, and that You may bid us to be numbered in the flock of Your Elect. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Hanc igitur, writes Fr. Adrian Fortescue, “is perhaps the most difficult prayer in the Mass.” [2] Scholars have speculated that it is a fragment of a litany of intercession said by the deacon before it was taken over by the priest and made a later addition to the Canon, with St. Gregory the Great putting on the finishing touches before his death in A.D. 600. And variations of the prayer, both in its main and subordinate clauses, abound: In the 1962 Missals, there are four (Holy Thursday, Easter, Pentecost, and at a bishop’s ordination), but the Gelasian Sacramentary lists thirty-eight.
The Hanc igitur is a recognizable feature of the Mass because the bells are rung when it is begun, while the priest stretches his hands over the oblata, his right thumb forming the sign of the cross over his left. This action imitates that of the Hebrew priest stretching his hands over the Old Testament scapegoat, which ritually took on the sins of the people and was subsequently sacrificed. (see Lev. 16, 11-14) Originally, lots were cast to determine which of two goats would be the scapegoat and which would be set free in the wilderness. The arrangement is evocative of the fickle crowd choosing Barabbas over Jesus, on whom was laid the iniquity of us all. (see Is. 53, 6)
The custom of stretching the hands over chalice and host did not arise until the fifteenth century. One theory is that the original signs of the cross before the consecration were a de facto epiclesis or calling of the Holy Spirit upon the gifts; after this meaning was forgotten over time (and signs of the crosses were added to the prayers after the consecration to change the meaning further), the scapegoat-gesture was added to have the same pneumatological effect. [3] Whatever the reason, this action about a goat, as we will see below, fits in well with the prayer’s words about sheep.
And since debates over the epiclesis (and whether the Roman Rite even needs one) continue unresolved, let us turn our attention to the language of the text:
For the second time, the word igitur occurs in the Canon, with the sense of continuing an interrupted thought. Perhaps the “interruption” was dwelling on the Church Triumphant in the Communicantes; in any event, the priest returns to “the oblation of our service.” The service in mind is probably that of the clerics serving in the sanctuary, which is why it is followed by “that of Your whole family.” Unlike the Te igitur, which mentions “those standing around,” the reference to God’s whole family includes those who are not physically present at Mass, but who unite their intentions to the sacrifice of the altar nonetheless. Anyone who does a Morning Offering that includes the petition “O my Jesus....I offer You my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day... in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world” falls into this category.
The prayer describes the oblation as the product of our servitus, which both ICEL and I translate as “service.” “Service” is accurate, but it is perhaps too innocent a word. A rich and powerful man, for example, can provide a service to his community by funding a public park. Servitus, on the other hand, denotes the condition of a servus or slave. [4] It is the oblation of our servitude or the oblation of our enslavement to Jesus Christ that is being offered, not that of a titan of the economy like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos. [5]
Finally, as Fr. Nicholas Gihr writes, “The same petitions are again presented, but now with heightened confidence and intensified expression.” [6] This prayer presumes that even if we consider ourselves part of God’s family, it is not a foregone conclusion that we are part of his Elect flock. The addition of the scapegoat-gesture heightens this sentiment: just as we ritually acknowledge that Jesus Christ is He who made Himself a goat for our sake by taking on our sins and being cast out, so too we pray that we may be a part of His sheepfold, numbered at the right hand of the Father and not counted on His left. But this heightening is negated when the stretching of hands is moved to another prayer, as it is in the Novus Ordo over the Quam oblationem.
Notes
[1] 2011 Roman Missal, p. 638.
[2] Adrian Fortescue, The Mass: A Study of the Roman Liturgy (Longmans, Green, and Co, 1912), p. 333.
[3] Daniel Cardó, The Cross and the Eucharist in Early Christianity: A Theological and Liturgical Investigation (Cambridge University Press, 2019).
[4] “Servĭtūs, ūtis,” Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary.
[5] Almost every Epistle writer in the New Testament calls himself a slave of Jesus Christ: Paul (Rom. 1, 1), Peter (2 Pet. 1, 1), Jude (Jude 1, 1), and John (Rev. 1, 1).
[6] Gihr, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, p. 622.
