Lost in Translation #159
In order to honor the 800th anniversary year of the passing of St Francis of Assisi, we interrupted our explication of the Ordinary of the Mass with several weeks dedicated to Francis’ Canticle of the Sun. That being complete, we now return to the Mass. Since our last entry was on the Nobis quoque peccatoribus, we turn now to the prayer in the Canon that follows it:
Per quem haec omnia, Dómine, semper bona creas, sanctíficas, vivíficas, benedícis, et praestas nobis.
Which I translate as:
Through Whom, O Lord, You forever create, sanctify, enliven, bless, and give all these good things to us.
Our first task is to determine the referents to the
words “whom” (quem) and “all these” (haec omnia). The “whom” is easy, since the
previous prayer ends with “Through Christ our Lord.” God the Father endlessly
creates, sanctifies, enlivens, and blesses through His Son, the Word through
whom all things are made. (John 1, 1) Or, to borrow the framework of St. Maximus
the Confessor, in the Word (Logos) are all the little words (logoi) of
creation, words that are the blueprints for each and every created thing. All
creatures, then, are images and signs of the Divine Logos who loved them into
existence.
The identity of “all these good things” is less
clear. The preceding prayer, the Nobis quoque peccatoribus, asks for two good
things, a part and a fellowship with fifteen named saints. But one does not
normally think of a part and a fellowship as creatures. The newly consecrated
Eucharist could be what the prayer has in mind, but only if we think first of (created)
bread and wine that is then sanctified, enlivened, and blessed to become Christ’s
Body and Blood.
Solving this puzzle requires a historical
knowledge of the prayer. At this point of the Canon, the early Roman liturgy sometimes
paused in order to have certain products of nature blessed, often in tandem
with the liturgical year. For a solemn baptism, water, milk and honey were
blessed; on St Stephen’s Day (December 26), fodder for cattle; on St John the
Apostle’s Day (December 27), wine; on St Blaise’s Day (February 3), bread,
wine, fruits, and seeds; on St Agatha’s Day (February 5), bread and water; on
Easter Sunday, the “Easter lamb”; and on St Xystus’ Day (August 6), grapes. A
residue of this custom remains in the Roman Rite when the bishop blesses the
oil for the sick in the Holy Thursday Mass. [1]
The Per quem haec omnia, then, is most likely the
unchanging conclusion to various blessings once used throughout the year. This
in itself is significant, for by placing a blessing of creatures within the Canon,
a link is established between the Eucharist and creation, and that link remains
even when there is no particular blessing of a creature. As Jungmann eloquently
puts it, “The Incarnation itself was the grand consecration of creation,” [2]
for in the grand words of the Roman Martyrology on Christmas Eve:
In the sixth age of the world, while the whole earth was at peace, Jesus Christ, Himself Eternal God and Son of the Eternal Father, wishing to consecrate the world by His most merciful coming, having been conceived of the Holy Spirit, and when nine months were passed after His conception, was born of the Virgin Mary at Bethlehem of Juda, made Man, our Lord Jesus Christ was born according to the flesh.
The wording of the prayer is curious. God the
Father, through His Son, does four things to “all these good things”: He
creates them, sanctifies them, enlivens them, and blesses them. To underscore its
meaning, the priest makes the sign of the cross three times during this prayer,
when he says “sanctify,” “enliven,” and “bless” but not when he says “create.” Such
is also the pattern in the Genesis account of creation, where God first creates
and then blesses.
The addition of “sanctify” and “enliven” may seem
superfluous, but it introduces a “Pneumatological” (or Holy Spirit) dimension,
thus acknowledging a Trinitarian role in creating and redeeming creation.
Sanctification hearkens to when God blessed and sanctified the seventh day
(Gen. 2, 3), while “enliven” (vivificas) is from the same word used to describe
the Holy Spirit in the Nicene Creed, the Vivificans or Life-Giver.
William Durandus sees even more in the prayer:
And so, “You create” by founding nature, “You sanctify” by consecrating matter, “You enliven by transubstantiating creation, and “You bless” by increasing grace. Indeed, what is said about these things is simply a demonstration of the pronoun… “these things”—obviously, bread, wine, and water, He always creates good things according to primordial canonical causes. “You sanctify” according to sacramental causes; “You enliven,” that it may pass into Flesh and Blood; and “You bless,” that it may preserve unity and charity. [3]
Notes
[1] The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development, vol. 2 (New York: Benzinger Brothers, 1951), p. 260.
[2] See Jungmann, vol. 2, p. 263.
[3] See William Durandus, Rationale Divinorum Officionorum IV.46.9.
