After the Lord’s Prayer, the priest says:
Libera nos, quaesumus, Domine, ab omnibus malis, praeteritis, praesentibus et futuris: et intercedente beata et gloriosa semper Virgine Dei Genitrice María, cum beatis Apostolis tuis Petro et Paulo, atque Andrea, et omnibus Sanctis (signing himself with the paten), da propitius pacem in diebus nostris (kissing the paten): ut, ope misericordiæ tuæ adjuti, et a peccato simus semper liberi et ab omni perturbatione securi.
Which I translate as:
Deliver us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, from all evils, past, present, and future; and through the intercession of the Blessed and glorious ever Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, and Thy blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul, as well as Andrew, and of all the Saints (signing himself with the paten), graciously grant us peace in our days (kissing the paten), so that aided by the assistance of Thy mercy we may always be free from sin, and safe from all disturbance.
The name for this prayer is the Embolism (from the Greek embolismos, an addition or interpolation). Most Eastern Rites and all Western ones (Roman, Ambrosian, Gallican, Mozarabic) have one. The exception is the Byzantine Rite, which instead “adds” a Trinitarian ending: “For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and forever and unto ages of ages.” In the Roman Rite, the Embolism is said in a low voice except on Good Friday, when it is said aloud, perhaps to add urgency to the petition on that sorrowful day.
All Evils
The Roman embolism develops the last petition of the Lord’s Prayer. As we saw last week, since Latin lacks a definite article, Sed libera nos a malo can be translated “But deliver us from evil” rather than “But deliver us from the Evil One.” The embolism expands upon the nature of evil, asking for deliverance from all evils, past, present, and future. As Fr. Nicholas Gihr explains:
Of past evils, sins especially often continue to abide in their painful consequences, in their unhappy results and fruits the latter, therefore, should be totally removed and obviated. In the present we are pressed down by evils from within and without, from all sides, and from these we wish to be delivered. The future is frequently enveloped in darkness, and in its bosom conceals a host of threatening evils and from these we would beg to be spared. [1]
Four Saints
The Embolism seeks the intercession of all the saints, but it singles out four: the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Apostles Peter, Paul, and Andrew. As with the Confiteor, the prayer follows the ancient usage of calling some of the saints “Blessed” (beati) rather than “Saint” (sancti): in the Confiteor, it is Michael the Archangel and John the Baptist. In the Embolism, the usage is particularly appropriate since in asking for peace, the Embolism is essentially asking for happiness, and Beatus literally means “made happy.” We seek happiness with the aid of those who have been made happy in the light of glory.
The Church naturally turns to the Mother of God (as she does throughout the Mass) as her chief saintly intercessor, and the Church of Rome naturally turns to her own two founders, Peter and Paul, as she does elsewhere (see the Confiteor and the Suscipe Sancta Trinitas and the Prayers after Low Mass). It is thought that Pope St. Gregory the Great is the one who added Saint Andrew’s name to the Embolism, and three reasons are typically given for his decision: first, that Gregory had a personal devotion to Andrew; second, that Andrew is the next ranking Apostle after Peter and Paul (see the Communicantes); and third, that Gregory was influenced by the Byzantine Rite, which praises Andrew as the founder of the Faith in Constantinople. [2]
Yet none of these reasons explains why Gregory added Andrew’s name to this prayer and not someplace else. I believe the answer lies in the role that Andrew plays in the Gospels. Andrew is the Apostle who brings others to Christ. It was he who introduced his brother Peter to Jesus, (John 1, 40-42) and it was he who, along with Philip, tried to introduce some Gentiles to Jesus. (see John 12, 20-22) Moreover, Andrew is the Apostle who helps make an encounter with the Eucharistic Lord happen, for it was he who introduced the boy with the five loaves and two fishes to Jesus. (see John 6, 8-9) Just as Andrew is instrumental in a foreshadowing of the Eucharist (a miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes), so too do we ask him now to be instrumental in preparing us for Holy Communion.
And our author/editor could have written Petro, Paulo, et Andrea but instead he wrote Petro et Paulo, atque Andrea. Atque is a conjunction with “adversative force”: whereas et “designates an external connection of different objects with each other,” atque in general indicates “a close internal connection between single words or whole clauses.” [3] Here, however, it is possible that the word stresses Andrew’s importance vis-à-vis Holy Communion, in which case it could be translated “and especially Andrew.” [4]
Evil vs. Peace
The prayer follows the pattern of “out with the bad, in with the good.” The bad that we want out is evil; the good that we want in is peace. One may wonder why we do not petition for a more natural opposite of evil, such as goodness or holiness. I suspect that there are two reasons. First, peace is the opposite of evil insofar as evil robs us of our peace. And second, we ask for peace as a preparation for Holy Communion because peace, as Augustine famously defines it, is the tranquility of order. [5] A soul that is truly at peace is a soul that is well ordered and thus maximally receptive to the graces of the Eucharist.
But the prayer also has in mind our welfare outside of Holy Communion. The ultimate goal of being delivered from evil and granted peace is to be free from sin always (our spiritual welfare) and to be secure from all disturbance (our temporal welfare). The word perturbatio can refer to a political disturbance such as a riot or a tumult, [6] or to a personal disturbance, as in a state of mental agitation. (The English derivative “perturbation” retains both of these meanings, although the political meaning is now considered obsolete.) [7] In On Genesis against the Manicheans, St. Augustine writes about perturbations in such a way that the passage almost seems to be an embolism of the Embolism:
This is the happy and tranquil life for man: when all his emotions are in accord with reason and truth, and they are called joys and loves: holy and chaste and good. But if they are not in accord while they are being ruled negligently, they rip the mind to pieces and dissipate it and make life utterly miserable. Then they are called perturbations and lusts and evil desires. [8]
Gestures
The gestures of the priest as he recites the Embolism add further meaning to the prayer. At the words, “graciously grant us peace in our days,” the priest makes the sign of the cross with the paten over himself, and when he finishes, he kisses the top of the paten. St. Paul tells the Colossians that Christ reconciled all things to Himself, “making peace through the blood of His cross” (1, 20), and here the sign of the cross draws the blessing of peace purchased by the cross: we can almost picture the priest’s perturbations getting reordered and pacified as the sign is made over him. The priest then kisses the paten before he places it under the Host and moves the paten and Host to the right of the chalice. A kiss is a sign of peace (and indeed the kiss of peace is to be given shortly at a Solemn High Mass), and the paten will soon assume the significance of the Holy Sepulcher, holding the Body of Our Lord. The priest’s kiss is thus a tender tribute to our Lord in the tomb. Further underscoring this symbolism is the placement of the Host to the right of the chalice, as the last drops of Blood that flowed from Our Lord came from His right side.
The Novus Ordo
During the creation of the Novus Ordo Missae, Pope Paul VI expressed a wish to keep the Embolism intact, but Annibale Bugnini and his peers did not accept his suggestion on the grounds that “it did not seem appropriate to repeat intercessions made a few moments ago in the Eucharistic Prayer.” [9] Both the Eucharistic Prayer I (the Roman Canon) and the Embolism are from the Patristic era, which was supposed to function as the gold standard for the ensuing liturgical reforms. [10]. Instead, Bugnini appealed to another principle from the same document, the elimination of “useless repetitions.” [11]. The only problem is that the intercessions in the Embolism are not a repetition of those in the Canon; they are distinctive.
And so, the 1970 Missal made several changes to the Embolism. First, it was to be said aloud always and not just on Good Friday. Second, a version of the Byzantine ending (also found in some Biblical manuscripts at Matthew 6, 13), “For the kingdom, the power and glory are yours, now and for ever,” was added, in part because of its “ecumenical value” – not, we speculate, in order to draw closer to the Byzantine Rite, but to be more aligned with Protestant services. [12]. Third, the invocation of the four saints was removed, thus eliminating a “scandal of particularity” characteristic of all Apostolic liturgies. Fourth, a reference to the Parousia was added in order to rescue “the embolism from a kind of ‘horizontalism.’ ” [13] Huh? And fifth, the tender gestures involving the paten were omitted.
Vernacular translations further flattened the Embolism. For the rich perturbatio, the first ICEL version used “protect us from all anxiety.” Anxiety is very much on the mind of modern man (fair enough), but it is not a faithful transposition of what our spiritual ancestors meant. Fortunately, the 2011 ICEL fares better with “safe from all distress,” which keeps both the personal and political connotations of the noun intact. For even in an age of psychological anxiety, we still live in a time of great political uncertainty.
Notes
[1] Gihr, 702.
[2] See Jungmann, 285-286.
[3] “Atque or ac,” Lewis & Short Latin Dictionary.
[4] See Ibid., I.B.b.
[5] City of God 19.13.
[6] See the Vulgate translation of 2 Machabees 13, 16.
[7] “Perturbation, noun,” OED, 1.a. and 1.b.
[8] De Genesi contra Manichaeos libri duo 1.31, trans. mine. Following Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations 4, 5, 10, Augustine holds that perturbation is the Latin equivalent of the Greek pathos. (City of God 8.17) Augustine also follows the Stoics and Cicero in defining the four disturbances (perturbationes) of the mind as desire, joy, fear, and sadness (see Conf. 10.14.21; Cicero, De finibus 3.10.35; Disputationes Tusculanae 4.6.11).
[9] Bugnini, 380.
[10] Sacrosanctum Concilum, 50.
[11] Ibid., 34.
[12] Bugnini, 376.
[13] Ibid.
