The Simili modo: Biblical Background

Lost in Translation #141

To turn a mixture of wine and water into the Blood of the Son of Man, the priest prays:

Símili modo postquam cenátum est, accipiens et hunc praeclárum cálicem in sanctas ac venerábiles manus suas: item tibi gratias agens, benedixit, deditque discípulis suis, dicens: Accípite, et bíbite ex eo omnes.

Hic est enim Calix Sánguinis mei, novi et aeterni testamenti: mysterium fídei: qui pro vobis et pro multis effundétur in remissiónem peccatórum.

Haec quotiescumque fecéritis, in mei memoriam faciétis.

Which I translate as:

In a similar way, after dinner, taking also this excellent chalice into His holy and venerable hands, again giving You thanks, He blessed it and gave it to His disciples saying: Take and drink from this, all of you.

For this is the Chalice of My Blood, of the new and everlasting covenant, the Mystery of Faith; which shall be poured forth for you and for many for the remission of sins.

As often as you do these things, you shall do them in memory of Me.

Today, we will examine the biblical background behind this prayer; next week, we will examine the Roman Canon’s modifications.

The Words of Institution for the Precious Blood in the New Testament are more peculiar than those for Our Lody’s Body. The Gospels according to Matthew and Mark have a straightforward formula: Hic est enim sanguis meus novi testamenti—“For this is My blood of the New Covenant” (Matt. 26, 28; see Mark 14, 24). But Luke’s Gospel and Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians have: “This chalice is the New Covenant in My Blood” (Luke 22, 20; see 1 Cor. 11, 25). The statement is sufficient for transubstantiation, but it is less direct; moreover, it draws attention to that which holds the Precious Blood, a manmade chalice, while there is no corresponding artifact of importance associated with the Host. (It rests at various times on the corporal and the paten, but neither is mentioned in the prayers). The Roman Canon follows the Lucan-Pauline tradition, although it also retains the word enim from Matthew’s account of the Last Supper (or perhaps it is a coincidence). St. Thomas Aquinas defends the formula Hic est enim Calix Sanguinis mei by arguing that the chalice is either a metonymy for Christ’s Blood or a reference to His Passion, for He referred to His Passion as a chalice (see Matt. 26, 39) and it was by virtue of His Passion that His Blood was separated from His Body. [1]

The Roman Canon follows Saints Luke and Paul in two other respects. First, both authors state that the consecration of the wine happened in a similar manner to that of the bread. The Vulgate uses the adverb similiter to express this fact, while the Canon uses the adjectival phrase simili modo.

Second, Saints Luke and Paul and the Roman Canon stipulate that the consecration of the wine took place after dinner. The Vulgate uses a simple means of communicating this fact with postquam coenavit or “After he dined.” The Canon, on the other hand, uses the impersonal passive voice, a construction popular in several languages in which the verb essentially has no subject. (The closest equivalent in English is the use of “there,” as in “There are no bananas.”) If one wanted to assert in Latin that a dance was going on, one would say saltatur, or “it is being danced.” In the case of the Canon, the phrase postquam cenatum est is most slavishly translated “after it was dined” or “after dinner took place.” The 2011 ICEL translation captures the flavor of the impersonal passive with its “when supper was ended.” Preconciliar hand Missals, on the other hand, often drew from the Vulgate phrasing and had “after He had supped.”

All four New Testament accounts identify Christ’s Blood as the Blood of the New Covenant; they do not do the same for Christ’s Body. Biblically speaking, blood is the sine qua non for contracting a covenant; indeed, the Hebrew phrase for making a covenant is “to cut a covenant.” With the exception of circumcision, Old Testament covenants were made with a vicarious victim. Here, Christ offers His own blood as an everlasting covenant for the remission of our sins. The significance is at least threefold.

The first is ablution and aspersion, washing and sprinkling. The flesh of the sacrificial lamb may have been eaten during the feast of Passover, but its blood was sprinkled on the doorposts, thereby averting the Angel of death. Similarly, St. Peter speaks of being sanctified for “the sprinkling of the Blood of Jesus Christ,” (1 Pet. 1, 2) while the Book of Revelation describes the Blood of the Lamb of God as washing the white robes of the saints. (7, 14; cf. 1, 5)

Second, the red Blood that washes white also redeems, buying us back from the slave block of the devil. In the Epistle to the Hebrews we read that “neither by the blood of goats or of calves, but by His own blood [Christ] entered once into the Holies, having obtained eternal redemption.” (Heb. 9, 12) One of the earliest epithets for the Savior’s Blood in Church parlance is pretium redemptionis nostrae, the “price of our redemption.”

Third, we remember the Atonement, with its teaching on sin and propitiation. The Blood forcibly reminds us of our shared responsibility in spilling it, and God’s mercy in accepting it as our reconciliation with Him. In the Book of Genesis, the blood of Abel “speaks” from the ground. (4, 10) What does it say? That Cain is guilty. Similarly, the Epistle to the Hebrews states that the Blood of Christ “speaks better” than Abel’s. (12, 24) What does it say? That we are guilty, but that we are also reconciled. Christ was wounded for our iniquities, (Is. 53, 5) but it is by these stripes that we are healed. (1 Pet. 2, 24) Hence, God proposes His Son as “a propitiation, through faith in His blood…for the remission of former sins.” (Rom. 3, 25)

As a sidenote, the differing qualities of body and blood are why it is appropriate to have separate feasts honoring Christ’s Eucharistic Body and His Precious Blood. For although to receive one is to receive the other (thanks to concomitance), the connotations of each are different. When we think of the Host, we think of spiritual food and, as the Feast of Corpus Christi puts it, a “pledge of our future glory,” that is, our glorified bodies. But when we think of the Precious Blood, we think of immolation, sprinkling, redemption, atonements, etc.

All three Gospels accounts use the verb fundetur or effundetur for what happens to this Blood; the Roman Canon uses effundetur. Although some preconciliar hand Missals translate effundetur as “shed,” the 2011 ICEL translation’s “poured out” is more accurate, for the verb effundere means to pour forth, rather than to cut into something and make blood flow. It is a fitting choice for the Blood that Our Lord shed, for indeed it was poured out like a libation. According to tradition, Jesus Christ was exsanguinated during His Passion, pouring forth every drop of His blood for the sake of humanity—even posthumously, His slain side issued forth blood and water. And “pouring out” also describes the movement of wine, first into the chalice and then into the mouth of the recipient.

Finally, the New Testament accounts give different answers to the question for whom this Blood is poured out. Matthew and Mark state that it is pro multis (“for many”), while Luke states that it is pro vobis (“for you”). Paul is silent on the matter; instead he writes: hoc facite quotiescumque bibetis, in meam commemorationem (“As often as you do these things, you shall do them in memory of Me.”). The Roman Canon combines all three elements into a seamless whole.

The translation of pro multis was once the subject of controversy, since the original ICEL rendered it “for all” instead of “for many” (the 2011 translation corrected this). Although God does indeed want all to be saved, (see 1 Tim. 2, 4) the translation shows a certain haughty disregard for the original meaning and raised fears that the heresy of universalism was being encouraged. My own sense is that the pro multis is not meant to weigh in on what percentage of the population is going to Heaven or Hell; rather, it is a statement about the scope of this New and Everlasting Covenant that is being cut. The Mosaic covenant, for example, was for the few, the tiny nation of Israel; the Davidic covenant was for the one, David himself. The New Covenant, by contrast, is not for the one or for the few; it is for the many, for Jew and Gentile alike. [2]

Notes

[1] Summa Theologiae III.78.3.ad 1.

[2] See [1] Summa Theologiae III.78.3.ad 8: “The blood of Christ’s Passion has its efficacy not merely in the elect among the Jews, to whom the blood of the Old Testament was exhibited, but also in the Gentiles; nor only in priests who consecrate this sacrament, and in those others who partake of it; but likewise in those for whom it is offered. And therefore He says expressly, ‘for you,’ the Jews, ‘and for many,’ namely the Gentiles; or, ‘for you’ who eat of it, and ‘for many,’ for whom it is offered.”

The Qui pridie

Lost in Translation #140

To turn unleavened bread into the Flesh of the Son of Man, the duly ordained Roman Catholic priest prays:

Qui pridie quam paterétur, accépit panem in sanctas ac venerábiles manus suas, et elevátis óculis in cælum, ad te Deum Patrem suum omnipotentem, tibi gratias agens, benedixit, fregit, deditque discípulis suis, dicens: Accípite, et manducáte ex hoc omnes.

Hoc est enim Corpus meum.

Which I translate as:

Who, the day before He suffered, took bread into His holy and venerable hands, and with His eyes lifted up towards Heaven unto Thee, God, His almighty Father, giving thanks to Thee, He blessed it, broke it and gave it to His disciples saying: Take and eat ye all of this:

For this is My Body.

The Qui pridie closely mirror the Last Supper accounts given in the synoptic Gospels and in 1 Corinthians 11, 23-25, with five exceptions.

First, the prayer identifies the time as the day before rather than the night before. Indeed, the Roman Canon is the only eucharistic prayer in Christendom that does so. I cannot think of a theological reason why, but it is distinctive.

Second, the Last Supper accounts do not state that Jesus lifted his eyes to Heaven. Our Lord did, however, lift His eyes up at the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. (see Jn. 6, 5) There are two possible explanations: either the authors of the Roman Canon engrafted this gesture onto the Institution narrative or Jesus did indeed lift His eyes up at the Last Supper and the memory of this gesture was preserved by oral rather than written tradition. St. Thomas Aquinas favors the latter explanation:

As is stated in the last chapter of John (verse 25), Our Lord said and did many things which are not written down by the Evangelists; and among them is the uplifting of His eyes to Heaven at the supper; nevertheless the Roman Church had it by tradition from the Apostles. For it seems reasonable that He Who lifted up His eyes to the Father in raising Lazarus to life, as related in John 11, 41, and in the prayer which He made for the disciples (John 17, 1), had more reason to do so in instituting this sacrament, as being of greater import. [1]

Aquinas and his contemporaries also puzzled over the third difference between the Canon and the Gospels, namely, that the Canon uses the verb manducare for eating while the Latin translations of the Bible use comedere. The Angelic Doctor concludes:

That manducate is said instead of comedite makes no difference in the meaning, nor does it matter much what is said, particularly because those words are not part of the form [of the sacrament]. [2]

As to why there is a difference in the first place, Craig Toth speculates that the basic classical Latin verb for eating (edere) fell out of favor in “vulgar” (popular) Latin and that it was replaced with other verbs like manducare and comedere. By the composition of the Canon, manducare was a perfectly respectable synonym for eating, despite its uncouth origins. Manducare originally meant “to chew, to eat with avidity”; And Manducus, “the Chewer,”

was a masked stock character that figured in the popular Atellan farces and in processions (pompae). The grotesque mask was fashioned with huge, widely gaping jaws and clattering teeth. [3]

It would therefore be highly inappropriate, but not technically incorrect, to translate Accipite et manducate ex hoc omnes as “Take and chow down on this, all of you.” One wonders if there is not a hidden providence in this arresting diction. Manduco, manduconis is the Latin word for a glutton or gourmand. Could Our Lord be telling us to be positively eager and avaricious when it comes to receiving Him sacramentally?

Fourth, the Qui pridie describes Christ’s hands as “holy and venerable,” even though the Gospels do not. But how can Our Lord’s hands not be holy and venerable? The prayer betrays a most tender love for Our Lord, marveling over His innocent hands that will soon be, as the narrative of His Passion unfolds, shackled by bonds and pierced by nails. And the description is an implicit reminder that the priest’s hands are also sacred, consecrated at his ordination for this most important service. [4]

Fifth, enim has been added to the Words of Institution. Enim in Latin is a demonstrative corroborative particle usually placed after the first or second word in a sentence. It either corroborates a preceding assertion, like the English “indeed” or “to be sure,” or it proves or shows the grounds of a preceding assertion, like the English “for.” Here, I believe it functions as both, as if to say, “I want you to take and eat this, for this indeed is My Body.” [5] It is a subtle way of confirming the core of our belief in the Eucharist.

The rubrics for this prayer create a perfect isomorphism between word and deed. When the priest says, “He took bread,” he takes the host into his hands; when he says, “with His eyes lifted up towards Heaven,” he lifts his eyes up to the crucifix; when he says, “giving thanks to You,” he bows his head in gratitude; and when he says, “He blessed it,” he blesses the host. The only action he does not imitate is breaking the bread; breaking a hard unleavened host would make it unwieldy. The West Syrians and the Copts, however, are able to crack their leavened host at this point without breaking it in two. [6] Overall, this highpoint of the Mass is a powerful dramatization of the doctrine that the priest celebrating Mass acts in persona Christi.

A page of a Roman Missal printed in 1521, with the words of consecration in larger type.

As for the moment of consecration, the rubrics stipulate that Hoc est enim Corpus meum is to be said attentively, distinctly, continuously, and reverently. And since the priest’s mouth is only inches away from the host when he says the Words of Institution, the moment is redolent of an insufflation, when a spirit or the Spirit breathes on or is breathed onto something, e.g., the Holy Spirit moving over the face of the waters, (Gen. 1,2) the Lord God breathing a soul into the first man, (Gen. 2,7) and the risen Christ breathing the Holy Spirit onto the disciples. (John 20, 22) This pneumatological dimension of the Consecration is reinforced by the word choice. The “H” in “Hoc” is an aspirated consonant, which requires a strong burst of breath to pronounce. And so, for the priest to say the words correctly, he has to begin by breathing heavily onto the host. And the same is true for the consecration of the wine, which begins with “Hic.” This Spirit moment is further reinforced by the priest’s leaning over, hovering over the host and the chalice as he pronounces the Words of Institution, much like the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit during the Annunciation. (Luke 1, 35)

Notes

[1] Summa Theologiae III.83.4.ad 2.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Craig Toth and Louis Tofari, The Roman Canon: An Interlinear Translation (Romanitas Press, 2023), 57, n. 41.

[4] See Peter Kwasniewski, The Once and Future Roman Rite, 237-39.

[5] “Enim, conj.,” I and II.A, Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary.

[6] Jungmann, vol. 2, 202.

The Quam oblationem

Lost in Translation #139

After praying the Hanc igitur, the priest prays the Quam oblationem:

Quam oblatiónem tu, Deus, in ómnibus, quǽsumus, benedictam, adscriptam, ratam, rationábilem, acceptabilemque fácere dignéris ut nobis Corpus et Sanguis fiat dilectíssimi Filii tui, Dómini nostri Jesu Christi.

Which the 2011 ICEL edition translates as:

Be pleased, O God, we pray, to bless, acknowledge, and approve this offering in every respect; make it spiritual and acceptable, so that it may become for us the Body and Blood of your most beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. [1]

And which I translate as:

May You, O God, in all ways, we beseech, deign to make blessed, enrolled, ratified, rational, and acceptable this offering, that it may be made for us the Body and Blood of Your most beloved Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Josef Jungmann eloquently describes the function of this prayer:

The last prayer before the account of the institution forms with it a grammatical unit. It is like an up-beat before the full measure, a final swell in human words before the introduction of the imposing phrases of the sacred account, which are attached by means of a simple relative pronoun. [2]

ICEL understandably simplifies the main verbs facere digneris as to “be pleased,” since the more literal “may You deign to make” involves the antiquated verb “deign.” Still, the original language draws attention to a significant three-legged stool in the Mass, a relationship between worth (dignus), dignity (dignitas), and deigning (dignari). Here, we unworthy servants ask God to dignify our offering, to elevate it with five qualities so that it may become His Son’s Body and Blood.

Similarly, ICEL opts for the simpler construction of three infinitives in the active voice (“to bless, acknowledge, and approve”) whereas all five qualities are iterated as perfect past passive participles (“make blessed, make acknowledged,” etc.). There is something circuitous about the phrasing of the original prayer, an echo of how one would address royalty. For to a king, a servant does not say, “Yo, king, it’s lunch—get it while it’s hot” but rather “May it please Your Royal Highness to know that lunch is ready.”

The tu in the prayer is difficult to translate as well. In Latin, personal pronouns are unnecessary for the subject of a verb, and so when they are included, it is for the sake of emphasis, which I have tried to capture by placing “You” in italics. Another option would be “You Yourself.” In omnibus likewise poses problems. The simplest translation is “in all things,” the rendering of choice for some pre-Vatican II hand Missals. But ICEL is correct in translating the expression as “in every respect” (or, more literally, “in all ways”), since the prayer is asking for thoroughness. [3]

Christine Mohrmann describes the fivefold enumeration benedictam, adscriptam, ratam, rationabilem, acceptabilemque as a

rhythmically balanced flow of words, which shows an almost juridical precision… We have already come across this same sacral style in the primitive pagan prayers of the Roman national religion. This monumental verbosity coupled with juridical precision, which is so well suited to the gravitas Romana but which also betrays a certain scrupulosity with regard to the higher powers, was the typical form of expression of the old Roman prayer. [4]

Christine Mohrmann

The juridical precision is evidenced in the ascending flow of past participles, almost all of which defy translation.

Benedictam means to “make it blessed,” which is fair enough, except for the fact that this oblation has already been blessed several times during the Offertory Rite. Chalk it up to the “liturgical stammer” that is a feature of the Roman liturgical tradition.

Adscriptam. To be ascribed is to be added to a list as a citizen or a soldier, to be enrolled into a dignified elite. [5] The priest is also asking that this sacrifice be registered in our log, that we “get credit for it.”[6]

The Book of Life

Ratam. To be ratified, or as the Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary puts it, is to be “fixed, settled, established, firm, unalterable, sure, certain, valid, etc.” [7] Here, the priest asks God the Father to validate his Eucharistic oblation by turning it into the Eucharistic sacrifice.

Rationabilem. The most intriguing word in the Canon and perhaps the entire Ordo of the Mass is this one, for it goes against the grain of our sensibilities. Even though we Catholic Christians maintain that faith and reason are compatible, we tend to put them in two different containers, at least where worship and study are concerned. We act as if the rational were for the classroom, whereas worship is more for the heart. And yet here in the midst of our most sacred part of our worship is a plea for our oblation to be rational or reasonable.

What constitutes the rationabilem can be discovered with a little effort. According to some scholars, the term was once synonymous with “spiritual” until its meaning migrated to “reasonable, conformed to the essence of a thing” and spiritalis took its place. [8] It may sound odd to think of “rational” and “spiritual” as synonymous until one considers Romans 12, 1: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God, your reasonable service.” The Greek logiké latreia (rationabile obsequium or “reasonable service”) captures the fact that Christian latreia or worship is logocentric or centered on the Word (Logos) that is Christ. As Pope Benedict XVI observes, “the celebration is not only a ritual, it is not only a liturgical game, but is intended to be ‘logiké latreia’, a transformation of my existence in the direction of the Logos.” [9]

Benedict also notes that rationabile appears in the Roman Canon, when the priest prays that God will, as one old translation has it, “bless, approve, ratify, make worthy (rationabile) and acceptable this offering.” As the Pope explains: 

The Church knows that in the Holy Eucharist Christ’s gift of Himself, His true sacrifice, becomes present. However, the Church prays that the community celebrating may truly be united with Christ and transformed; she prays that we may become what we cannot be with our own efforts: a “rational” offering that is acceptable to God. Thus the Eucharistic Prayer interprets St. Paul’s words correctly. [10]

Acceptabilem simply means, “to be made acceptable.” It too is part of a liturgical stammer in so far as it follows similar requests from the Offertory Rite (see here, here, here, and here), but all this fear and trembling is warranted for the simple reason that not every sacrifice is pleasing to God. The Lord God accepted Abel’s sacrifice and rejected Cain’s, (Gen. 4, 4-5) and He even rejected the very sacrifices that He Himself commanded to be made. (Ps. 39, 7; Jer. 6, 20) Without doubt God the Father accepts the sacrifice of His Son, but there is no guarantee that He will accept us as part of that saving sacrifice.

I have translated the last clause as “May it be made for us the Body and Blood of Your most beloved Son Jesus Christ our Lord” even though fiat can also be translated as “become.” I choose the less eloquent “may it be made” to show that this petition is part of an ongoing theme in the Mass between making, not-made, and remaking. The bread and wine were made, the Eternal Son was not made but begotten, and now the begotten and not-made Son who was made flesh is now being made present to us by bread and wine being remade into His Body and Blood.

Dilectissimi. There is nothing unusual in calling Jesus Christ the “most beloved” Son of His Father, but here it forms a pleasing emotional counterweight to the potentially arid legal terminology.

Finally, the prayer asks that the bread and wine become for us Christ’s Body and Blood. One could misunderstand this petition to mean that we want this bread and wine to function for us as Body and Blood rather than for it to become Body and Blood per se. But the prayer hearkens to a biblical manner of speaking which stresses that all that Christ is and does is for our sake, as when the Angels announce to the shepherds “This day is born to you a Saviour.” (Lk. 2, 11)

Notes

[1] 2011 Roman Missal, 638.

[2] Josef Jungmann, The Mass of the Roman Rite, vol. 2, 187.

[3] For Nicholas Gihr, in omnibus means “in every respect thoroughly and perfectly.” (The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, 627)

[4] Christine Mohrmann, Liturgical Latin: Its Origins and Character (Catholic University of America Press, 1957), pp. 68-69; similarly, Jungmann speaks of “the guarded legal terminology of the Romans which is here in evidence” (vol. 2, 188).

[5] “A-scrībo,” II.A, Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary.

[6] Barthe, Forest of Symbols, 111.

[7] “Rĕor, rătus, 2,” II.β, Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary.

[8] Ellebracht, Vocabulary of the Ancient Orations, 18.

[9] Sandro Magister, “Homilies. The Liturgical Year Narrated by Joseph Ratzinger, Pope.”

[10] Pope Benedict XVI, “St. Paul: Wednesday General Audience,” January 7, 2009. Even though I agree with ICEL that “spiritual” is the best translation for rationabilis in this prayer, it is meet that we remember the word’s ties to reason. As Peter Kwasniewski writes:

Protestantism attacked Catholicism as a recrudescence of paganism or a Judaizing cult; modernity attacked Catholicism as irrational superstition and pre-scientific prejudice; postmodernity attacks Catholicism as an avaricious, chauvinistic, omniphobic, intolerant structure of self-serving power; but the Roman Canon serenely bears witness to the luminous rationality of the Faith, the majesty of its God, the excellence of its rites, the lofty aim of its rule of life. (Once and Future Roman Rite, 237)

The Feast of St Augustine, According to the Order Formerly Known as the Hermits of St Augustine

Lost in Translation #138

Saint Augustine of Hippo, whose feast we celebrate tmorrow, left an indelible mark on the theology of Western Christianity, as well as on the priesthood and religious life. Augustine was one of the earliest bishops to establish what were later called Canons Regular, originally, priests that live with their bishop and share a common life, and his Rule led to the formation of several religious orders. The largest and most familiar of these is the Order of Saint Augustine (OSA), founded in 1244 and originally known as the Hermits of Saint Augustine (OESA). Our current Pontiff, Pope Leo XIV, is the only member of this order to have assumed the throne of Peter.

Before Vatican II, the old Augustinians kept several feasts of their own, including a vigil on August 27 in preparation for St. Augustine’s feast day (August 28) and an octave in his honor that ended on September 4. Here are the Orations and Preface for the festal Mass on August 28.

The Collect is:

Deus, qui abditiora sapientiae tuae arcana beato Patri Augustino revelando, et divinae caritatis flammas in ejus corde excitando, miraculum columnae nubis et ignis in Ecclesia tua renovasti; concede: ut ejus ductu mundi vortices feliciter transeamus, et ad aeternam promissionis patriam pervenire mereamur. Per Dominum.

Which I translate as:

O God, who by revealing the more hidden secrets of Your wisdom to blessed Father Augustine and who by fanning in his heart the flames of divine charity, You renewed in Your Church the miracle of the pillar of cloud and fire: grant that by his leadership we may happily pass through the world’s eddies and be worthy of reaching the eternal and promised homeland. Through our Lord.

There is a clever parallelism between Augustine’s clarifying wisdom (dispelling, we imagine, the fog of ignorance) and his ardent heart on one hand and the biblical pillar of cloud and fire on the other. That pillar led the Hebrews in the wilderness, and this Collect asks God to make Augustine our leader (ejus ductu can also mean “by his generalship”) as we pass through the eddies of life (the Red Sea?) to reach the Promised Land. Augustine is thus both a new pillar and a new Moses.

I also note that here in the Collect as well as in the Secret and Postcommunion, all the second-person-singular verbs in the perfect past tense (which, addressing God, describe what He has done) are syncopated. [1] In Latin, a syncopated verb is when a ‘v’ is dropped and a vowel contracted. Although it can be compared to an English contraction such as “can’t,” there is no whiff of informality as there is in English. And although syncopated verbs are not unheard of in the ancient Roman Orations, they are not as concentrated as they are here. I suspect this concentration betrays the influence of the times, after the reintroduction of classical Latin during the Renaissance.

The Secret is:

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui praeclaro sapientiae lumine, beati Patris nostri Augustini mentem illustrasti, et sancti amoris jaculo ejusdem cor transverberasti: da nobis famulis tuis; ut illius doctrinae et caritatis participes effici mereamur. Per Dominum.

Which I translate as:

Almighty, everlasting God, who illuminated the mind our blessed Father Augustine with the splendid light of wisdom and transfixed his heart with the dart of holy love: grant to us Your servants that we may be worthy of being made partakers of his teaching and charity. Through our Lord.

The Secret retains the theme of Augustine’s brilliant intellect and his charitable heart. Christian art often portrays Augustine holding his heart pierced by a dart or arrow.

Symbol of the Order of Saint Augustine, which His Holiness Pope Leo XIV incorporated into his coat of arms.

The Mass also has its own Preface:

Vere dignum et justum est, aequum et salutare, nos tibi semper et ubique gratias agere, Domine sancte, Pater omnipotens, aeterne Deus: Quia vas electionis tuae et lux Doctorum mellifluus Augustinus, toto terrarum orbe radio mirae claritatis infulsit: et Ecclesiam sanctam fidei orthodoxae vere Augustinus illustravit: destruxit haereses; errores repulit: haereticosque prostravit: ac status fidelium universae christianae vitae, Augustinus moribus decoravit. Clericos docuit; laicos monuit; devios in viam veritatis reduxit; cunctorumque conditionibus salubriter providendo, tuam in hoc mari naviculam Augustinus provide gubernavit. Et ideo cum Angelis et Archangelis, cum Thronis et Dominationibus, cumque omni militia caelestis exercitus, hymnum gloriae tuae canimus, sine fine dicentes:

Which I translate as:

It is truly meet and just, right and salutary, that we should at all times and in all places, give thanks to You, O holy Lord, Father almighty, everlasting God; because the vessel of Your Election and the light of the Doctors, the mellifluous Augustine, enlightened the entire world with a ray of marvelous brilliance. And Augustine illuminated the Holy Church with a truly orthodox Faith; he destroyed heresies; he refuted errors; he brought low the heretics; and the status of all the faithful of a Christian life, Augustine decorated with his deeds. He taught the clergy; he admonished the laity; the returned the wayward to the Way of truth; and by salubriously providing in all conditions, Augustine providently piloted Your ship in this sea. And therefore, with the Angels and Archangels…

With its numerous short sentences and almost random placements of Augustine’s name, this Preface is far from being a model of the genius of the Roman Rite. But it does provide a fairly accurate (albeit meandering) biography of the Saint, who famously battled several heresies as well as the Donatist schism. The one glaring omission is mention of Augustine’s notorious past as a sinner. Perhaps it is indecorous when speaking of our Blessed Father to bring up his wild youth.

The Postcommunion is:

Fove, Domine, familiam tuam muneribus sacris, quam caelesti libamine recreasti: et, ut solemnia sancti Patris nostri Augustini devote concelebret; infunde lumen supernae cognitionis et flammam aeternae caritatis. Per Dominum.

Which I translate as:

Foster, O Lord, Your family, which You have revived with [these] sacred offerings and heavenly libation; and, so that it may celebrate devoutly the Feast of our holy Father Saint Augustine, pour onto it the light of supernal thinking and the flame of eternal charity. Through our Lord.

Again we see the double theme of Augustine’s intellect and will, both of which his spiritual children wish to emulate. “Light of supernal thinking” is an awkward translation of lumen supernae cognitionis; I chose “supernal” because it simply means “from above” rather than something more theologically specific, such as “supernatural” or “infused.” Augustine saw the world through the eyes of God, from a divine viewpoint, and we wish to do so as well. I also chose “thinking” rather than “thought” because I assume it is better to have a habit of thinking and of discovery that makes one a better knower rather than a series of thoughts that are injected into the mind.

But since the greatest thinkers are nothing without charity, we also ask for Augustine’s impassioned love of God and neighbor. Augustine’s first biographer Possidius wrote that as impressive as Augustine’s writings were, they pale in comparison to his daily deeds:

From his writing assuredly it is manifest that this priest, beloved and acceptable to God, lived uprightly and soberly in the faith, hope and love of the Catholic Church in so far as he was permitted to see it by the light of truth, and those who read his works on divine subjects profit thereby. But I believe that they were able to derive greater good from him who heard and saw him as he spoke in person in the church, and especially those who knew well his manner of life among men. For not only was he a “scribe instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old,” and one of those merchants who "when he had found the pearl of great price, sold all that he had and bought it," but he was also one of those of whom it is written : “So speak ye and so do,” and of whom the Saviour said: “Whosoever shall so do and teach men, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” [2]

Notes

[1] The verbs are renovasti in the Collect, illustrasti and transverberasti in the Secret, and recreasti in the Postcommunion.

[2] Possidius, Sancti Augustini vita, trans. Herbert Theberath Weiskotten, (Princeton University Press, 1919), 143-44.

The Hanc igitur

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.

The Communicantes

Lost in Translation #136

After the Memento, Domine, the priest prays the Communicantes:

Communicantes, et memoriam venerantes, in primis gloriósae semper Vírginis Maríae, Genitrícis Dei et Dómini nostri Jesu Christi: sed et beáti Joseph, ejusdem Vírginis Sponsi, et beatórum Apostolórum ac Mártyrum tuórum, Petri et Pauli, Andréae, Jacóbi, Joannis, Thomae, Jacóbi, Philippi, Bartholomaei, Matthaei, Simónis, et Thaddaei: Lini, Cleti, Clementis, Xysti, Cornelii, Cypriáni, Laurentii, Chrysógoni, Joannis et Pauli, Cosmae et Damiáni: et omnium Sanctórum tuórum; quorum méritis precibusque concédas, ut in ómnibus protectiónis tuae muniámur auxilio. Per eundem Christum Dóminum nostrum. Amen.

Which the 2011 ICEL edition translates as:

In communion with those whose memory we venerate, especially the glorious ever-Virgin Mary, Mother of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ, and blessed Joseph, her Spouse, your blessed Apostles and Martyrs, Peter and Paul, Andrew, (James, John, Thomas, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Simon and Jude; Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus, Cornelius, Cyprian, Lawrence, Chrysogonus, John and Paul, Cosmas and Damian) and all your Saints; we ask that through their merits and prayers, in all things we may be defended by your protecting help. (Through Christ our Lord. Amen.) [1]

And which I translate as:

Communicating with, and venerating in the first place the memory of the glorious ever Virgin Mary, Mother of God and of Our Lord Jesus Christ; but also of blessed Joseph, spouse of the same Virgin: and likewise of Thy blessed Apostles and Martyrs Peter and Paul, Andrew, James, John, Thomas, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Simon, and Thaddeus: Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus, Cornelius, Cyprian, Lawrence, Chrysogonus, John and Paul, Cosmas and Damian, and of all Thy Saints, through whose merits and prayers, grant that we may in all things be defended by the help of Thy protection. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

ICEL’s translation of communicantes as “In communion with” captures the essence of the sentiment better than my literal rendering of “communicating,” for it is fellowship with the Saints and not a mere exchange of words that is being signified. As Fr. Nicholas Gihr writes:

The word Communicantes… denotes that we are children of the Church, subjects of the kingdom of Christ, members of the great family of God, in a word, that we belong “to the Communion of Saints.” [2]

On the other hand, “communicating” has the one advantage of reminding us that we speak to the Saints as our heavenly friends and sometimes they speak back.

Not surprisingly for a prayer built upon the command “Do this in memory of Me,” memory is a prominent theme throughout the Canon. In the previous sentence (the Memento), the priest asked God to remember him and the rest of the Church (Militant); here, he mentions that we remember and venerate all the Saints (the Church Triumphant). The Sacrifice of the Mass makes present not only the Lamb that was slain but the many voices round about His throne. (see Rev. 5, 11-12)

Of these many voices, the priest singles out twenty-six by name: The Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph, twelve Apostles, and twelve Martyrs. Just as only the bones of martyrs may be placed in the altar stone, so too are only the names of martyrs mentioned in the Canon, for as St. Augustine puts it, they are the imitators of the Lord’s Passion. [3] John the Apostle is considered a “martyr by will” even though he is thought to have died of natural causes because an attempt was made on His life when the Emperor ordered him to be placed in a vat of boiling oil, only to emerge fresher than ever; the Blessed Virgin is considered the Queen of Martyrs and to have suffered a martyrdom through her compassion, when she watched her Son die; and St. Joseph, spiritually united to his spouse, shared in her earlier martyrdom (the first three of her Seven Sorrows).

Here, Mary is called Genitrix Dei, the Latin equivalent of the Greek Theotokos or God-bearer, the title given to her at the Council of Ephesus in 431. A genitrix is literally a begettress, but it is reasonable to translate Genitrix Dei as “Mother of God.” (Less defensible is ICEL’s “Mother of our God,” which blurs the Ephesian title.) She is also called glorious because she is one of the very few Saints enjoying her glorified body now in Heaven, as we celebrate today on this feast of her Assumption. And she is honored “in the first place” (imprimis) ahead of all other Saints because her unique holiness and role in salvation history accord to her not just dulia (veneration) but hyperdulia (hyper veneration, so to speak).

Instead of using “and” to continue the list of Saints, the Canon uses the somewhat curious construction “but also” (sed et), as if to say, “But let us not forget…” Sed et occurs four times in the Canon: here, at the Hanc Igitur, and twice in the Unde et Memores. Outside the Canon, the only other time it is used in the Mass is at the Suscipe Sancte Pater during the Offertory.

The two pairings of Apostles and Martyrs makes twenty-four, the number of the Elders mentioned in Revelation 4,4. Starting with St. Thomas, the Apostles are organized according to their feast days in Rome. [4] Then follows a list of five popes (Linus through Cornelius), one bishop (Cyprian), one deacon (Lawrence), and five laymen (Chrysogonus, the brothers John and Paul, and the physician brothers Cosmas and Damian). Cornelius is the only pope out of chronological sequence so that he can be named alongside his friend Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage who joined him in the fight against Novatian, and who shares a feast day with him on September 16.

Sts. Cornelius and Cyprian of Carthage

The list of Saints in the Communicantes is one of two instances in the Canon of enumerative rhetoric (a device as old as Homer), the other being the list in the Nobis quoque peccatoribus. The best explanation, in my opinion, of these two different lists is offered by Fr. Neil Roy, who sees in them a literary adaptation of an early iconic tradition called the “deesis,” a triptych of sorts that places Christ in the middle, His Mother on one side, and John the Baptist on the other. [5] The first set of Saints in the Canon stresses the hierarchical nature of the Church. It begins with the Queen of Martyrs and organizes the rest according to descending ecclesiastical status. The second set of Saints stresses the charismatic nature of the Church. It begins with St. John the Baptist, who never held an ecclesiastical position but certainly had a charism as the prophet of the Most High, and it continues with seven male and seven female martyrs, most of whom lacked an important position in the Church. Whereas the first group emphasis the Church’s structure, the second group is more about the breath of the Spirit, which is prophetic and eschatological. Whereas the first group of saints are judges, the second group are advocates of mercy.

Deesis, Hagia Sophia

Notes

[1] 2011 Roman Missal, p. 636.

[2] Gihr, Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, p. 606.

[3] “And the communion of the Lord’s Body was celebrated where the martyrs had been immolated and crowned in the likeness of His Passion.” (Conf. 6.2.2.)

[4] Barthe, Forest of Symbols, p. 109.

[5] See Rev. Neil J. Roy, “The Roman Canon: deëis in euchological form,” in Benedict XVI and the Sacred Liturgy, eds. Neil J. Roy and Janet E. Rutherford (Four Courts Press, 2008), 181-199.

The Memento, Domine

Lost in Translation #135

The next sentence of the Roman Canon is:

Memento, Dómine, famulórum famularumque tuárum N., et N., et omnium circumstantium, quorum tibi fides cógnita est et nota devotio, pro quibus tibi offérimus: vel qui tibi ófferunt hoc sacrificium laudis, pro se suisque ómnibus: pro redemptióne animárum suárum, pro spe salútis et incolumitátis suæ: tibíque reddunt vota sua aeterno Deo, vivo et vero.

Which the 2011 ICEL edition translates as:

Remember, Lord, your servants N. and N. and all gathered here, whose faith and devotion are known to you. For them, we offer you this sacrifice of praise or they offer it for themselves and all who are dear to them: for the redemption of their souls, in hope of health and well-being, and paying their homage to you, the eternal God, living and true. [1]

And which I translate as:

Be mindful, O Lord, of Thy servants and handmaidens, N. et N. and of all those standing around, whose faith is known to You and whose devotion is recognized by You, for whom we offer, or who offer up to You, this sacrifice of praise for themselves and for all their own, for the redemption of their souls, in hope of salvation and health; and who now pay their vows to Thee, the everlasting, living and true God.

It is sentences like these that justifies a series like this, for it contains several words with nuances that can get lost in translation. To wit:

Memento can indeed be translated as “remember,” but it is etymologically related to the Latin mens (mind). “Be mindful” captures this connotation and conjures up the image of making God’s servants present to His mind. They who are present to the altar wish to be present to God.

Famuli. In Latin, a servus is a generic slave but a famulus is a domestic servant and therefore closer to the family. The prayer could have referred to all of God’s servants, male and female, with the generic male noun famuli, but instead it uses a noun for the males (famuli) and a noun for the females (famulae). This convention is also followed in the Roman Orations. There is a pleasing meter to this expanded version, almost as if it were a cursus velox.

Roman famuli

Circumstantes. In the post-Conciliar era, there has been a peculiar fixation with the concept of the Church as a gathered assembly (think The Gather Hymnal and Marty Haugen’s hymn “Gather Us In”), a fixation that may have influenced the decision to translate circumstantes as “those gathered here.” The Latin, however, literally means “those standing around” and probably refers to the early Christian practice of standing during the liturgy rather than kneeling. A less literal translation is “those here present.”

Cognita est, etc. The ICEL translation renders quorum tibi fides cognita est et nota devotio as “whose faith and devotion are known to you,” and understandably so, since the original is clunkier and seemingly redundant, adding an extra verb that does not add much to the meaning. Nevertheless, the Latin is more faithfully represented as “whose faith is known to You and whose devotion is recognized by You”, because nota is a second participle in reference to devotio. Such additions I file under the category of “virtually necessary ornamentation.” And whereas famulorum famularumque rolls off the tongue, cognita est et nota devotio is a cursus tardus that forces the speaker to slow down.

Pro quibus tibi offerimus, etc. This clause presents more theological challenges than linguistic. The “we offer” is most likely a reference to the priest, deacon, and subdeacon at a solemn high Mass, but who are those who offer it up themselves: the rest of the liturgical ministers in the sanctuary or, as is more likely, the laity in the pews? If the latter, it is a confirmation of the Orate, fratres, that both priest and laity offer up the Mass, albeit in significantly different ways.

Suisque omnibus. Whoever the offerers are, they offer up the Mass for themselves and for all their own, which the ICEL translation eloquently renders “all who are dear to them.” I retain the more awkward “all their own” because of its enormous philosophical significance. In Plato’s Republic, “loyalty to one’s own” is singled out as the greatest cause of political mischief. It is because we remain loyal to our own (our own family, our own friends, our own gild, class, race, sex, etc.) that we short shrift the common good, the good of the whole, and pursue policies that benefit “our people” to the detriment of others. Christianity seemingly sides with Socrates in commending a religion in which there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, (see Gal. 3, 28) and which enjoins its believers to hate their father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters. (see Lk. 14, 26) But this sentence of the Canon subtly acknowledges that life is more complicated than that, that even after accepting the Church as one’s true family, one still has one’s own to look after—certainly not with the same blind prejudice as before, but they are still there nonetheless, often looking to you for help and depending on you for support. It is for these that we also offer up the Mass.

One’s own

Sacrificium laudis. To refer to the Sacrifice of the Mass as the sacrifice of praise is potentially confusing, since the latter phrase is often used to refer to the Divine Office as opposed to the Eucharistic liturgy. But it could be a reminder that the Mass is the nonbloody re-presencing of the bloody Paschal Mystery. And together with the last line of the sentence, it is possibly also an allusion to Psalm 49, 13-14:

Shall I eat the flesh of bullocks? Or shall I drink the blood of goats?

Offer to God the sacrifice of praise: and pay thy vows to the most High.

Incolumitas, which I have translated as “health,” also means “good condition” or “soundness.” [2] The adjective incolumis was sometimes paired with salvus to express the concept of something being safe and sound (salvus atque incolumis). [3] Here, the noun incolumitas is paired with the noun salus. Salus also means “health,” but in Christian parlance it more commonly designates salvation. Incolumitas, by contrast, seems to have retained its more natural meaning in the Patristic and medieval eras. I therefore suspect that this prayer is asking for both eternal salvation and bodily health. ICEL, on the other hand, seems to have in mind a more natural explanation for both words, translating the phrase as “health and well-being,” which is also a valid interpretation.

Notes

[1] 2011 Roman Missal, p. 636.

[2] “Incŏlŭmĭtas, ātis, f.” Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary.

[3] See Julius Caesar, De Bello Civili 2.32.12; cf. 1.72.3.

The Te igitur

Lost in Translation #134

Last week, we devoted an entire post to the first letter of the first word of the first sentence of the Roman Canon. This week, we pick up the pace and examine the rest of the sentence:

Te ígitur, clementíssime Pater, per Jesum Christum, Filium tuum, Dóminum nostrum, súpplices rogámus ac pétimus uti accepta hábeas, et benedícas hæc dona, hæc múnera, hæc sancta sacrificia illibáta; in primis quæ tibi offérimus pro Ecclesia tua sancta cathólica; quam pacificáre, custodíre, adunáre, et régere dignéris toto orbe terrárum: una cum fámulo tuo Papa nostro N., et Antístite nostro N., et ómnibus orthodoxis, atque cathólicae et apostólicae fídei cultóribus.

Which I translate as:

Therefore, we suppliants pray and beseech You, most merciful Father, through Jesus Christ Your Son, our Lord, that You may have accepted—and may You bless—these gifts, these presents, these holy unspotted Sacrifices, which in the first place we offer to You for Your holy Catholic Church, that You would deign to grant peace to, and to preserve, unite, and govern her throughout the world, together with Your servant N. our Pope, N. our bishop, and all orthodox worshippers of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith.

Suspected Superfluity

Unlike the Orations (the Collect, Secret, and Postcommunion), which are renowned for their precise parsimony, the Roman Canon abounds in what a lesser mind might be tempted to call “useless repetitions.” Why the does the priest say that we are praying and beseeching instead of just praying? Why does he bother to ask that the gifts be accepted before they are blessed? Why does he call the gifts three things (these gifts, these presents, these sacrifices) when only one word would have sufficed? And why does he petition to God to “grant peace to, preserve, unite, and govern” the Church instead of something simple like “watch over” her? How, in other words, can we assent to the Catechism of the Council of Trent that there is nothing “useless or superfluous” in the Latin Mass when the Canon seems rife with verbal superfluities or what Dr. Christine Mohrmann called “monumental verbosity”? [1]

The Council of Trent

The short answer, I believe, is that ornamentation is not superfluity because ornament is not ornamental. In Latin, ornamentum refers to equipment or furniture as well as decoration. In the theater it refers to the costume of a character; in architecture, to “the enrichment of a building so as to clarify use or purpose;” [2] in rhetoric, to the make-up or style of speech. Cicero’s On the Orator elucidates four traits of a speech’s ornamenta:

that we should speak correctly and in pure Latin;

next, clearly and distinctly;

then, gracefully (ornate);

then suitably to the dignity of the subject, and becomingly, so to speak; [3]

The third and fourth traits are related in that the greater the dignity of the subject, the more suitable it is to have graceful or ornate speech. One need not channel the Bard when telling one’s child to take out the trash, but it is a different story when it comes to asking one’s God to turn bread and wine into the form and matter of His crucified and risen Son. In the case of the Canon, there was a double goal: 1) to reflect the awe and mystery of the Action through words, and 2) to coopt “the kind of language used in the old pagan cultus so that Christianity could replaces paganism and assume its status as the true cultus publicus of Rome and the empire.” [4] And both goals were met, producing “a remarkable combination of Romanitas and Christianitas.” [5]

The “extra” words in the Canon, then, are not redundant or superfluous, but the apt response to a rhetorical necessity, namely, of the duty of matching the dignity of the language to the dignity of the subject. It is in this way that ornament is not ornamental, that is, it is not a dispensable option but a vital sign by which the importance of the thing is signified.

And the words in these ornate sentences of the Canon have been carefully arranged. In the sequence haec dona, haec munera, haec sacrificia (these gifts, the presents, these sacrifices), the order is ascending. Dona can refer to any gift great or small; munera refers to more formal gifts or tributes, the word that the Secret uses the most for the oblations (bread and wine); and sacrificia refers to a total gift to God that transforms the gift itself. Such is the journey of bread and wine, which is: 1) given to the priest before the Mass or during an Offertory Procession, 2) offered to God by him, and 3) then turned into the Lamb that was slain.

Similarly, the petition for the Church, that it receive peace and be preserved, unified, and governed, has an ascending order. Imagine a Church at war with her enemies both external and internal. The first step for a remedy is to stop the war through peace. But since things can decay and dissolve even during peacetime, the next step is to preserve them. Having preserved members is a good thing (like specimens in formaldehyde), but even better is to have them unified into a single, living whole. And yet this unified Body will come to no good unless it is governed and guided by God.

Syntax

As a classicist friend of mine likes to joke, word order in Latin is not important—until it is. In this case, making Te the first word gives it prominence. And that word, of course, points to our most clement God the Father, to whom every Mass is offered, through the Son and with the Holy Spirit. The opening word of the Te igitur therefore underscores the theocentric focus of the Canon and of the Mass. And this focus is reinforced by the priest’s concomitant gesture of looking up to Heaven in imitation of Our Lord who lifted up His eyes before giving thanks to His Father. (see Jn. 11,41)

Diction

Finally, four brief remarks on word choice.

First, igitur is a postpositive conjunction (i.e., it can never be the first word in a sentence) that like, ergo and a couple of other Latin words, means “therefore.” Where it differs is that it can have the added meaning of resuming an interrupted thought, as with the English expression “as I was saying.” Seen in this light, the Canon is but the continuation of the dialogue begun after the Secret and interrupted by the Sanctus. To paraphrase:

“Let us give thanks [Eucharist] to the Lord our God.”

“It is meet and just.”

“Yes, it is meet and just to give thanks…and to join the Angels in singing.”

[Singing] “Holy, Holy, Holy...”

“And so, as I was saying, we beseech You, o most clement Father…”

Second, the adjective illibatus is a striking choice for modifying sacrificium. It is usually translated as “unspotted”—or, as in the 2011 ICEL translation, “unblemished”—which is understandable since in the pre-Christian era illibatus was paired with nouns like virginitas [6], and in the Christian era with words like victimae and fides. [7] Nevertheless, illibatus literally means “undiminished.” Illibatus is the past participle of in-libo; in here means “not” while the verb libo means to take a little from something. But libo also means “to pour out in honor of a deity”: in other words, to make a libation. [8] Could the word choice mean that the sacrifices being mentioned, which currently consist of sacralized but untransubstantiated bread and wine, have not yet been “poured out to God” because they are not yet His Precious Blood? In that case, the most accurate translation of haec sancta sacrificia illibata, albeit the least eloquent, would be “these holy and [at present] un-libationed sacrifices.” My sense is that the author’s intention was, as most translators think, to convey the sense of “unblemished,” but I also suspect that he deliberately chose a word with rich sacrificial connotations.

Third, the Biblical word for bishop is episcopus, but the Canon refers to the local ordinary as antistes, a word that originally designated a high priest of Rome’s old civic religion. [9] Perhaps this repurposing of Latin is a way of coopting the high parlance of the imperial court and putting it in the service of the heavenly court.

From here...

...To here

Fourth, the Canon refers to Christian worshippers as cultores, whereas other parts of the Mass use other terms such as the faithful (fideles) or members of God’s household (familia). Cultor was also a term used for pagan worshippers, but its origins are agricultural. The verb from which it is derived, colo / colere, means to take care of or tend; a cultor, then, is a cultivator, “one who bestows care or labor upon a thing.” [10] Keeping this etymology in mind, we can think of all orthodox believers as cultivators of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith. Only orthodox believers can be cultivators; heretical believers are not cultivators but destroyers who sow the field with cockles or weeds: of them does Our Lord say, “An enemy hath done this” (see Matt 13, 24-30). And orthodox believers, this noun reminds us, do not keep the Faith as if it were a butterfly in amber, but as if it were a garden in need of constant attention, protecting it from pests, nourishing it with love, and pruning its excrescences (such as wrong turns in developments doctrinal or liturgical or invasive innovations). May God bless His gardeners of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith. [11]

Notes

[1] Catechism of the Council of Trent, Ch. 20, §9: “Of these rites and ceremonies let none be deemed useless or superfluous: all on the contrary tend to display the majesty of this august sacrifice, and to excite the faithful, by the celebration of these saving mysteries, to the contemplation of the divine things which lie concealed in the Eucharistic sacrifice.” See Christine Mohrmann, Liturgical Latin: Its Origins and Character (Catholic University of America Press, 1957), 68.

[2] Denis McNamara, Catholic Church Architecture and the Spirit of the Liturgy (Chicago: Hillenbrand Books, 2009), 25.

[3] De Oratore 32.144

[4] Mark R. Francis, Local Worship, Global Church: Popular Religion and the Liturgy (Liturgical Press, 2014), p. 62.

[5] Christian Mohrmann, 69.

[6] See Seneca, Controversiae 1.2.12.

[7] See St Jerome, Commentarii in IV epistulas Paulinas, ad Titum 1,8-9.

[8] “Libo, -avi, -atum,” I.B.2, Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary.

[9] See Christine Mohrmann, “Notes sur le Latin liturgique,” Études, Tome II, (1961), 104-105.

[10] “Cultor, -oris, m.,” II.B, Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary.

[11] On a side note, the 2011 ICEL translation expresses a noble sentiment but it is not the one found in this passage: “and all those who, holding to the truth, hand on the catholic and apostolic faith.” (p. 635) Instead of cultivating, the translation speaks of tradition, of handing on. Also, “those holding to the truth” is, in my opinion, an inadequate and unnecessary translation of “orthodox.” It would be more accurate to say that the Truth holds us than that we hold to the truth. Orthodoxy does not mean truth-holding but right belief and right praise. The latter meaning anticipates the next sentence in the Canon (the Memento) in its description of the faithful offering the sacrifice of praise.

Finally, all English translations (including my own) treat orthodoxis as the adjective of cultoribus but in fact it is a noun linked to cultoribus by atque. The most literal translation, therefore, is “and all orthodox [believers] and worshippers of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith.”

The “T” in Te Igitur

Lost in Translation #133

The De defectibus Missae, which was issued by Pope St. Pius V and is included in every Tridentine altar Missal, lists not only defects that render a Mass invalid (such as the wrong matter, form, or intention) but defects that render a Mass less than ideal, such as celebrating Mass: in an unconsecrated place; without at least one altar server; without a gold or silver chalice; or without a “Missal present, even though the priest may know by heart the Mass he intends to say.” (X.31)

Indirectly, the latter proscription indicates that, in the mind of the Church, the Missal is not an oversized cheat sheet or a primitive teleprompter that helps the celebrant “remember his lines” but a part of the performance itself, so to speak. Rubrics govern its placement and movement within the action of the liturgy; and what is more, when the priest must bow his head at the mention of a holy name, he sometimes does so in the direction of the Missal as the nearest symbol of Christ. He even shows a similar reverence to this object as he does the altar. In the 1962 Missal, “at the end of the Gospel, the priest lifts the Missal with both hands, and bows to kiss it where he signed the cross, saying the Per evangélica dicta.” An almost identical rubric exists in the 1970 Missal: “He then venerates the book with a kiss, saying privately, Per evangelica dicta.” (GIRM, no. 175)

The beginning of the Roman Canon in the Gellone Sacramentary, ca. 780 AD (Folio 143v; Bibliothèque National de France; Département des Manuscrits, Latin 12048)

The Roman Missal--that is, the physical book itself--can therefore be studied as a sacred artifact. And one of the most distinctive features of this sacred artifact (besides, in my opinion, the margin tabs that help a priest turn pages without the use of his canonical digits) is the transformation of the first letter of the Roman Canon into a work of art. As we will see in an upcoming article, the Te in Te igitur is an address to the Father, but that did not stop the pious imagination from seeing that the first letter of the word resembles the cross of the Son and from depicting it as such. The earliest witness to this artistic tradition is from the Gellone Sacramentary, ca 780 A.D., but by the tenth century it was common and by the twelfth it had earned its own separate page. This separate page, which came to be known as the canon page, usually contained the finest illumination in the entire Missal and was often the object of the priest’s osculatory affection. We can tell from the wear-and-tear of several medieval manuscripts that some priests treated the Missal at the beginning of the Canon the same way they did at the end of the Gospel: moisture damage from thumbs and lips indicates that they lifted the book up and kissed the image of Christ’s crucified feet on the canon page.[1]

Opening of a missal at the Canon, Use of Utrecht, ca. 1400–1410 with added sections, Northern Netherlands. The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Ms. 128 D 29, fols 128v-129r.

As for the rest of the text of the Canon, since the “T” had now taken on a life of its own and moved to another page, a new initial “T” was generated to replace it,[2] much like the eyes of St. Lucy or the breasts of St. Agatha. This new “T” was in a larger font than the rest of the text: to this day in typography, a “Canon” is “the largest size of type that has a name of its own.”[3]

In addition to its similarity in shape to the cross on Calvary, a “T” or “t” in the Roman alphabet resembles a Tau, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Tau plays an important role in the Book of Ezekiel:

And the Lord said to him: “Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem: and mark Tau [in blood] upon the foreheads of the men that sigh, and mourn for all the abominations that are committed in the midst thereof….Utterly destroy old and young, maidens, children and women, but upon whomsoever you shall see Tau, kill him not, and begin ye at My sanctuary.” (Ezek. 9. 4, 6)

It is not difficult to see how Church Fathers like Jerome saw this chilling passage as a Passover-like type prefiguring the Elect whose foreheads are signed in the Book of Revelation. (see Rev. 7,3) In a homily at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, Pope Innocent III challenged all Catholics to make the Tau their own Passover, ending his exhortation with the stirring words: “Be champions of the Tau!”

One Catholic who took that challenge to heart was St. Francis of Assisi, who often signed his letters with a Tau. Today, it is a part of the Franciscan Coat of Arms.

The Franciscan Coat or Arms consists of a Tau with two crossed arms. The one with nail wounds represents Christ and the other St. Francis of Assisi, who bore the Stigmata.

One may therefore ruminate on the “T” that invokes the Father in the Te igitur as an emblem of the Tau that is the sign of His crucified Son, He who is also the last letter of the Greek alphabet, the Omega. (see Rev. 22,13)[4]

Official translations, of course, make this tradition difficult to maintain, not to mention the Novus Ordo’s plurality of Eucharistic Prayers (none of the new ones in Latin begin with the letter “T” except Eucharistic Prayer “On Reconciliation” II, which is as rare as hen's teeth).[5] ICEL’s original translation of Eucharistic Prayer I begins with us rather than God and with a “W” rather than a “T”: “We come to you, Father, with praise and thanksgiving…”[6] The 2011 ICEL translation is a marked improvement in both regards: “To you, therefore, most merciful Father, we make humble petition and prayer…”—even if the “T” is now only indirectly theocentric.[7] The problem could be solved with archaic English, such as “Thee, o most clement Father, do we humbly beseech and implore…” provided one does not mind the somewhat awkward syntax and the use of “thou.” Or, one can keep the artistic convention (as some well-made new Missals do) despite the disconnect between the image and the letter that follows it.

The Roman Missal: Deluxe Edition, 3rd ed. (Catholic Book Publishing, 2011)

Notes

[1] See Kissing: From Relics to Manuscripts.

[2] Josef Jungmann, S.J., The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development, vol. 2 (Benzinger Brothers, 1951), pp. 105-106. The development of this convention affected the world of printing

[3] American Dictionary of Printing and Bookmaking (New York: H. Lockwood, 1894), p. 79. The size varies according to nationality and system. In the United Kingdom, for example, a Canon is font size 48, while the same size in French is a Gros-Canon and in Germany a Kleine Missal.

[4] “Even the first letter of the Canon, in the Te igitur, recalls the mystical tau, which in the Old Testament was written with sacrificial blood upon the foreheads of those whom God wished to be preserved.” Michael Fiedrowicz, The Traditional Mass, trans. Rose Pfeifer (Angelico Press, 2020), 272.

[5] 2002 Missale Romanum, p. 681.

[6] 1985 Roman Missal, p. 542.

[7] 2011 Roman Missal, p. 635.

Where the Action Is

From the 1570 Missale Romanum

Lost in Translation #132

For most of its history, what the 1970 Missal calls “Eucharistic Prayer I” was known as the Roman Canon. Pope Vigilius (537-555) referred to it as the prex canonica [1]; by the end of the century, it was simply the canon/canonis. “Canon” in Greek means norm or rule; the canonical Scriptures, for example, are recognized as the norm for written divine revelation while the apocryphal writings are not. Similarly, the Roman Canon is (or used to be) the norm by which a priest in the Roman Rite confects the Eucharist. There is, however, one difference between the two: whereas the words of the biblical canon do not change, those of the Roman Canon do. There are different versions of the Communicantes and Hanc Igitur for certain times of the year, the names of the sitting Pope and local ordinary change, and the priest’s private intentions for the living and the dead can vary with each Mass, intentions which the rubrics presume he utters aloud in the same voice as the rest of the Eucharistic prayer.

Infra Actionem

Before “Canon” became canonical, so to speak, other titles vied for the honor. [2] These included the sacrificiorum orationes, legitimum, regula, agenda, secretum, and even the “dangerous Lord’s Prayer” (orationem dominicam quae dicitur periculosa). [3] But perhaps the most compelling alternative name for Canon is actio or the Action. The word could be short for actio gratiarum (thanksgiving or “Eucharist”) or agere sacrificium (to make a sacrifice). A curious rubric in the Roman Missal (including the 1970/2002 edition) attests to the synonym. As previously stated, the Communicantes in the Canon has different versions, and to alert the priest of this fact, the Missal states immediately before the prayer(s) the following in red: Infra Actionem or “within the Action.” That is, “Within this Canon be prepared to make this or that insertion.” [4]

From the 2002 Missale Romanum

The name Actio is a forcible reminder that the Mass is not a matter of teaching but of doing. [5] As a character in John Henry Newman’s novel Loss and Gain eloquently puts it, the Mass

is not a mere form of words—it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and is the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. [6]

Note the reasoning: the entire Mass (even the Mass of the Catechumens) is an action comprised of words, but every action and every word are subordinated not to didactic goals but to the Action, the sacrifice on the altar. It is, as Newman writes, the scope and interpretation of every part of the solemnity. And that Newman calls this sacrifice “that awful event” (in the full sense of the word) supports the idea of calling the Canon the dangerous Lord’s Prayer, for the other Lord’s Prayer, the Pater noster, is powerful but not dangerous.

Intrat in Canonem

Infra Actionem is a rubric that remains but is seldom considered; let us now turn to a rubric that was lost centuries ago but presents a complementary theology. In the liturgical books of the Carolingian era for a Pontifical High Mass, one reads: surgit solus pontifex et tacite intrat in canonem (“The pontiff rises alone and enters silently into the Canon”). [7]

The rubric draws from a medieval tradition that the Canon is a Holy of Holies into which only the celebrant can enter. As Fr. Josef Jungmann summarizes (disapprovingly): “The priest alone is to enter this inmost sanctum, while the people stand praying without, as once they did when Zachary burned incense in the Temple sanctuary.” [8] Fr. Daniel Cardo concurs but sees this imagery in a positive light:

It might be possible to recognize in the expression intrat in canonem a symbolic meaning indicating that the priest is, at that point, crossing the threshold of the holy of holies, where the veil of the true temple of Christ’s body was torn (cf. Matt. 27, 51): his side opened on the Cross, from where the Church receives the gift of the sacraments. [9]

Moreover, there is a fascinating metaphysics underlying this abandoned rubric. The Mass began with the priest declaring that he will enter into the altar of God (Introibo ad altare Dei) before he ascends the steps to the altar and prays the Aufer a nobis about entering the Holy of Holies. At this point of the Mass, the Holy of Holies is conceived of spatially, as one would expect of a temple; to enter into one part, one must physically move into it. But with this medieval rubric at the beginning of the Canon, the Holy of Holies is not conceived of spatially: the priest has already been standing at the altar for some time. Here, to enter into the Holy of Holies, he does not relocate from A to B but transitions from potency to act. The Holy of Holies is no longer the greatest place on earth but the greatest action that can be on earth.

Notes

[1] Epistle 2, ad Eutherium vel Profuturum.

[2] See Adrian Fortescue, The Mass: A Study of the Roman Liturgy (Longmans, Green, and Co, 1912), 323-24.

[3] See the Penitential of Cummian 13.21; B. MacCarthy, “On the Stowe Missal” in The Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. 27, Polite Literature and Antiquities (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1877), pp. 135-268, esp. 163-64 and 186-87.

[4] William Durandus uses the phrase infra actionem when speaking of any addition to the Canon, such as when Pope Leo the Great added the prayer Hanc Igitur. (see Rationale Officiorum Divinorum IV.39.4)

[5] I borrow this distinction from Michael J. Ortiz’s fine article, “Cardinal Newman’s Liturgical Compass,” Crisis, July 14, 2025.

[6] John Henry Newman, Loss and Gain: The Story of a Convert (London: Burns & Oates, 1962), 185.

[7] Ordo Romanus II.10.

[8] Josef Jungmann, S.J., The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development, vol. 1 (Benzinger Brothers, 1951), 82-83. For Jungmann, who operated out of a hermeneutics of rupture, this concept is another lamentable example of the liturgy’s clericalization, a break from the allegedly more communal liturgy of the primitive Church.

[9] Daniel Cardó, The Cross and the Eucharist in Early Christianity: A Theological and Liturgical Investigation (Cambridge University Press, 2019), 110-11.