The Orations of the Feast of Pentecost

Pentecost, by Juan Bautista Maíno, 1615-20

Lost in Translation #54

The great feast of Pentecost is upon us. Last year, I commented on the sequence Veni Sancte Spiritus here and here and here and here. This year, I focus on the rich diction of the three Mass orations for the feast.

Collect

Deus, qui hodierna die corda fidelium Sancti Spíritus illustratióne docuisti: da nobis in eódem Spíritu recta sápere, et de ejus semper consolatióne gaudére. Per Dóminum... in unitáte ejusdem Spíritus Sancti.

Which I translate as:

O God, who on this day didst teach the hearts of the faithful by the illumination of the Holy Spirit, grant us by the same Spirit to understand what is right and ever to rejoice in His consolation. Through our Lord... in the unity of the same Holy Ghost.

Illustratio is usually translated as “light,” but that is not quite right, for this noun is not a thing but an activity. The Holy Spirit is on the go, enlightening the hearts of Christ’s disciples. We want that same Spirit to be actively working on us, and in two specific ways: to understand what is right and to rejoice in His consolation.

The double petition may be inspired by John 14, 16-17, when Jesus calls the Holy Spirit both “Comforter” (Paraclete) and “Spirit of Truth.” But leaving it at that is not so simple. If there is any word in the Latin liturgical tradition that justifies a series like Lost in Translation, it is sapere. Although I have translated it as “understand,” sapio/sapere can also mean:

• to taste
• to have a taste for, to savor
• to resemble
• to be well acquainted with the true value of things, to be wise (hence the Latin word for wisdom, sapientia)

When translating, one has to make a choice. Blessed Ildefonso Schuster favors the meaning of savoring: he translates recta sapere as “to relish what is right”, and writes that the first petition is to “have that desire for the things of God which denotes a certain spiritual wellbeing, and is the result of the interior life maintained by the Paraclete in our souls.” Seen in this light, the Collect ties into the schooling of love that we have been exploring (see here and here and here). Pius Parsch, on the other hand, claims that the Collect “begs God for right understanding.” Both, of course, are right. Recta sapere is wonderfully polyvalent, asking for much in only two words.

Secret

Múnera quáesumus, Dómine, obláta sanctífica: et corda nostra Sancti Spíritus illustratióne emunda. Per Dóminum... in unitáte ejusdem Spíritus Sancti.

Which I translate as:

Sanctify, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the gifts offered, and purify our hearts by the illumination of the Holy Spirit. Through our Lord... in the unity of the same Holy Ghost.

The Collect understandably associates the illuminating activity of the Holy Spirit with teaching, for “shedding light” on a subject allows one to learn a subject. In the Secret, on the other hand, the illumination of the Holy Spirit cleanses hearts rather than instructs them. Whereas mundo, which appears in the Postcommunion below, means to clean, emundo, which is used here, means to clean thoroughly. Further, in the Vulgate emundo has the additional meaning of cleansing from sin or purifying. (See Hebr. 9, 14)

But can light purify? It can if it is sunlight. Heliotherapy, the treatment of disease with sunshine, was practiced by the ancient Greeks in the Old World and by the Incans in the New. Depending on who you talk to, sunbathing can rid the body of insomnia, depression, auto immune problems, vitamin D deficiency, obesity, and tuberculosis. By analogy we pray that the radiation of the Holy Spirit will have a similar effect on our spiritual diseases.

Postcommunion

Sancti Spíritus, Dómine, corda nostra mundet infusio: et sui roris íntima aspersióne foecundet. Per Dóminum... in unitáte ejusdem Spíritus Sancti.

Which I translate as:

May the outpouring of the Holy Spirit clean our hearts, O Lord, and by the inward sprinkling of His own dew may they be made fruitful. Through our Lord... in the unity of the same Holy Ghost.

Whereas the Collect and Secret characterize the Holy Spirit in terms of light, the Postcommunion describes the Holy Spirit in terms of water. Both images have Scriptural precedents (for the latter, see 1 Cor. 12, 13). In fact, the biblical description of the Holy Spirit in liquid and even alcoholic terms is the reason why hard liquor is called “spirits.”

The first petition--that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit clean our hearts--uses an imagery of gushing, while the second--that the sprinkling of His dew fecundate our hearts--uses an imagery of misting. It is an intelligent pairing. The best way to clean a tree (assuming you would ever want to do such a thing) is to blast the hose on it; the best way to water a tree is to put the hose on a trickle. A heavy rain washes away debris while a gentle rain best nourishes the plants and fills the aquifer below. And the Latin word ros, which I have translated as “dew,” can also refer to a light rain.

Finally, both waterings are internal. Infusio, which I have translated as “outpouring,” literally means “pouring into.” The petition is evocative of Romans 5, 5, “the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given to us.” Here, however, we ask for more than the infused virtue of charity; we ask for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit Himself. Similarly, we ask for the “inward sprinkling” not of His dew, but of “His own dew,” that is, His very self. Intima, which I have translated as “inward,” can also mean “most intimate.” Seen in this light, the second petition is almost risque, beautifully affirming the feminine receptivity of every believer’s heart, male or female. May God plant the seed in our hearts and make it grow.

Notes

[1] Ildefonso Schuster, The Sacramentary, vol. 2, trans. Arthur Levelis-Marke (Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1925), 390.

[2] Pius Parsch, The Church’s Year of Grace, vol. 3 (Liturgical Press, 1954), 212.

“Plumber’s Work!” : Romano Guardini and Petrus Tschinkel on the Liturgical Reform

Pius Parsch

The Augustinian Canon Pius Parsch (1884–1954), of Klosterneuburg Abbey outside of Vienna, was among the greatest lights and most influential partisans of the Liturgical Movement in the mid-twentieth century. His classic work The Church’s Year of Grace appeared in many editions in Europe and in two English editions in the United States. While it is streaked with some of the poor scholarship and excessive antiquarianism of the original Liturgical Movement, this multi-volume set is generally regarded as a worthy successor of Dom Guéranger’s The Liturgical Year and Cardinal Schuster’s The Sacramentary, and an essential resource for anyone seriously interested in the traditional Roman rite. Romano Guardini (1885–1968), from the same generation, also contributed many valuable books that aimed to help Catholics better understand and assimilate the riches of the liturgical tradition, such as his short but powerful book Sacred Signs.

Parsch and Guardini both dabbled in unauthorized experiments that, in retrospect, look like anticipations of the Novus Ordo, such as celebrating versus populum and with the vernacular. Later liturgists have been only too willing to invoke them as forerunners of the new liturgy that emerged in the late sixties. It is therefore important, for the historical record, to document that one of Pius Parsch’s closest and most devoted students, Petrus Tschinkel (1906–1995), was not at all enthusiastic about the final result of the liturgical reform, and relates a first-hand experience of Guardini speaking of it in a highly dismissive manner.

Petrus Tschinkel (photo from 1958)

We are fortunate to have access to this information by way of an interview that Dr. Rupert Klötzl of Una Voce Austria conducted with Fr. Tschinkel on April 15, 1992, at Stift Klosterneuburg bei Wien. The interview was recorded and transcribed (those who are interested in either may contact me directly).

At one point Fr. Tschinkel says to Dr. Klötzl:

Pius Parsch, das kann ich sagen, wäre mit den Veränderungen der nachkonzilaren Ära in keiner Weise einverstanden gewesen. Das ist nicht das, was er gewollt hat. Jawohl—in der Muttersprache. Das ist aber alles. Aber nicht die Messe als Mysterium—als eine Wirklichkeit hic et nunc, jetzt und hier. Und die wundervollen Perikopen so gewählt, daß sie Mysterienbilder sind für das, was sich jetzt ereignet. Das war sein Anliegen.

Pius Parsch, I can say this, would not have agreed in any way with the changes of the postconciliar era. This is not what he wanted. Yes—[liturgy] in the mother tongue. But that is all. But not [changing] the Mass as a mystery—as a reality hic et nunc, here and now. And the wonderful pericopes chosen so that they are “mystery pictures” for what is happening now. That was his intention.

St. Gertrude, Fr. Parsch’s parish

A little later Fr. Tschinkel expresses his own view, which aligns with that, apparently, of Guardini:

Und diese liturgischen Formen, nach dem Zweiten Vaticanum, ist ein reiner Leerlauf: nur Texte, Texte. Von einer inneren Haltung keine Spur, vom Mysterium auch nicht. Guardini, wenn Ihnen der Name etwas sagt, den ich sehr verehre. Ich habe, das ist viele Jahre her, da hat Guardini noch gelebt, einen Priester aus München auf Besuch gehabt in St. Gertrud, der wollte St. Gertrud studieren, und da habe ich ihm gesagt - das war gleich nach dem Konzil - ja, ich habe ihm gesagt, wissen Sie, wie Romano Guardini zu den neuen Texten steht? Da sagt er, ja, das kann ich Ihnen sagen. Ich komme sehr oft mit ihm zusammen, und wie er die neuen Texte bekommen hat, hat er sie lange angesehen, ... und dann hat er zu mir gesagt: Klempnerarbeit!

And these liturgical forms, after the Second Vatican Council, are nothing but idling: only text after text. No trace of internal disposition, no trace of mystery either. Guardini—if the name means anything to you, I adore him—many years ago, when Guardini was still alive, I had a priest from Munich visiting St. Gertrude, who wanted to study St. Gertrude, and I said to him—it was right after the Council—yes, I said to him: Do you know how Romano Guardini feels about the new [liturgical] texts? He says: Yes, I can tell you that. I meet him very often, and when he got the new texts, he looked at them for a long time... and then he said to me: “Plumber’s work”!

The German word Klempnerarbeit means work done in a hasty, slipshod way, with inadequate care, and botched results. The reference to a hack plumber doing a mechanical job carries the implication that the reform of the liturgy was approached like the fixing, cutting, adapting, or welding of pieces of metal pipe, rather than as a subtle work of skill on a delicate living reality that would require holiness, discretion, and learning. Klempnerarbeit might also convey in this case a lack of aesthetic value in the misnamed “reforms.”

Fr. Tschinkel then translates Guardini’s German word into colloquial Viennese:

Ja, ich würde als Wiener sagen: Pfuscherarbeit. So ist das. Die Texte sind gewählt ohne irgend einen Zusammenhang mit dem Mysterium. Es war Pius Parsch sein Anliegen, dem Volk das Mysterium nahezubringen—jetzt und hier sich das ereignet durch die Realpräsenz Christi in der Eucharistie. Das ist Religionsunterricht. Ja, und dann muß ich sagen: In dem Punkt ist Lefebvre sicher ein Retter. Er wird eine Zukunft haben. Wäre nicht das erste Mal. Jeanne d’Arc wurde als Hexe verbrannt, später heilig gesprochen. Athanasius exkommuniziert—der große Kirchenlehrer.

Yes, as a Viennese, I’d say botched work. That’s the way it is. The texts are chosen without any connection to the mystery. It was Pius Parsch’s concern to make the mystery accessible to the people—now and here it happens through the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. This is religious education. Yes, and then I must say: In this point Lefebvre is certainly a savior. He will have a future. Wouldn’t be the first time. Joan of Arc was burned as a witch, later canonized. Athanasius excommunicated—the great teacher of the Church.

According to a friend of mine in Vienna, Pfuscherarbeit means not only sloppy work but illegal work. Fr. Guardini, to the extent that he saw what was happening before his death in 1968, wrote it off as Klempnerarbeit; Fr. Tschinkel, heir to Fr. Parsch, concurred that the Bugnini reform was Pfuscherarbeit.

In the interview Dr. Klötzl also mentions Dr. Erwin Hesse, who from 1946 to 1979 was the pastor of the (current) Oratorian church in Vienna, St. Rochus. Fr. Tschinkel talks about his fondness for Fr. Hesse and their agreement with Lefebvre’s action to preserve traditional liturgy and doctrine. Fr. Hesse, in fact, taught some classes for the SSPX. It is important to realize that we are dealing here with people who studied and followed Pius Parsch — who, so to speak, inherited his mantle.

It seems to me that this is the intellectual and spiritual environment out of which we should understand Joseph Ratzinger to have emerged, as witness his elegiac remarks in the Foreword to Alcuin Reid’s book The Organic Development of the Liturgy:

The Liturgical Movement had in fact been attempting to . . . teach us to understand the Liturgy as a living network of Tradition that had taken concrete form, that cannot be torn apart into little pieces but has to be seen and experienced as a living whole. Anyone who, like me, was moved by this perception at the time of the Liturgical Movement on the eve of the Second Vatican Council can only stand, deeply sorrowing, before the ruins of the very things they were concerned for.

I would like to thank Mag. theol. Dr. med. Rupert Klötzl of Vienna, who conducted the interview with Fr. Tschinkel and sent me the transcript, for permitting the use of the quoted material and of the photos. The entire interview of 5,000 words deserves to be translated (any volunteers?).

A newspaper article from 1962, showing Fr. Tschinkel (his name is misspelled in the caption) celebrating Mass versus populum -- a favorite pseudo-antiquarian pasttime. With the wisdom of hindsight, Fr. Tschinkel later regretted the haste with which debatable theories were turned into premises for major liturgical change.

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