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With the exceptions of God’s loving mercy and the eternal joy of Heaven, all good things come to their end. This year’s series concludes with a glimpse into the Church’s final Sunday of our liturgical whirl about the Sun. Although this Sunday is – this year – numerically the 27th after Pentecost, we use the texts for the 24th Sunday. The interim Sundays between the 22nd after Pentecost included the Feast of Christ the King on the final Lord’s Day of October, as well as the texts from the 4th, 5th and 6th Sundays which remained un-prayed after Epiphany due to the changing dates of Septuagint and, therefore, Pentecost. In a few short – indeed shorter and shorter in the Northern Hemisphere – days a new liturgical year begins on the 1st Sunday of Advent.
In five flying weeks we will celebrate the Birth of Our Savior, the Word made flesh, who longs to lead us out of sin and into Heavenly bliss. Paul, writing from Rome in his chains, underscores this in our Epistle selection taken from Colossians 1:91-14. God the Father, by sending His Son into this world, has
qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
This rousing truth should excite in us a desire live “…strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks…”.
Speaking of rousing and exciting, in British climes this Sunday is nicknamed “Stir-Up Sunday” from the first words of the English translation of the ancient Latin Collect found in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. It is also so named because of the custom on this day of stirring up the ingredients for the traditional Christmas Pudding.
Since I mentioned the Collect, let’s have a glance at the real thing in Latin, which dates to at least the Liber sacramentorum Augustodunensis, a 9th century manuscript variation of the mid-8th century Liber sacramentorum Romanae ecclesiae also called the Gelasian Sacramentary. It was compiled near Paris with elements of the Roman and Gallican (French) liturgical practices. There was a tradition that the book dated back to Pope Gelasius I (+492), who probably wrote some of its prayers. The Liber Pontificalis, a chronicle of Roman Popes started in the 3rd century and intermittently developed with biographies between the 6th and 9th centuries, states that Pope Gelasius, “fecit etiam et sacramentorum praefationes et orationes cauto sermone (…also made prefaces to the sacraments and prayers in careful language). Indeed, many of our orations for Holy Mass are very ancient.
If you will permit even more digression, in his 1751 Apostolic Constitution Providas Romanorum condemning Freemasonry, Pope Benedict XIV quoted a prayer which one of the great liturgical scholars of his day, St. Giuseppe Maria Tomasi attributed to Gelasius. It was used in a Mass “contra obloquentes”. Obloquor means “to speak against a person or thing, to interrupt, contradict, to rail at, abuse”. Hence, the prayer could be called variously “Against the nitpickers” or “Against the grumps”. Here it is, straight out of my handy copy of the Liber sacramentorum (aka Gelasian Sacramentary):
Praesta, quaesumus, Domine ut mentium reprobarum non curemus obloquium, sed eadem pravitate calcata, exoramus ut nec terreri nos lacerationibus pateris iniustis, nec captiosis adulationibus implicari, sed potius amare quae praecipis. Conspirantes, Domine, contra tuae plenitudinis firmamentum, dexterae tuae virtute prosterne; ut iustititae non dominetur iniquitas, sed subdatur semper falsitas veritati.
Grant, we beseech You, O Lord, that we do not care about the evil words of those with reprobate minds, but after their same depravity has been kicked aside, let us pray that you neither allow us to be afraid of unjust cutting attacks nor to be entangled in deceptive flatteries, but rather to love the things You command. Cast down, O Lord, by the might of Your right hand, those plotting again the firmament of your completeness; so that iniquity will not lord it over justice, but rather falsity will always be subjected to truth.
Pope Leo XII would also quote this in his own 1825 encyclical against Masonry Quo graviora.
Enough digressing. Let’s stir up our Collect for this Sunday.
Excita, quaesumus, Domine, tuorum fidelium voluntates: ut, divini operis fructum propensius exsequentes; pietatis tuae remedia maiora percipiant.
Our always exciting Lewis & Short Dictionary says excito means “to raise up, comfort; to arouse, awaken, excite, incite, stimulate, enliven”. Propensius is a comparative adverb of propendeo, which thus means “more willingly, readily, with inclination”. When attributed to God pietas is less “piety, duty” than it is “mercy”. Exsequor is “to follow to the end, to pursue, follow; to execute, accomplish, fulfill”. Percipio is “to get, obtain, and receive”.
LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Rouse up, we beseech You, O Lord, the wills of Your faithful, that they, pursuing more earnestly the fruit of the divine work, may obtain the more greatly the remedies of Your mercy.
In the Latin original, the two comparatives, propensius and maiora, set up a proportional relation between the grace-filled pursuit, on our part, and the extent of the effects of the remedy. The greater our earnestness, which, as Paul wrote to the Colossians (above) is itself prompted by God’s work in us, the more will we receive His mercy.
A SMOOTHER TRANSLATION:
Stir up the wills of your faithful, we pray, O Lord, that, seeking more eagerly the fruit of your divine work, they may find in greater measure the healing effects of your mercy.
Note that “fruit”. In the Epistle for this Mass Paul tells the Colossians to persevere “bearing fruit in every good work (v. 10 – in omni opera bono fructificantes).
The Secret asks God to free us from earthly desires (cupiditates) and the Postcommunion asks for healing of whatever is directed to vices (medicatio). This is a fitting theme for the end of the year and the threshold of the new.
Our earliest Christian forebears longed for the return of Christ. At the end of the 1 Corinthians, we find the complicated word Aramaic word maranatha, which bears several interpretations but is most commonly understood to mean “Come, Lord!” This is probably echoed at the end of Revelation 20, “Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!” It is also in Didache 10:14. There is a longing in the prayer. In his The Church’s Year of Grace, Pius Parsch notes that by the medieval period, longing for the Second coming was wreathed in dread, as exemplified in the Dies Irae of the Requiem Mass with its powerful images of judgement:
… My prayers are not worthy: but You, Who are good, graciously grant that I be not burned up by the everlasting fire. … Humbly kneeling and bowed I pray, my heart crushed like ashes: take care of my end. …
When the time comes, and it will come either collectively or individually, everything will be straightened out whether we’ve straightened up beforehand or not.
Parsch goes on to say that in our time, we neither long for nor fear the Lord’s return, which in wider society is surely true. Parsch writes: “We lack both the childlike enthusiasm for the ancient Church and the naïve realism of the Middle Ages. What is left for us to do?”
Pace Parsch, I’m not so sure that medieval realism wasn’t wisdom. However, in answering his own question, Parsch says:
What is left for us to do ? Open our New Testaments and meditate upon the last things as set forth by our Savior: Be always prepared; live your days in the light of the Second Advent. I am sure that such is the spirit of the Church according to the liturgy. By directing our gaze toward Christ’s Second Coming, the Church reminds us how to become rich in the fruits of good works and in the increase of patience and perseverance (Epistle). We may never forget that she wants work to follow words. In the holy Sacrifice she brings the Lord in His Second Advent close to us mystically — yes, holy Mass is a Second Advent, though, of course, in its own way through grace. “I am thinking thoughts of peace, not of punishment.” Holy Mass is also a judgment, the judgment of punishment He took upon Himself in death and which He is re-actualizing now. The Cross He chose for Himself, but to us He says: “Come, blessed of my Father …”
Get ready.
