Adoremus Bulletin - January 2018 Issue

Adoremus Bulletin

JANUARY 2018

USCCB Publishes Prayers from Exorcism Rite

Adoremus PO Box 385 La Crosse, WI 54602-0385

Non- Profit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Brainerd, MN Permit No. 561

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is publishing a volume of prayers drawn from the appendix of the first official English-language translation of the ritual book on the rite of Exorcism. It is entitled Prayers Against the Powers of Darkness.

Father Andrew Menke, executive director of the USCCB’s Secretariat for Divine Worship, notes that these prayers can strengthen and assist anyone who prays them. “The book is meant to facilitate a very reflective kind of prayer,” says Father Menke.

“It’s meant to be a meditative, patient, trusting, quiet sort of prayer.”

Prayers Against the Powers of Darkness is a small booklet that can be purchased through the USCCB’s online bookstore, http://store.usccb.org/.

The USCCB’s Committee on Divine Worship is also announcing the release of the first official English-language translation of the ritual book, Exorcisms and Related Supplications. The book will only be distributed to bishops. Others who have a legitimate use for it, such as exorcists, clergy, scholars and seminary professors, will need to obtain a copy through their bishop.

“Some priests might not be all that comfortable using a Latin text, so having it available in the vernacular now means they can concentrate on prayer and on the ritual, without needing to worry about working in another language,” says Father Menke. “This should make it easier for bishops to find priests who can help them with this important ministry. Another benefit of the vernacular translation is that hearing the prayers in English can also bring comfort to the person undergoing an exorcism.”

Please see EXORCISM on next page

Vol. XXIII, No. 4

The Prayer of the Liturgy: How the Spirit’s Sober Inebriation Brings Joy to the Praying Soul A Centenary of Guardini’s The Spirit of the Liturgy—Part I

By Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli Editor’s note: 2018 marks the 100th anniversary of Romano Guardini’s German text of The Spirit of the Liturgy. Throughout this year, Adoremus will feature prominent theologians and liturgists, pastors and practitioners, who will offer their own insights on each of The Spirit of the Liturgy’s seven chapters, give some historical context to his writing from 100 years ago and leading up to the Second Vatican Council, and consider how the “spirit” of his work’s key insights might enhance today’s celebrations and participation in the liturgy. Adoremus is grateful to Bishop Arthur Serratelli of Paterson, NJ, for leading off the series. Bishop Serratelli is currently a member of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy and of Vox Clara, and he has served as Chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Divine Worship.

R

omano Guardini is one of the most important intellectual figures in twentieth century Catholicism. In an era when the Church was facing Modernism and a very individualistic understanding of prayer, Guardini spoke about the liturgy as a communal act of worship of the whole Church. In the nineteenth century, there had been an overemphasis on personal prayer as a means to gain merit and assure one’s salvation. To such a spiritual individualism, Guardini provided the muchneeded antidote in his famous work The Spirit of the Liturgy (1918).

Beyond the Letter Guardini found little comfort in the textbook theology taught in his day as a defense against the errors of the Modernists. He turned to the writings of St. Augustine in the quest to uncover the meaning of love and freedom. Guardini realized that there is no true freedom apart from the authority of the Church.

His quest for such freedom drew him into the beginnings of the liturgical movement which served as a basis for the Second Vatican Council’s renewal of the liturgy. He wanted to relearn the way in which liturgy should be done so that the faithful of his day could more fully enter into it. Long before the Second Vatican Council clearly stated it, Guardini was working for the full, conscious,

AB

Adoremus Bulletin JANUARY 2018

AB/WIKIMEDIA

News & Views

For the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy

2018 marks the centenary of Romano Guardini’s The Spirit of the Liturgy, a book that Pope Benedict XVI says “led to a striving for a celebration of the liturgy that would be ‘more substantial’.”

active participation of all the faithful in liturgy.

So important had the question of the liturgy become in the 19th and 20th centuries that the Second Vatican Council dedicated its first document to the liturgy: Sacrosanctum Concilium. In the early 20th century, Pope St. Pius X had sought to encourage a more active participation of the laity at Mass through a reform of liturgical music. Subsequently, in response to the liturgical movement taking place, Pope Pius XII had issued Mediator Dei in 1947. It was the very first encyclical devoted entirely to the liturgy. In it, Pope Pius XII defined the liturgy as “the public worship...rendered by the Mystical Body of Christ in the entirety of its Head and members” (20).

He encouraged the active participation of the laity in the Mass and spoke of the liturgy as a source for personal piety.

At the very beginning of this growing desire for a liturgical revival, Guardini published his book The Spirit of the Liturgy. Although it was published a century ago, it remains a powerful statement of the true nature of the liturgy. “In his classic work, Guardini presented the experience of the liturgy as an antidote to the cold rationalism and narrow moralism that he saw afflicting the Church of his day.” 1 Guardini’s profound insights have not been surpassed. They continue to

engage theologians. In writing his own masterpiece on the liturgy, Cardinal Ratzinger used the same title for his work as Guardini did; and he humbly acknowledged his own indebtedness to Guardini. Both authors set as their purpose not simply to debate scholarly questions but to offer an understanding of how faith finds its expression in the celebration of the liturgy.

The Spirit is Willing As Romano Guardini’s The Spirit of the Liturgy turns 100 in 2018, Bishop Arthur Serratelli rings in the New Year by mining the depths of the book’s opening chapter...........1

Fonts Half Full As the gateway to the Church, the Sacrament of Baptism calls for the baptismal font to be a vital element of church architecture—as Denis McNamara explains.............................7

Politics and the English Language U.S. Bishops wade into their first postMagnum Principium debate, voting to approve the Order of Baptism for Children—with enlightening results.............3

Undoer of Knots Our Blessed Mother has many names and, as Jeremy Priest reveals, her title “Untier of Knots” is among the most meaningful for the world today..........................................9

Understanding Exorcism With a new Vatican-approved English translation of the Rite of Exorcism, exorcism expert, Father Jeffry Grob lays out why this ancient rite of the Church is so important in modern times..............................................5

Prayer—One and All In the first chapter of his book, “Prayer of the Liturgy,” Guardini discusses the relationship between liturgy and popular devotions as well as the relevance of culture for liturgy. He begins by establishing the principle that the liturgy is the prayer of the whole Church. It does not rest with the individual nor with a particular community or group of individuals. In fact, the liturgy’s first aim is not the awakening of the pious sentiments of an individual or a community.

For Guardini, the objective nature of the liturgy is fundamental. It is what distinguishes Catholic worship and sets it apart from Protestant worship, which is much more subjective and individualistic.

The Church is all-embracing, including people of every race, of distinct social strata, and varied circumstances.

In the course of time, her liturgy has Please see GUARDINI on page 4

News & Views..................................................2 The Rite Questions........................................10 Donors & Memorials....................................11

2 Continued from EXORCISM, page 1 Drawing from rituals used by the Catholic Church for centuries, the English translation has been prepared from the rite that was revised following the Second Vatican Council. Ultimately, it is up to the discretion of the exorcist to choose which language to use during the rite.

It is important to note that under canon law (Canon 1172), only those priests who receive permission from their bishops can perform an exorcism, after proper training. Bishops automatically have the right to perform an exorcism and can share that authority with other priests.

Each of the texts affirms the reality of evil in the world and also the sovereignty of Jesus to overcome any and all evil on a personal level and in the world.

Liturgist Priest Romano Guardini’s Cause Opened An inspiration to popes and a central figure in Catholic liturgical reform of the 20th century, Father Romano Guardini will be examined formally for beatification. On December 16, this German priest’s cause was opened with Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Munich. The cause of German resistance fighter against the Nazis, Fritz Michaeal Gerlich, was also opened at this time.

According to the October 24 issue of the Catholic Herald of London, Father Guardini was “one of the most important theologians of the 20th century. His work The Spirit of the Liturgy was a major influence on the Liturgical Movement, and he became a key thinker for the council fathers at the Second Vatican Council.”

Quoted by the Herald, Pope Francis said he is “convinced that Guardini is a thinker who has much to say to the people of our time, and not only the Christians.”

Also quoted by the Herald, Pope Benedict XVI referred to Guardini as “a great figure, a Christian interpreter of the world of his own time.” The pope emeritus’s book, The Spirit of the Liturgy, was inspired in name and content by Guardini’s 1918 work.

Francis and Benedict Agree: Multis Means “Many” On November 3, during a memorial Mass for the 14 cardinals and bishops who died last year, Pope Francis spoke during his homily on the question of whether the Latin phrase pro multis, which appears in the formula for consecration of the Eucharistic Prayer in the Extraordinary and Ordinary Form of the Mass, means what it says it means: “for many.”

In a November 3 article for Crux, Ines San Martin reports that “Pope Francis…appeared to wade into one of the most contentious liturgical debates in Catholicism in recent years, siding with his predecessor Pope emeritus Benedict XVI by insisting that Christ died ‘for many,’ instead of using the phrase ‘for all.’”

Critics of the “for all” translation of pro multis say that, besides misconstruing what the Latin actually says—not to mention what Jesus is recorded as saying in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark—such a rendering implies an unwarranted universalism and downplays the role of the individual in freely accepting Christ’s gift of salvation.

Quoted by San Martin in the Crux article, Pope Francis says, “The ‘many’ who will rise for eternal life are to be understood as the ‘many’ for whom the blood of Christ was shed. They are the multitude that, thanks to the goodness and mercy of God, can experience the life that does not pass away, the complete victory over death brought by the resurrection.”

Furthermore, San Martin writes, Pope Francis argued that “for many” better communicates the part that mankind’s God-given free will plays in an individual soul’s salvation, since “human beings have to make a choice during this life, either for or against God.” “Awakening from death isn’t, in itself, a return to life,” the pope says, quoted by San Martin. “Some in fact will awake to eternal life, others for eternal shame.”

“Death renders definitive the ‘crossroads’ which, already here in this world, stand before us: The way of life, that is, the one that leads us to communion with God, or the path of death, that is, the one that leads us away from Him” to hell.

Citing the Gospel of Mark (14:24) and Matthew (26:28) as the sources of the phrase pro multis, San Martin writes that the phrase appears in the most

Adoremus Bulletin, January 2018

NEWS & VIEWS

recent English translation of the Eucharist Prayer as the Blood “which will be poured out for you, and for many, for the forgiveness of sins.”

Following Liturgiam Authenticam’s instructions issued in 2001 by the Vatican’s Divine Worship office, this corrected English translation of pro multis, San Martin reports, was normalized by the Vatican in 2006.

“In 2006, the Vatican decreed that in translations of the revised edition of the Roman Missal…, the phrase was to be translated literally, as ‘for many,’” San Martin writes. “The official version in English has been published, using that literal translation. However, that change for several other languages is still in the works.”

U.S. Bishops Approve Revised Translation of Baptism Rite for Children The U.S. Bishops approved the use of a new translation of the baptism rite for children. The approval came on November 14 during the bishops’ annual fall assembly (Nov. 13-14) in Baltimore.

In a November 15 article for the Catholic News Service, Carol Zimmerman reports that it was the first time in 40 years that the bishops approved of an update in the rite’s translation.

“In discussing the topic, the bishops made it clear it was not something they took lightly,” Zimmerman writes.

According to Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron of Detroit, the bishops took their time because the rite plays a central role in the life of faith.

“We need to think about these things,” the archbishop said, quoted by Zimmerman. “It’s not just the pope or the Holy See that protects revelation, but us.”

Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Atlanta acknowledged that the changes were minor, Zimmerman reports, but “he said they were a response to the Vatican’s call that they were part of something bigger and addressed the Vatican’s request to translate liturgical texts into modern languages.”

The translation of the Order of Baptism of Children passed, Zimmerman writes, with 200 bishops voting in favor of approving the revisions to the International Committee on English in the Liturgy’s Gray Book translation. It will next be sent to Rome for approval.

The vote comes, Zimmerman writes, a few weeks after Pope Francis’s September 9 motu proprio Magnum Principium, which called for a “simpler process of translating liturgical texts.”

The text for the revised rite also reflects principles of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments’ Liturgicam Authenticam, Zimmerman writes.

A transcript of the bishops’ discussion of Magnum Principium and their deliberations over the Order of Baptism of Children begins on page 3 of this issue of Adoremus Bulletin.

“The Liturgy Guys” Haul in Fisher’s Net Catholic Podcast Award The Liturgy Guys podcast, an initiative of the Liturgical Institute (LI) at University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein, IL, has won the Fisher’s Net Award for Best Catholic Podcast of 2017.

The Liturgy Guys are Denis McNamara and his fellow faculty member at the LI, Adoremus Bulletin editor and publisher, Christopher Carstens, who sit down

Adoremus Bulletin

Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy

Adoremus Bulletin (ISSN 1088-8233) is published six times a year by Adoremus— Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy, in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Adoremus is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation of the State of California. Nonprofit periodicals postage paid at various US mailing offices. Change service requested.

Adoremus—Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy was established in June 1995 to promote authentic reform of the Liturgy of the Roman Rite in accordance with the Second Vatican Council’s decree on the Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium. Adoremus Bulletin is sent on request to members of Adoremus. Suggested donation: $40 per year, US; $45 foreign.

with host Jesse Weiler for a weekly discussion about all things liturgical. Through an ongoing conversation about the Catholic liturgy, The Liturgy Guys hope to share the treasures of the liturgy with English-speaking Catholics around the world.

According to Weiler, the award has netted The Liturgy Guys well-deserved recognition, especially with a listening audience that might not otherwise hear about the liturgy in such detail.

“The folks at Fisher’s Net who run the contest and serve as the judges are young adults,” Weiler says. “It’s incredibly important that we are reaching that specific demographic.”

As a website devoted to promoting Catholic evangelization through multimedia, The Fisher’s Net was started by Holds Worth Design Inc. of Edmonton, Alberta in Canada, as a way to spread the truth of Christ and his Church through effective online communication.

The Liturgy Guys podcast is available via iTunes or http://liturgyguys.podbean.com/

Pope Francis Says “Our Father” Prayer is Poorly Translated VATICAN CITY (CNA/EWTN News)—In a video series for Italian television network TV2000, Pope Francis said that “lead us not into temptation” is a poorly translated line of the Our Father.

“This is not a good translation,” the Pope said in the video, published December 6. “I am the one who falls; it’s not (God) who pushes me toward temptation to see how I fall. A father doesn’t do this, a father helps us to get up right away.”

He noted that this line was recently re-translated in the French version of the prayer to read “do not let me fall into temptation.”

The Latin version of the prayer, the authoritative version in the Catholic Church, reads “ne nos inducas in tentationem.”

The Pope said that the one who leads people into temptation “is Satan; that is the work of Satan.” He said that the essence of that line in the prayer is like telling God: “when Satan leads me into temptation, please, give me your hand. Give me your hand.”

Just as Jesus gave Peter his hand to help him out of the water when he began to sink, the prayer also asks God to “give me your hand so that I don’t drown,” Pope Francis said.

The Pope made his comments in the seventh part of the “Our Father” television series being aired by Italian television network TV2000.

Filmed in collaboration with the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communications, the series consists of nine question-and-answer sessions with Pope Francis and Father Marco Pozza, a theologian and a prison chaplain in the northern Italian city of Padua.

In his question to Pope Francis on the line “lead us not into temptation,” Father Pozza noted that many people have asked him how God can lead someone into temptation, and questioned what the phrase actually intends to say.

The question is one of the reasons the French bishops decided to make a request for a new translation of the Our Father that they believe conveys the meaning more clearly.

According to the French episcopal conference, the decision to make the change was accepted by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in June 2013.

The Pope’s remarks do not change the translations of liturgical texts. Such a change would begin with a resolution by an episcopal conference in Englishspeaking countries.

EDITOR - PUBLISHER: Christopher Carstens MANAGING EDITOR: Joseph O’Brien GRAPHIC DESIGNER: Danelle Bjornson OFFICE MANAGER: Elizabeth Gallagher PHONE: 608.521.0385 WEBSITE: www.adoremus.org MEMBERSHIP REQUESTS & CHANGE OF ADDRESS: info@adoremus.org LETTERS TO THE EDITOR EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE P.O. Box 385 The Rev. Jerry Pokorsky ✝ La Crosse, WI 54602-0385 Helen Hull Hitchcock The Rev. Joseph Fessio, SJ editor@adoremus.org Contents copyright © 2018 by ADOREMUS. All rights reserved.

3

Adoremus Bulletin, January 2018

Come Along and Enter with a Liturgical Spirit into The Spirit of the Liturgy

By Christopher Carstens, Editor

B

ack in 2002, while still a professor at the University of Munich, Father Gerhard Müller asked the Church a provocative question: “Can mankind understand the spirit of the liturgy anymore?” This expression, “the spirit of the liturgy,” is not, of course, a nod to some pseudo-spirit of the Second Vatican Council but to that substantial spirit spoken of by Romano Guardini in 1918 and, later, by Joseph Ratzinger in 2000.

Cardinal Ratzinger, in the preface to his book, The Spirit of the Liturgy, recalls the importance of Guardini’s work in his own life and in the 20thcentury liturgical movement. “One of the first books I read after starting my theological studies at the beginning of 1946 was Romano Guardini’s first little book, The Spirit of the Liturgy. It was published in 1918 as the opening volume in the Ecclsia Orans series edited by Abbot Herwegen [of the Benedictine Maria Laach Abbey], and from then until 1957 it was constantly reprinted. This slim volume may rightly be said to have inaugurated the Liturgical Movement in Germany. Its contribution was decisive. It helped us to rediscover the liturgy in all its beauty, hidden wealth, and time-transcending grandeur, to see it as the animating center of the Church, the very center of Christian life. It led to a striving for a celebration of the liturgy that would

be ‘more substantial’ (wesentlicher, one of Guardini’s favorite words). We were now willing to see the liturgy—in its inner demands and form—as the prayer of the Church, a prayer moved and guided by the Holy Spirit himself, a prayer in which Christ unceasingly becomes contemporary with us, enters into our lives” (7).

Could there be a more ringing endorsement of a liturgical work and an encouragement to take it up again today? As the Cardinal himself went on to to admit about his own book, “I deliberately chose a title that would be immediately reminiscent of that classic of liturgical theology” (9). (Perhaps we’ll consider changing our name from Adoremus Bulletin to “The Spirit of the Liturgy Bulletin” in 2018….)

Problems in 1918, when Guardini wrote his book, were the same in kind as ours a century later. The early to mid-20th century certainly dealt with two world wars, inhuman industrialization, the rise of Modernism and the demise of empires (to name just a few things). In our own time, however, those same problems seem to have become compounded by world-wide terrorism, the bombardment of constant communication and information via social media, a continued disintegration—first begun in the 20th century—of natural foundations and, in the West, an accelerated abandonment of the faith. Yet, while both time periods had their share of problems, both also

share a common cure: Christ. Or, to put a finer point on it, both have had access to the liturgical Christ as the antidote who “becomes contemporary with us” and “enters into our lives.”

Consider again then-Father Ratzinger’s testimony of Father Guardini’s The Spirit of the Liturgy: “It helped us to rediscover the liturgy in all its beauty, hidden wealth, and timetranscending grandeur, to see it as the animating center of the Church, the very center of Christian life….” Such a vision of the liturgy—seeing its substance and essence, and not losing that insight amidst the world’s noise, the Church’s battles, and the liturgy’s own man-made limitations—is a work of the highest order. Father Guardini thought so, and Cardinal Ratzinger worked for the same end in our own day. Thus, in the spirit of Guardini and Ratzinger, Adoremus Bulletin looks forward in this new year to wading deeper into the liturgy’s true spirit by unpacking Guardini’s The Spirit of the Liturgy.

To mark the centenary of Guardini’s watershed work, we are blessed in 2018 to feature seven prominent authors, each of whom will reflect upon one of the chapters which constitute The Spirit of the Liturgy.

They will help each of us enter with Guardini, Cardinal Ratzinger, and now Cardinal Müller, into “the spirit of the liturgy,” to uncover its substance, and come face to face with

Christ, the liturgy’s core. These authors include: • Bishop Arthur Serratelli, Bishop of Paterson, NJ: “The Prayer of the Liturgy”—and how the Spirit’s “sober inebriation” brings joy to the praying soul • Father Cassian Folsom, OSB, Monastery of St. Benedict in Norcia, Italy: “The Fellowship of the Liturgy” • Dr. Michon Matthiesen, Assistant Professor of Theology at the University of Mary, Bismarck, ND: “The Style of the Liturgy” • Dr. David Fagerberg, Professor of Liturgical Studies at the University of Notre Dame: “The Symbolism of the Liturgy” • Father Daniel Cardó, S.C.V., Pastor of Holy Name Parish, Denver, CO, and Professor of Homiletics and Patristics at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary: “The Playfulness of the Liturgy” • Bishop James Conley, Bishop of Lincoln, NE: “The Seriousness of the Liturgy” • Father Emery de Gaál, Professor of Dogmatic Theology at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary: “The Primacy of the Logos over the Ethos in the Liturgy” These fine authors will help each of us see through Guardini’s own eyes the spirit of the liturgy “in all its beauty, hidden wealth, and time-transcending grandeur, to see it as the animating center of the Church, the very center of Christian life”—a true sight to behold!

USCCB Debates Baptism Translation

A

t their November 12-15, 2017 General Assembly in Baltimore, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops voted to approve the Gray Book of the Order of Baptism of Children and send it to the Holy See for approval. The action is of interest to Adoremus readers for three reasons. First, the English translation of the 1973 Latin second typical edition will be in use for years to come for this important and frequently-used rite. Second, the U.S. Bishops’ vote would be the first of its kind following the Holy Father’s motu proprio Magnum Principium, published September 9 and effective October 1, and the clarifications (and clarification of clarifications) that followed.

It indicates, many think, the mind of the U.S. Bishops and their new responsibility and authority to finalize liturgical texts. Others consider their debate an indicator of whether, or to what degree, the third edition of the Roman Missal in English will be translated again. Finally, the Bishops’ action illustrates the differences between ritual adaptations that require a recognitio by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and the simpler confirmatio required for liturgical translations. The questions, debates, and votes on the Order of Baptism of Children took place during the general sessions, November 13-14. Highlights of the floor debate on November 13 follow; the entire debate can be seen at the USCCB’s website, http://www.usccb.org/about/leadership/usccb-generalassembly/video-on-demand.cfm.

“ This new translation of the Order of Baptism of Children responds to the Holy See’s mandate that the postConciliar liturgical books be translated with greater precision than they were in the first generation of translations, and this mandate was not changed by the motu proprio.”

- Archbishop Wilton Gregory

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo (USCCB President and Archbishop of Galveston-Houston, TX): Brothers, as you are aware, our Holy Father recently modified canon 838 of the Code of Canon Law, through an issuance of a motu proprio, Magnum Principium. This canon concerns the ordering and guidance of the sacred liturgy, including the translation and adaptation of liturgical texts. In September, I asked the Committee on Divine Worship and the Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church governance to study this legislation and the documentation released by the Holy See […]. Prior to moving to [the USCCB’s Committee on] Divine Worship’s action item, I would like to invite [chairman] Archbishop [Wilton] Gregory forward to give us a brief update on the motu proprio as it relates to the work of the Conference.

Archbishop Wilton Gregory (Committee on Divine Worship Chairman and Archbishop of Atlanta, GA): My brother bishops, I want to begin by saying a few words about the motu proprio Magnum Principium that was issued by the Holy Father on September 9, by which he modified canon 838 of the Code of Canon Law. This canon concerns the preparation and approval of liturgical books, and, in the words of the motu proprio itself, this change to the canon is meant “to make

collaboration in this service to the faithful between the Apostolic See and Episcopal Conferences easier and more fruitful.”

At the request of Cardinal DiNardo, the Committee on Divine Worship and the Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance prepared some observations on this new legislation—on how it might impact our procedures going forward. […]

I would like to highlight the fact that the motu proprio is not retroactive—the emphasis is looking forward. The motu proprio is also focused more on translations than on adaptations: when it comes to translation, the Conference now has more authority to determine the best way to apply the guidelines in Liturgiam Authenticam to vernacular translations. However, when it comes to making adaptations or changes to the liturgical books, nothing has really been altered, and the Holy See will continue to play an active role in the approval process.

The Divine Worship Committee has an action item that I will be introducing shortly. The Committee realizes perfectly well that the translation of the Order of Baptism of Children was prepared before the motu proprio was issued. We also recognize that this new translation is not radically different than the 1970 translation currently in use. But let me make a few observations.

Please see USCCB on page 12

4

Pope Pius X (inset) is often attributed with beginning the modern liturgical movement with his 1903 encyclical, Tra le sollecitudini, while Pope Pius XII dedicated the Church’s first encyclical entirely to the liturgy, Mediator Dei, in 1947. Guardini drank from the same liturgical font as these popes, devoting much of his own thinking and writing to the Church’s liturgical heart.

Continued from GUARDINI, page 1

AB/ WIKIMEDIA. FRA ANGELICO

developed. The ephemeral, the experimental, and those aspects peculiar to a time or place have been gradually eliminated and what is accepted as essential and binding on all has remained. “The Catholic liturgy is the supreme example of an objectively established rule of spiritual life. It has been able to develop ‘kata tou holou,’ that is to say, in every direction, and in accordance with all places, times, and types of human culture” (18).2 Guardini’s insistence on the objective nature of the liturgy provides an ever-present safeguard against attitudes and actions that undermine the liturgy. Since the liturgy is something that we receive from the Church, it is never the product of a particular group. No individual or group of individuals has the prerogative to be creative with the liturgy, adapting, changing or removing parts of the liturgy to suit their particular subjective perception of what is required at any given moment.

The Church is all-embracing, including people of every race, of distinct social strata, and varied circumstances. In the course of time, her liturgy has developed. The ephemeral, the experimental, and those aspects peculiar to a time or place have been gradually eliminated and what is accepted as essential and binding on all has remained. “The Catholic liturgy,” Guardini writes, “is the supreme example of an objectively established rule of spiritual life.”

Developing this same thought, Ratzinger in his writings and speeches urges Catholics to have a new awareness of the liturgy as a gift received from the Church. Such an understanding does not reduce the liturgy to something that can be manipulated at will. When individuals reshape the liturgy to project their own will and desires, they lose its primary focus. The liturgy is not to make us feel good.

Perhaps, such thinking is one factor among others that accounts for the decrease in attendance at liturgy in the last fifty years. Liturgy is not me-centered: it is God-centered.

Side by side with the universal, objective, and public liturgy of the Church are the private prayers of her individual members. In these private prayers and communal devotions of the faithful, there is a stronger presence of emotion and feeling. Popular piety is personal and subjective. Its forms vary according to historical circumstances, “periods, localities, or requirements, and so on. They bear the stamp of their time and surroundings, and are the direct expression of the characteristic quality or temper of an individual congregation” (20). Nevertheless, these acts of piety contribute in their own way to the spiritual growth of the individual.

They are necessary and good.

Guardini is balanced in his discussion of prayer. Both the private prayer of the faithful and the public prayer of the

Church foster and deepen a person’s relationship with God. In both personal prayer and devotional prayer, individuals bring to God the particular contingencies and needs of their lives. In liturgy, however, individuals are absorbed into a wider spiritual world and pray as members of the Church.

They are taken up into a sphere which transcends the individual and is accessible to believers of every time and place. Both popular devotions and the public worship of the Church have their place. “There could be no greater mistake,” Guardini insists, “than that of discarding the valuable elements in the spiritual life of the people for the sake of the liturgy, or than the desire of assimilating them to it” (20).

Nonetheless, liturgical prayer has a pre-eminence over non-liturgical prayer. Examining what a healthy relationship between liturgical prayer and devotional prayer looks like, Guardini extrapolates a number of “fundamental laws” (21) from the liturgy that ought to guide a necessary, healthy, and supporting piety.

Liturgical Laws The first two laws involve the head and the heart—thought and emotion. Since prayer is always the lifting up of our hearts to God, emotions will always have their place in every form of prayer. But, in popular devotions, there may be an emphasis on a specific emotion or form of spontaneity that may not elicit a response in all present and may not be reproduced at every occasion. Liturgy, on the other hand, is more universal and inclusive.

The heart must be in all prayer. And, in the liturgy, the heart is guided and purified by the mind. Feeling and emotion are present, but thought directs and controls them. “If prayer in common,” Guardini says, “is to prove beneficial to the majority, it must be primarily directed by thought, and not by feeling” (22). Clear theological thought sustains and directs the prayers of the liturgy. It is precisely this direction that makes liturgical prayer helpful for the entire community.

Related to the law of the mind is the foundational element of truth. Prayer, whether liturgical or devotional, “is beneficial only when it rests on the bedrock of truth” (22).

The very words of the prayers of the liturgy are taken from the rich storehouse of Sacred Scripture and Tradition. The words of the Fathers of the Church find their voice in the liturgy. In the carefully constructed phrases of the liturgical prayer, the faith of the entire Church across the centuries is expressed both artistically and didactically. Unlike popular devotions, the liturgy does not concentrate our attention on one truth to the exclusion of another. For example, the

“ If prayer in common,” Guardini says, “is to prove beneficial to the majority, it must be primarily directed by thought, and not by feeling.” mercy of God is never emphasized to the detriment of the justice of God nor the transcendence of God to his immanence.

In lucid terms, the liturgy, guided by dogma, offers the truth of the faith in its entirety. In this way, the liturgy not only teaches us, but satisfies our deepest spiritual hunger.

In a word, the liturgy “is nothing else but truth expressed in terms of prayer” (24). As Guardini so beautifully writes, “Dogmatic thought brings release from the thralldom of individual caprice, and from the uncertainty and sluggishness which follow in the wake of emotion. It makes prayer intelligible, and causes it to rank as a potent factor in life” (23).

But that’s not to say that emotions and feelings do not play their part in the liturgy. “While the necessity of thought is emphasized,” Guardini explains, “it must not be allowed to degenerate into the mere frigid domination of reason” (25). The emotional element of prayer is another law accompanying prayer’s truth feature. Our human nature is both graced and fallen, splendid and base.

In liturgy, all the emotions of our common human nature are present from A to Z. The intense cries of the psalmist’s voice convey both our joys and our sorrows. The plaintive sighs of the Miserere—“Have mercy on me, God, in accord with your merciful love!” (Psalm 51)—express our deep contrition. The Easter Exsultet raises our hearts in joyful praise of God who brings to fulfillment his plan of salvation in the Resurrection of Jesus. In the liturgy, emotion is always controlled and tranquil. “Emotion glows in its depths, but it smolders merely like the fiery heart of the volcano whose summit stands out clear and serene against the quiet sky” (26).

Digging Deep Lastly, in his first chapter of The Spirit of the Liturgy, Guardini goes beneath the surface of prayer. He speaks of “the great need of the subsoil of healthy nature” (34). An individual’s human nature, along with a society’s corporate nature, is part and parcel of a healthy and vibrant life of prayer. He holds that, like the salt of the gospel, a genuine

AB/WIKIMEDIA. STUDY OF KING DAVID, BY JULIA MARGARET CAMERON

AB/WIKIMEDIA, TRUE RESTORATION ON FLICKR

Adoremus Bulletin, January 2018

The emotional element of prayer accompanies prayer’s truth feature. The varied emotions of the psalmist’s voice convey both our joys and our sorrows, as King David himself experienced. But in the liturgy, emotion is always controlled and tranquil. “Emotion glows in its depths, but it smolders merely like the fiery heart of the volcano whose summit stands out clear and serene against the quiet sky.”

and lofty culture should impregnate the entire spiritual life. Without a lofty culture, ideas become weak, symbolism crude, and language coarse. Guardini employs often the Scholastic maxim, “grace takes nature for granted” (34). When a natural foundation is strong and solid, a supernatural edifice may rise toward God; conversely, when the footing is faulty, divine life is difficult—if not impossible. Since human culture influences the spiritual life, by that very fact, it influences liturgy.

Most certainly, culture, especially the use of language, is important in liturgy. As Pope Benedict XVI stated in his book, The Spirit of the Liturgy, the “central actio of the Mass is fundamentally neither that of the priest as such nor of the laity as such, but of Christ the High Priest: This action of God, which takes place through human speech, is the real ‘action’ for which all creation is in expectation…. This is what is new and distinctive about the Christian liturgy: God himself acts and does what is essential” (173). Since the language of liturgical prayer is so essential to presenting the “action” of God, it deserves special attention. “Coarse language” and “monotonous and clumsy imagery” are simply not capable of communicating clearly the actio of the Divine Word.

In the liturgy, the language of prayer should be rich in thought and imagery. It must not be removed from reality—it should be bold enough to call things by their names. It should be powerful, yet subtle. It should be erudite, yet understandable.

Liturgical prayer should tend toward the poetic. While prose bumps along the ground, poetry reaches heavenward. And liturgy already participates in the liturgy in heaven. “If indeed, in the liturgical texts, words or expressions are sometimes employed which differ somewhat from usual and everyday speech, it is often enough by virtue of this very fact that the texts become truly memorable and capable of expressing heavenly realities” (Liturgiam Authenticam, 27).

Even a casual reader of the first chapter of Guardini’s The Spirit of the Liturgy comes quickly to a basic understanding of Catholic liturgy as “the supreme example of an objectively established rule of the spiritual life” (18).

As Prosper of Aquitaine’s maxim lex orandi, lex credendi succinctly expresses, the liturgy is our teacher. It contains “the entire body of religious truth” (24). It is the treasurehouse of the truths of Revelation; indeed, the content of liturgical prayer is the Word himself. Liturgical prayer is truly the font and summit of the Christian life (cf. Lumen Gentium, 11), for in it Christ becomes (as Cardinal Ratzinger would put it) “contemporary with us and enters into our lives.” _____________________________________________ Bishop Arthur Serratelli has served as bishop of the Diocese of Paterson, NJ, since 2004. In November 2016 he concluded his term as Chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Divine Worship. In October 2016 he was appointed

by Pope Francis as a member of the Holy See’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. At present, he is the Chairman of the International Committee on English in the Liturgy (ICEL). He is also a member of the Vatican’s Vox Clara Commission.

1. Christopher Shannon, Crisis, Romano Guardini: “Father of the New Evangelization,” February 17, 2014.

2. In this and future entries, citations are taken from the 1998 English edition of The Spirit of the Liturgy, published by Herder and Herder/The Crossroad Publishing Company, New York.

5

Adoremus Bulletin, January 2018 a doctorate in canon law as well. The Rite of Exorcism had been revised and promulgated on November 22, 1998 and was published in Latin in January 1999.

Right after that, I wanted to do something in the area of liturgical law, and the priest who was my thesis director suggested I write on the revised Rite of Exorcism since virtually nothing had been written up to that time on the revision. It was a wideopen topic. So when it came to my interest in exorcism, there was no great planning or visions—I rather backed into it by way of academic work.

is mine? How have I engaged or invited the Evil One? These activities lay the foundation for a relationship. In a certain sense, it’s no different from our relationship with God. How do we develop a relationship with God? For Catholics, the sacraments are the center of our life. It is a life of grace and prayer.

AB/WIKIMEDIA, GUIDO RENI (D.1642)

“ I’m not trying to downplay the fact that he is very powerful and has honed his craft for a very long time. But some people AB: What is exorcism as defined by the Church? want to put him on a par FG: The Catechism of the Catholic Church with God. There is only specifically defines what exorcism is: “When the Church asks publicly and auone God, though, and the thoritatively in the name of Jesus Christ that a person or object be protected against Evil One is a creature.”

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan, and all the evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

By Joseph O’Brien, Managing Editor

A

n early December story in The Hollywood Reporter recounts the first time that actress Meryl Streep and legendary director Steven Spielberg met. “Most of the time,” Streep recalled in the December 5 story by Peter Galloway, she and Spielberg “talked about how his property was haunted and did I know anybody who did exorcisms?

And of course, I did. I got him a priest.”

This comment from a member of the Hollywood community might come as a surprise to some people. After all, Streep works for the same business that produced a legion of movies about the devil—from Rosemary’s Baby to The Omen to The Exorcist—all in one way giving the devil more than his due by sensationalizing evil. Sure, images of devil and hellfire help maximize ticket sales—but do people in Hollywood actually believe all this Satan stuff?

While it’s not clear from The Hollywood Reporter story whether the famed director rid his house of the suspected evil, it is clear that even those who make fantasies for a living accept that the devil is real and that when he shows up on its doorstep, even the world of make-believe knows there’s only one place to turn: the Catholic Church.

Perhaps implicit in Streep’s recommendation to Spielberg is an understanding that believer and non-believer alike acknowledge—grudgingly or not—that the Catholic Church alone offers a direct, no-nonsense and effective solution to demonic affliction.

To this end, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) recently published the Rite of Exorcism, called Exorcisms and Related Supplications in the United States. The rite serves as only the latest reminder that the Catholic Church possesses a long-standing, measured, tried-and-true— and faith-filled—approach to demonic activity.

One person who wouldn’t be surprised to find even Spielberg and Co. consulting the Church on matters undreamt of in their special effects is Father Jeffrey Grob, vicar

for canonical affairs and judicial vicar for the Archdiocese of Chicago. An expert in the Rite of Exorcism, Father Grob received a doctoral degree in 2007 after writing a thesis on the revision of the Rite of Exorcism.

Ordained to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1992, Father Grob was born in Cross Plains, WI. He studied for the priesthood at the Pontifical College Josephinum, Columbus, OH, and University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein Seminary, Mundelein, IL. Today, in his capacity as vicar for canonical affairs and judicial vicar of the archdiocese, Father Grob has plenty of first-hand knowledge of the Rite of Exorcism and the ministry which serves those suffering spiritual affliction.

“ When the Church asks publicly and authoritatively in the name of Jesus Christ that a person or object be protected against the power of the Evil One and withdrawn from his dominion, it is called exorcism.”

Adoremus Bulletin spoke with Father Grob about the nature, history, and need for exorcism, and why the Church provides such a ministry to a world broken by sin and tempted by the Evil One. Adoremus Bulletin (AB): How did your interest in exorcism develop as part of your priesthood?

Father Jeffrey Grob (FG): After ordination, I was an associate pastor for six years but then was asked after a few years of ordination to work part-time in the chancery at Chicago, from 1994 to 1998. From there I went on to do studies in canon law, obtained my licentiate, and stayed on to earn

the power of the Evil One and withdrawn from his dominion, it is called exorcism” (1673). Effectively, the ministry is the Church freeing someone or something from some kind of attack from or domination by the Evil One, the devil. There are so many different names for the devil in tradition and scripture. Often I will refer to the devil as the Evil One. In the Lord’s Prayer, the common translation states “Deliver us from Evil” while a variant translations says “Deliver us from the Evil One.” The world has lost, I think, that sense of evil as a personal reality, and this translation provides some of that sense.

AB: What is the difference between the kinds of affliction—temptation, obsession, and possession?

FG: First, temptation is part of the human condition, part of life in the body and in the world. As humans, we are tempted. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the temptation of Jesus before beginning his public ministry shows that all humans are subjected to the same challenges that Jesus had, although he was of course free from sin. It is part of the ordinary activity of the devil.

But then crossing the line from ordinary temptation to extraordinary activity, we say a person has actively opened a

“And the darkness did not comprehend it.”

Understanding

Exorcism: An Interview with Father Jeffrey Grob, Specialist in the Rite of Exorcism

AB: What are some common misunderstandings of the Rite of Exorcism?

FG: First, we don’t want to give the devil too much authority or power. At the same time I’m not trying to downplay the fact that he is very powerful and has honed his craft for a very long time. But some people want to put him on a par with God. There is only one God, though, and the Evil One is a creature. He has a beginning. So in that sense the dog is on a leash. It doesn’t mean the devil doesn’t retain some of the preternatural gifts he possessed before the fall, but he can’t do anything unless God allows it. He’s not God so he doesn’t have the privileges of God. God creates ex nihilo. The Evil One can only manipulate already-created matter—and he’s good at it. He lives to instill fear and isolation in the human person.

Second, there’s a tendency to want to lump all kinds of demonic activity together without making distinctions between temptation, obsession, oppression, and demonic possession. We can’t equate these activities. The only time a person needs to see an exorcist, I maintain, is when the person is demonically possessed.

Third, there’s the misapprehension that the individual will plays no part in these activities. What does a person open himself up to that brings about the affliction in the first place? It can happen through human sinfulness, weakness of the will, or by directly engaging in the occult—there’s a lot of woundedness in the world for the devil to work with. The Evil One loves woundedness. How can he manipulate that?

On the other hand, what responsibility

doorway to something—to the darkness.

A person has engaged or started a relationship with the Evil One. The Church has used two terms—demonic obsession and demonic oppression—to differentiate certain types of affliction by the devil.

Interestingly, obsession is the older term, and the only one that appears in the older Rite of Exorcism. In classic theology books, three terms are used—temptation, obsession, and possession.

Oppression appears more commonly beginning in the 1970s, in an attempt to differentiate between afflictions, attacks or manipulations of the mind (obsession) and of the body (oppression) by the Evil One. Then demonic possession is the radical extreme by which the body is possessed by the Evil One. AB: How are exorcists trained to discern these kinds of affliction?

FG: The exorcist should always be evaluating. It’s worded well in the praenotanda or guidelines of the revised rite—that exorcists shouldn’t be too quick to either believe that the devil is there or that he isn’t. What has been added in the guidelines that is not found in the ancient rite is that the exorcist should have moral certitude (16). It is similar to a judge in a marriage nullity case: moral certitude is not absolute certitude, but it’s more than possibility. It’s based on proofs and that’s how the exorcist determines moral certitude.

Please see EXORCISM on page 6

AB/WIKIMEDIA, SPINELLO ARETINO, 1387

AB: Clinically, what is the difference in terms of symptoms between obsession and oppression and possession?

FG: The person is frequently assessed physically and psychologically first. The most difficult cases are a both/and—both mental health issues and demonic affliction. It’s easier for the exorcist if it’s one or the other.

But in the process of evaluating, there may be something more than the psychological.

At that point, the exorcist needs to find out what that “something more” is.

Since the Middle Ages, the exorcist has used four criteria to discern what that “something more” is—four phenomena which may serve as proofs that the problem is more than psychological.

First, there is the knowledge of languages, which is more than picking up a phrase book of a language an individual doesn’t know and spouting off a few wellknown expressions in French or Italian, for instance. Rather the individual is conversational in a language that he or she has no knowledge of.

Second, there is knowledge of occult or hidden things. An exorcist may walk into a room where someone is afflicted and the victim may reveal things about the exorcist that he wouldn’t be privy to even with a Google search. They would be personal kinds of things.

Third, the person would have extraordinary strength. It’s one thing for Arnold Schwarzenegger in his heyday to benchpress 300 pounds; it’s quite another for a 70-year old woman of slight build to throw five or six grown men around like ragdolls.

Fourth, the person would exhibit an aversion to the sacred, a hatred of either prayers or objects such as crucifixes or holy water.

Those are the four criteria used, and they appear in the ancient rite, and are revisited in the revised rite.

Adoremus Bulletin, January 2018

AB/ DAVEBLEASDALE ON FLICKR

6

“Generally speaking," Father Grob says, “there are whole classes of people who believe that there’s no problem that can’t be resolved by psychology. But isn’t that the Evil One working there too? C.S. Lewis said a long time ago in the Screwtape Letters what the poet Charles Baudelaire said, namely, that “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist.”

the person did something that inadvertently opened a door to darkness. The Ouija Board is a good example. Many don’t know it’s harmful but think it’s merely a party game.

In all the ancient forms of exorcism, long before it was promulgated for the Universal Church in 1614, the most frequently cited text was the Prologue of St. John. “In the beginning was the Word.” Most especially effective has been the declaration that “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:5). “After all,” recalls Father Grob, “this is God’s work—Jesus is the exorcist, not the priest.”

“ Are there cases similar to what was depicted in, say, The Exorcist? Yes, there are. But, perhaps to the disappointment of the sensation-seekers, the vast majority of cases are much more low-key.” look at the saints—where horrible things happened to them. Theresa of Avila was pushed down the stairs by a demon; Padre Pio and John Vianney and Mother Teresa of Calcutta were variously demonically tormented. Did they open themselves up to it?

No, but as in the case of Job, God permits such things to happen from time to time as a way of deepening their growth in holiness.

Also, exorcists have seen situations where the parents of a child who are in a satanic cult dedicate the child to Satan. It is a sort of false version of baptism, but it could very well have a catastrophic effect on that child.

There’s no volition in such a situation, yet before the child knows it he’s being afflicted in different ways. It’s much more easily remedied in that way, too, though, because it does not involve the will. For instance, baptism removes not only original sin but also fortifies the child through grace to resist the darkness coming against him.

At other times, it might not be as obvious but as you pray with the person, and time goes on, the exorcist finds out that

SOURCE: AB/WIKIMEDIA

AB: Can souls be possessed against their will or does possession take place by “invitation only”?

FG: The question remains debated. But by and large possession happens when someone willfully—and in most instances not ignorantly—opens himself up to something dark or evil. However, there are cases—

AB: There’s a tendency to sensationalize exorcism, especially given the fare coming out of Hollywood. How close is the celluloid account to the reality of exorcism?

FG: Are there cases similar to what was depicted in, say, The Exorcist? Yes, there are. But, perhaps to the disappointment of the sensation-seekers, the vast majority of cases are much more low-key.

Hollywood is in the business of selling seats and tickets, but not necessarily to be a purveyor of the truth and accuracy in what the Church does.

convincing the world he doesn’t exist.”

What is there to fear?

There is a polarity between extremes— either the Evil One doesn’t exist at all and was a creation of the Middle Ages, which nuns ever since have used for centuries to torment students to make sure they behave in the classroom—or he’s responsible for everything, hiding behind every rock, bush, shrub, you name it. Neither extreme is our tradition. Know our tradition if you want to understand exorcism.

It’s very clear and goes back to the time of our Lord.

AB: How do you respond to the criticism that exorcism is antiquated, especially given the strides in modern psychology and psychiatric medicine?

FG: Generally speaking, there are far too many people who believe that there’s no problem that can’t be resolved by psychology. Modern science to the rescue! But isn’t that too dismissive of a reply? Is it not possible that something else might be at work? C.S. Lewis said a long time ago in the Screwtape Letters what the poet Charles Baudelaire said, namely that “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was

AB: Briefly, how did the Rite of Exorcism develop in the Church?

FG: Early on in the Church, figures such as St. John Chrysostom and Tertullian said that anyone in virtue of their baptism could exorcise. It wasn’t a rite but a name—the name of Jesus. It was accomplished by virtue of charism. We see the power of the Holy Name. The Apostles were willing to suffer persecution for the sake of Jesus’ name. Then at the Fourth Council of Carthage [398] we see for the first time the ordination of the exorcist. It remained a minor order for centuries.

At Mundelein Seminary here in Chicago, visitors to the main chapel can see engraved in the steps leading up to the altar each of what the Church considered the minor orders or steps leading to the priesthood, including that of exorcist. Exorcist continued as a minor order until 1972 when Blessed Pope Paul VI revised the minor orders altogether.

But in the development of the Rite of Exorcism, it isn’t until 1614 that we see a formal rite for the universal Church, which was, like much else in the Church at the time, such as the seminary system and liturgical books, formalized and standardized in response to the Reformation. There were many indigenous, localized prayers used, and a few small manuscripts here and there, many of which contained the Prologue of John as a principal scripture piece in those prayers. Effectively, from 1614 down to 1998, there were only a couple minor changes to the rite. In 1998, the revised rite was promulgated, which was already called for as a result of the Second Vatican Council.

AB: What did the revisions to the Rite of Exorcism entail?

FG: The changes entailed the reordering of contents in the rite, but the revisions also sought to evoke the catechumenal process of the early Christian Church. If you put side by side the outline and structure of the ancient rite and the revised rite, you see that there is very much a catechetical movement in the revised rite, as reflected in the emphasis on the renunciations and a renewal of baptismal promises, among other things.

AB: What is the general shape or outline of the rite?

FG: It begins with preparation of the exorcist and the team who pray with the person. We put on the armor of Christ through confession, Mass and personal prayer. In general, the rite starts with the Litany of the Saints; the ancient and revised versions both talk about the use of the Litany. Then there are preparatory prayers—the psalms and gospel readings. Then the core prayers appear in a set, addressed to God first and then invoking God in a prayer which is addressed directly to the possessing spirit or spirits. In many ways, it’s a simple series of prayers.

The rite is clear, but exorcists sometimes add other prayers as they go along—such as other litanies and prayers to the Mother of God and to other specific saints.

Please see EXORCISM on page 12

Adoremus Bulletin, January 2018

The Sacred Depth of the Baptismal Font: The Place of Re-Creation

7

By Denis McNamara

T

“ A church is a ‘sacramental building’.”

Everything in a church can be seen in this light, yet each part of the church building, like each member of a body, has a specific purpose and makes a particular contribution to the whole. Because of the vital role baptism plays in the living faith, Church documents are unanimous in heralding the baptistery as one of the primary parts of a church.

Every architectural and artistic decision about the baptistery, then, grows from the essential nature of baptism and the true magnificence of its meaning.

A Plunge into Baptism’s Depths The Book of Blessings contains the prayers used for blessing a new baptismal font, and its first paragraph contains an amazing density of theological richness. The baptistery, it says, is rightly considered one of the “most important parts of a church” because baptism is the “first sacrament of the New Law” in which people receive the “Spirit of adoption” and become “in name and in fact” God’s adopted children. Moreover, they join with Christ in a “death and resurrection like his” and “become part of his body.” To top it off, baptism fills a person with “the anointing of the Spirit,” making the baptized “God’s holy temple and members of the Church,” which it then characterizes as “a chosen race, royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people” (1080). Many of these same ideas are taken up in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA), which adds that baptism forms a “sacramental unity” linking all who have been baptized.

The Catechism contributes several other ideas to this treasury of theological concepts. The word baptism itself comes from the Greek word baptizein, it notes, which means “to plunge” or “immerse.”

But in mystagogical fashion, it quickly adds that this plunge is not merely a human, external event alone, but symbolizes a person’s burial into Christ’s death by going down into the water, and a person’s emergence as a “new creature” through Christ’s resurrection.

This plunging also takes its meaning from naturally derived realities that water and washing signify. But in mystagogical fashion, baptism brings about not a literal purifying with water only but also “the washing of regeneration

AB/WIKIMEDIA

he Catechism of the Catholic Church makes a broad but theologically-rich statement about church buildings. In paragraph 1180, the Catechism states, “visible churches are not simply gathering places but signify and make visible the Church living in this place, the dwelling of God with men reconciled and united in Christ.” In other words, the church building is more than the steel and stones of its construction. It allows people to perceive with their senses that God has fulfilled the promise to be present with his people.

For this reason, a church is a “sacramental building,”1 one which makes present the otherwise invisible realities of the Catholic faith and leads the viewer to their hidden spiritual meaning. The Church calls this process mystagogy, from the Greek words agein, meaning “to lead,” and mystes, meaning the “mysteries” or hidden spiritual realities. and renewal by the Holy Spirit” which forgives all sins, original and actual (CCC, 1263).

Moreover, this regeneration is called a “birth of water and the Holy Spirit,” and so the act of baptism has long been associated with coming from the natural womb of a human mother to the supernatural womb of Mother Church. Lastly, the Catechism quotes St. Justin Martyr, who calls baptism a bath of “enlightenment” which

“ Every architectural and artistic decision about the baptistery grows from the essential nature of baptism and the true magnificence of its meaning.” makes every baptized Christian a child of light, indeed, “Light himself ” (1214-1216).

Living, Liberating Waters The scriptures reveal the meaning of water in several ways. In the beginning, God created the waters and breathed across them, making them a wellspring of holiness.2 Since a spring of fresh water turns the lifeless desert into a life-giving garden, it becomes a spiritual symbol of life. Yet in Noah’s flood, water signifies death and destruction from which sanctuary is needed in the ark. Water is seen as a barrier as well, since the Israelites had to cross the Red Sea to move from slavery to freedom and the Jordan River to find their promised land.

Christ, however, brings these aquatic paradoxes to fulfillment in baptism.

Just as the triumphant power of the Cross brought life from death, so baptism brings life through water: it leads a Christian from the desert of life outside of Christ to the new garden of the restored Eden of the glorified world; it leads a person from waters of the womb and natural birth to the new waters of supernatural rebirth;3 and it allows a person to pass from the slavery of ignorance to the new life of enlightenment.

Baptism makes these invisible ideas

Ravenna’s fifth-century Arian Baptistery includes a dome mosaic showing a vision of full baptismal richness.

Around the perimeter of the dome, Saints Peter and Paul walk with the white-robed elders of the Book of Revelation through a heavenly garden punctuated by palm trees, all oriented toward Christ’s heavenly throne. The center of the dome shows the scene of Christ’s baptism by John in the Jordan River with the dove of the Holy Spirit above.

real in the life of a catechumen, and in proper mystagogical design, a baptistery allows the viewer to perceive them with the senses and encounter their reality.

Since the rite of baptism “is held in the highest honor by all Christians” (General Introduction to Christian Initiation, 4), it comes as no surprise that the Church’s official documents note that a baptistery should be “worthy of the sacrament that is celebrated there.” Therefore, the baptistery should be spotlessly clean, of splendid beauty (BB, 1084), and located in a prominent place.4 Other than that, the Church gives very few specifics on their design, and so the five points below are given to help to reveal the nature of the baptismal font and therefore establish how it ought to be designed.

Five Points of Baptistery Design 1. Baptistery and Font The words “baptistery” and “font” are often used interchangeably, yet each has a distinct meaning. Properly speaking, the term “baptistery” belongs to the building, chapel, or place where baptisms occur. The “font” is the actual vessel where the water of baptism is poured or contained. Many baptisteries in older cities are buildings separate from a church or cathedral, within which the font is located and the rites are celebrated. Perhaps surprisingly, several of the Church’s books still presume the possibility of a baptistery that is erected apart from the main body of the church. The Book of Blessings gives several instructions on the topic (1083-1084) and the General Introduction to Christian Initiation notes that the baptistery may be “either inside or outside the church” (25).

2. Immersion, Pouring, Infusion The notes in both the General Introduction to Christian Initiation and the Rite for Christian Initiation of Adults restate what is said clearly in canon 815 of the

Code of Canon Law: baptism may be lawfully celebrated by only two methods, “immersion” or “pouring” (GICI, 22; RCIA, 213). Pouring is simply the more everyday term for “infusion,” meaning that water is poured over a person’s head in baptism while the formula, “N., I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” is said by the minister. The precise definition of immersion is not easy to find in the Church’s documents, however. In some descriptions, it presumes full submersion of a person’s entire body under water.

In others, it presumes the person to be baptized will be standing in a significant amount of water and get a substantial drenching through pouring on the head.

The National Statutes for the Catechumenate, for example, offers the term “partial immersion,” meaning at least the candidate’s head is brought completely under water.5 While in today’s liturgical climate an immersion baptistery is considered de rigueur, the documents make it clear that a font may be set up for either pouring, immersion, or both (GICI, 22; BB, 1085).

However, a clear preference is given to immersion. The Book of Blessings says the font “should permit baptism by immersion, wherever this is the usage” (1085), while the General Introduction to Christian Initiation makes a clearer theological statement, calling immersion “more suitable as a symbol of participating in the death and resurrection of Christ” (22). To further enhance the sign value of baptismal water as the living water of new life, the Book of Blessings recommends a font function as “a fountain of running water” (1085).

3. Tomb and Eighth Day As is typical of the Church’s universal documents, very few specific details are given for baptisteries, although many Please see BAPTISTERY on page 8

8

Adoremus Bulletin, January 2018

Continued from BAPTISTERY on page 7 historical examples can give theologically-derived inspiration. In ancient Roman culture, tombs and other places of veneration were most frequently designed with a centralized plan known as a tholos: a design using a circle, octagon, square, or Greek cross as its fundamental shape. As a place where a catechumen dies with Christ and rises again, the tholos serves an important purpose in mystagogical revelation: the inherited marker of a place of death is transformed and used as an image of new life.

In many historical examples, the octagon has taken precedence from the list of possible shapes, likely because of the symbolism of the number eight and its association with the theological “eighth day.” Genesis speaks of God creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh, and so the “eighth day” is the metaphorical day of eternity as the day “after” the earthly sabbath, a day of re-creation into eschatological completion. Relatedly, there were eight souls in Noah’s ark who became the source of new life after the deadly flood. Since baptism is the door to this new life, the eight-sided baptistery takes on a symbolic significance particularly appropriate to the sacrament’s effect.

The baptismal font at St. Paul the Apostle Church in Westerville, OH, combines several baptismal motifs. The octagonal shape indicates the “eighth day” of re-creation, and three steps down signify the descent into the death of Christ, then rising again with him in new life. Wave patterns in contrasting colors are made of polished “fossiliferous” limestone containing the fossils of ancient sea creatures, now brought to serve a liturgical end in the Rite of Baptism. The mosaic of three fish at the center serves as a particularly apt image of the Trinity. (David Meleca, architect, 2011.)

Similarly, the designers of the highlyinfluential St. John’s Abbey Church in Collegeville, MN, placed a baptistery at the center of the narthex, requiring worshippers to encounter the place of their baptism at each visit.

Today, the location of the font in the center aisle at the rear of the church has become common for this same reason, but it is by no means legislated as such.

The placement of the font logically follows the theological principle that it is well-placed when it meets the needs of the rite, and indicates the nature of

AB/DENIS MCNAMARA

4. Relationship to Altar and Ambo The Church makes no prescription on the location of the baptismal font. In 1955, scholar J.B. O’Connell wrote that the traditional location for the baptistery was at the northwest corner of an oriented (literally, eastward-facing) church, noting that the north side was associated with the darkness of paganism, and the west side with the church entrance.6 With the 20th century Liturgical Movement’s reaffirmation of the significance of baptism, fonts became larger and began to appear on a worshipper’s path of entrance to the church building. Even as early as 1941, liturgical reformer H.A. Reinhold wrote that it should be “in the way” of the faithful as they go to church so they could be reminded “of the one fact to which they owe their salvation.”7

baptism as “entry” to the Church as celebrated by the whole Christian community. Legally and logically, the baptistery could be a separate building, at the rear of the church, in a transept or in some other chapel within the church. However, a font should never be located in a place that makes it appear to be a final destination, such as the center of a sanctuary.

One consideration for the location of a font is its relation to the other liturgical rites to which it is related. As the first sacrament of initiation, baptism is geared toward further initiation into the Christian mysteries, particularly deeper understanding of the Word of God in scripture and completion in the Eucharist. The Catechism calls baptism the “sacrament of faith” in several places, in part because baptism itself is a response to faith in Christ after “the proclamation of the Word of God enlightens the candidates” (1236), but also because baptism enlightens their understanding going forward (1216). Baptism therefore has a clear relation to the proclaimed Word of God, and so by extension, the font has a relation to the ambo. Similarly, the baptized Christian is now admitted to the Eucharist and can approach the altar. Font, ambo, and altar are therefore knitted together in a spatial and artistic relationship established by their theological relationship. During the Rite of Baptism for Children, in fact, the infant is led by the rite from the doors to the church building to the ambo for the Liturgy of the Word, then to the font, and finally to the altar for the Lord’s Prayer and blessings.

The Book of Blessings rightly recommends that in setting up the church, “everything must be arranged to bring out Inspired by early Christian freestanding baptisteries, this example from St. Michael the Archangel Church in Leawood, KS, is conceived as a separate octagonal addition while still connected to the main body of the church. The font itself is located under a ceiling mural including the Holy Spirit descending amidst the stars of the cosmic liturgy.

Three stained glass windows depict the baptism of Christ, Noah’s ark, and a baptismal shell. (David Meleca, architect. Denis McNamara, consultant.)

the connection of baptism with the word of God and with the Eucharist, the high point of Christian initiation” (1083). The United States bishops’ text Built of Living Stones uses biblically-inspired language to make the same point: “the baptismal font and its location reflect the Christian’s journey through the waters of baptism to the altar” (66, italics original).

The document gives several practical suggestions to make this mystagogical revelation evident, including placing the altar and font on an axis with each other or using similar materials for all three furnishings.

5. Mystagogical Revelation: Ornament Up through the 1960s, the Church specified in the Roman Ritual that the baptistery was to be adorned with an image of John the Baptist baptizing Christ. To this day, many older baptismal fonts show a small version of this scene atop their lids or in stained glass windows nearby.8 Today, liturgical law gives no such specifics, leaving it up to the artistic and theological expertise found in each culture. But ornament, by definition, clarifies the nature of a thing and indicates festivity, and so the enrichment of fonts today can draw from the very meaning of baptism itself as an entry to eternal life and the New Earth of the Heavenly Jerusalem.

Historical examples include many varied images: the Good Shepherd, Christ’s monogram, the alpha and omega, symbols of victory, the four rivers of paradise, the palm tree and other garden imagery, the phoenix, the peacock, fish, shells, and wave patterns.9 In every case, ornamental things should be presented as glorified and perfected, indicating that the things of the world, like the persons receiving baptism, have been made into a new creation.

Fluid Advice Amidst the high theology of baptism, practical recommendations, too, are made in various documents, such as heating the water in cold climates (BB, 1085) or providing nearby areas for the newly baptized to dry off and change into their white baptismal garments (BOLS, 69). But as with all liturgical Please see BAPTISTERY on page 11

9

Adoremus Bulletin, January 2018

The Many Strands of Sanctity Found in Mary, Undoer of Knots

By Jeremy Priest Your servant, LORD, your servant am I, the son of your handmaid; you have loosened my bonds.

A thanksgiving sacrifice I make; I will call on the name of the LORD.1

AB/WIKIMEDIA, JOHANN GEORG SCHMIDTNER, C.1700

T

he marriage of Wolfgang Langenmantel was headed for disaster— his wife Sophia contemplating divorce. Seeking help from the Church, Wolfgang found good counsel in Father Jakob Rem, a Jesuit priest with a deep devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Father Rem was able to meet with the couple several times, entrusting their marriage to Our Lady of the Snows. On their last meeting, Father Rem took the white ribbon which bound their arms together on their wedding day and held it up to an image of Our Lady of the Snows. As if recalling the danger of man being “tangled in the ropes of his own sin” (Proverbs 5:22), the priest untied several knots that had found their way onto the ribbon and at that very moment the ribbon became dazzlingly white.

Wolfgang and Sophia, along with Father Rem, took this as a sign of grace from God through the intercession of Our Lady, and they remained happily married. Almost 85 years later, around 1700, a painting of Our Lady of Good Counsel was commissioned by their grandson, Father Hieronymus Langenmantel, in thanksgiving for the graces given to his family. Placed over a family altar at St. Peter am Perlach in Augsburg, Germany, the image prominently depicts Our Lady, standing on the head of a satanic serpent, untying knots of sin in the ribbon, helping to clear the way for the family to find peace in Christ. In this way, the devotion to Maria Knotenlöserin (“Mary Undoer of Knots”) was born in the context of two of life’s knottiest struggles: marital strife and familial difficulties.

At its heart, devotion to Our Lady Undoer of Knots has to do with the whole drama of salvation history: loosening our bonds to sin and binding us to the Lord Jesus. The central Old Testament episode in this regard is the sacrifice of Isaac—known best in Rabbinic circles as the Akedah, the “Binding of Isaac.” Isaac is bound and lets himself be bound in Abraham’s offering, entrusting himself wholly to his father and to the Lord— and Abraham “received Isaac back” (Hebrews 11:19). Lazarus illustrates this in the New Testament, being bound by the shroud of death and freed by the call of Jesus. Culminating in Jesus himself, the Lord allows himself to be bound by Roman authorities and crucified, only to be raised—loosed from the bonds of death!

The great fourth-century Mystagogic Catechesis illustrates this binding and loosing in the drama of baptism: the one being baptized is loosed from a “former treaty with hell,” trampling “underfoot [his] entire covenant with” Satan.2 Next, the one being baptized enters into a new pact—undertaken in the baptismal liturgy itself—a binding union with the “King of kings and Lord of lords” (1 Tim 6:15). With regard to binding and loosing of the Sacrament of Penance, St. Hilary of Poitiers says that whomsoever are left “bound in the knots of their sins” are bound to destruction; those whom are loosed from the knots of their sins are “those who by their confession receive grace unto salvation: these, in accord with the apostolic sentence, are bound or loosed also in heaven.”3 It is from the loosening of the bonds of sin and the tying of allegiances to the Lord which the devotion to Our Lady Undoer of Knots has its origins.

Mary, Undoer of Knots, depicts Our Lady, standing on the head of a satanic serpent, untying knots of sin in the ribbon, helping to clear the way for the family to find peace in Christ. In this way, the devotion to Maria Knotenlöserin (“Mary Undoer of Knots”) was born in the context of two of life’s knottiest struggles: marital strife and familial difficulties.

H

Pope Francis’s Prayer to Mary, Undoer of Knots:

oly Mary, full of God’s presence during the days of your life, you accepted with full humility the Father’s will, and the devil was never capable of tying you up with his confusion.

Once with your Son you interceded for our difficulties, and full of kindness and patience, you gave us the example of how to untie the knots in our life.

By remaining forever Our Mother, you put in order and make more clear the ties that link us to the Lord.

Holy Mother, Mother of God and our Mother, to you who untie with a

While the untying of knots seems to be at cross-purpose with a popular image of marriage as a matter of “tying the knot,” nevertheless, the unravelling of marital difficulties has been one of the chief petitions put to Our Lady in this devotion.

Our society tends to think of marriage as an individual choice for personal happiness—as long as happiness may last. Sins that cause marital difficulties are seen as isolated actions committed by individuals. Contrary to this individualism, we know that in the interconnectedness of all things, sin has the character of twisting itself around every aspect of life and relationships to the extent that it seems

motherly heart the knots of our life, we pray to you to receive in your hands (the name of the person), and to free him/her of the knots and confusion with which our enemy attacks.

Through your grace, your intercession and your example deliver us from all evil, Our Lady, and untie the knots that prevent us from being united with God, so that we, free from sin and error, may find Him in all things, may have our hearts placed in Him, and may serve Him always in our brothers and sisters.

Amen. incapable of being extricated.

Because of the serpentine character of sin, one of several novenas composed to Our Lady Undoer of Knots dedicates days of prayer to a number of knotty issues: addictions, the reunion of Christians, conflicts within the Church, unbelief, unrepentant sin, and healing in general. Pope Francis prays that with her “motherly heart” Our Lady may “untie… the knots of our life,” freeing us from the “knots and confusion” that “prevent us from being united with God.” While Pope Francis brought this devotion out of obscurity, the foundations of the devotion to Mary under this title rest

on the shoulders of the second-century bishop of Lyons, St. Irenaeus. Irenaeus famously wrote that the “knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied by Mary’s obedience. For what the virgin Eve tied by her unbelief, this Mary untied by her belief.”4 Since sin had come into the world through a man and a woman (Adam and Eve), so sin had to be undone by a reversal through a man and a woman.

Thus, for Irenaeus, “it was necessary that Adam should be summed up [recapitulated] in Christ, that mortality might be swallowed up and overwhelmed by immortality; and Eve summed up [recapitulated] in Mary, that a virgin should be a virgin’s intercessor, and by a virgin’s obedience undo and put away the disobedience of a virgin.”5 As Basil Studer expresses it, recapitulation is “the fact that Christ and Mary, through their obedience, have repaired Adam and Eve’s disobedience.”6 Yet, Irenaeus goes further, employing what the late Mariologist Luigi Gambero calls the concept of “recirculation.” That is, not only do Christ and Mary repair the disobedience of Adam and Eve, but that the “process of restoration…had to correspond step by step, but in the opposite way, to the story of the fall.”7 Thus, just as Eve had bound herself to the truths of Satan, believing his words over God’s, so Mary bound herself to the Lord, entrusting herself to God through the words given by the Archangel Gabriel. In this way, the lines of Mary’s obedience follow back through the looped path created by Eve’s disobedience.

So it is that what sin has twisted and tied, Our Lady unties. The one whom Gabriel called “Full of Grace” prepares the way for the Lord to bind us more closely to himself. As with the underside of a tapestry, the ties by which the Lord binds us to himself do not look like they are bringing about healing and restoration. Yet, when seen from the other side, these unseemly knots and jumbled strands of string work to reproduce the glory of his image and likeness in us.

As we weave the tapestry, we normally look at it from the back side, focusing ourselves on the individual knots and loose threads. It is the Lord who sees the whole, who guides Our Lady in her work of untangling the threads. And once this is done, she turns and utters her final words of the Gospel: “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5). ________________________________ Jeremy J. Priest is the Director of the Office of Family Life and Pro-Life Activities for the Catholic Diocese of Tulsa, OK. He recently completed his STL at the Liturgical Institute of the University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein, IL. He and his wife Genevieve have two children and live in Tulsa.

1. The Benedictine Monks of Conception Abbey, The Revised Grail Psalms: A Liturgical Psalter (Chicago, IL: GIA Publications, Inc., 2010), Ps 116:16–17.

2. E.C. Whitaker, Documents of the Baptismal Liturgy (revised and expanded; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2003), 31.

3. W. A. Jurgens, trans., The Faith of the Early Fathers, vol. 1 (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1970–1979), 373.

4. Irenaeus of Lyons, St. Irenaeus of Lyons: Against the Heresies, Book 3, ed. Irenaeus M. C. Steenberg, trans.

Dominic J. Unger, vol. 64, Ancient Christian Writers (New York; Mahwah, NJ: The Newman Press, 2012), p. 105: Iren., Adv. Haer. 3.22.4.

5. St. Irenæus, The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, ed. W. J. Sparrow Simpson and W. K. Lowther Clarke, trans. J. Armitage Robinson, Translations of Christian Literature. Series IV, Oriental Texts (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; The Macmillan Co., 1920), 100: Iren., Demonst. 33.

6. Basil Studer, “Recapitulation,” ed. Angelo Di Berardino and James Hoover, trans. Joseph T. Papa, Erik A. Koenke, and Eric E. Hewett, Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic; InterVarsity Press, 2014), 383.

7. Luigi Gambero, Mary and the Fathers of the Church: The Blessed Virgin Mary in Patristic Thought, trans. Thomas Buffer (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999), 47.

10

Adoremus Bulletin, January 2018

THE RITE QUESTIONS

is the current status of the translation document Q What Liturgiam Authenticam?

A :

LETTERS Vexed and Perplexed…

Dear Editor, Our pastor in his homily last weekend made a statement that really startled me. He said he was taking Communion to a member of the parish at a facility for the elderly and after he gave Communion to him/her a person who said he/she was a devout Lutheran and wanted to receive Communion—so our pastor gave it to him/her. Is that proper to give Communion to a nonCatholic? Please let me know if this was proper or not. I am sort of bothered by it to say the least.

To Jesus Through Mary, ­— Don Keating, Via email Adoremus replies: Under most circumstances, giving communion to a nonCatholic is not permitted. The Code of Canon Law says: “If the danger of death is present or if, in the judgment of the diocesan bishop or conference of bishops, some other grave necessity urges it, Catholic ministers administer these same sacraments licitly also to other Christians not having full communion with the Catholic Church, who cannot approach a minister of their own community and who seek such on their own accord, provided that they manifest Catholic faith in respect to these sacraments and are properly disposed.” (Canon 844 §4)

Setting Captives Free!

Thank you for sending the Adoremus Bulletin. Please continue.

Merry Christmas!

In Christ, — Anonymous E.C. Brooks Correctional Facility Michigan

A Thankful Job God Bless, and keep up the good work.

Sincerely, — The Stivanelli’s, North Cambria, PA

Great Minds (and Hearts!) and All That Dear Mr. Carstens, May God continue to bless and direct all of your endeavors. May God reward you, too, for all of your prayers, works, and sacrifices in the ongoing efforts for authentic renewal according to the mind and heart of Christ.

Peace and all Good — Sister M. Louise Jundt, OSF Hankinson ND

Charitable Thanks Dear Adoremus, Thank you for continually sending me the Bulletin which I very much enjoy, even when I was not able to support you.

May God bless you all.

Sincerely, — Katarina Kolumbic Williamston, NJ

: The answer to this question— if, indeed, there is a clear answer—requires some preliminary groundwork.

The Instruction Liturgiam Authenticam was published in 2001 by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. The Congregation’s Prefect at that time was the Chilean Cardinal Jorge Medina Estévez, while Pope John Paul II approved and authorized its publication.

Liturgiam Authenticam is subtitled, the “Fifth Instruction for the Right Implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council,” which means (as you may have divined) that there were four previous documents from the Holy See that applied Sacrosanctum Concilium’s broader principles to more particular elements of the liturgy. The fourth instruction from 1994, Varietates Legitimae, for example, gives detailed instructions about liturgical inculturation.

Liturgiam Authenticam expands upon article 36 of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy: “Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites. But since the use of the mother tongue, whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended. This will apply in the first place to the readings and directives, and to some of the prayers and chants….

These norms being observed, it is for the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned in Art. 22, 2 [i.e., bishops’ conferences], to decide whether, and to what extent, the vernacular language is to be used; their decrees are to be approved, that is, confirmed, by the Apostolic See. And, whenever it seems to be called for, this authority is to consult with bishops of neighboring regions which have the same language.

Translations from the Latin text into the mother tongue intended for use in the liturgy must be approved by the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned above [i.e., today’s conferences of bishops].”

Based upon this paragraph, Liturgiam Authenticam provides, first, details and norms about the translation of the Latin language into the mother tongue, and, second, procedures for “competent territorial ecclesiastical authorities” to submit translations for “approval, that is, confirmation, by the Apostolic See.” In general, Liturgiam Authenticam emphasizes a more formallyequivalent translation that emphasizes unity with the original Latin text, and it places a great deal of authority on the Holy See in a translation’s approval.

These two dimensions—translation principles and the mechanics for approving them—are necessary for sorting out Liturgiam Authenticam’s place today.

Since its promulgation in 2001, Liturgiam Authenticam has governed not only the translation of the Misale Romanum’s third edition into English in 2011, but also such rites as the Order of Confirmation (2016) and the Order of Celebrating Matrimony (2016). The Instruction is currently being used to translate other ritual texts, such as the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults and the Liturgy of the Hours.

But since the release of Pope Francis’s motu proprio, Magnum Principium, on September 9, 2017, the status of

Liturgiam Authenticam has been called into question. Are its norms and guidelines still in force? If yes, to what degree? If no, ought old texts be retranslated, or current translation projects be put on hold?

Various letters and commentaries since Magnum Principium’s release have not entirely clarified these questions. Yet sifting through their details might (I repeat, might) see the emergence of the mens ecclesiae on Liturgiam Authenticam. Here, in brief, is the sequence of letters and commentaries.

To begin with, Pope Francis released the motu proprio, Magnum Principium, on September 9. Dated September 3 and effective October 1, Magnum Principium alters Canon 838 of the Code of Canon Law which governs the “ordering and guidance of the sacred liturgy” by bishops, bishops’ conferences, and the Holy See. The noteworthy additions to the canon are that the Holy See must “recognize” (give recognitio to) ritual adaptations proposed by local episcopal conferences; that conferences are to prepare “faithful” (fideliter, “faithfully”) translations from Latin into the vernacular languages; and that these translations, rather than the previous recognitio by the Holy See after its regular involvement in preparing translations, will in the future only require “confirmation” (confirmatio) at the process’s end. While Pope Francis’s motu proprio does not mention Liturgiam Authenticam by name, he does indicate that the post-conciliar laws and instructions, insofar as possible, “must be followed by Liturgical Commissions as the most suitable instruments so that, across the great variety of languages, the liturgical community can arrive at an expressive style suitable and appropriate to the individual parts, maintaining integrity and accurate faithfulness [fidelitate] especially in translating some texts of major importance in each liturgical book.”

Along with the motu proprio’s September 9 release, Archbishop Arthur Roche, Secretary for the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, appended a commentary to Magnum Principium called by the Holy See, “A key to reading the motu proprio, Magnum Principium.”

The Archbishop’s commentary focuses especially on the meanings of fideliter (“faithfully”), recognitio (“recognition”) and confirmatio (“confirmation”). He mentions Liturgiam Authenticam three times. First, it is mentioned along with the document Comme le prévoit as a key document published “with the goal of responding to concrete problems which had become evident over the course of time and which had arisen as a result of the complex work that is involved in the translation of liturgical texts.” Second, Liturgiam Authenticam is put forward to emphasize the Holy Father’s insertion of the word “faithful” into canonical legislation: “[C]anon 838 §3 clarifies that the translations must be completed fideliter according to the original texts, thus acknowledging the principal preoccupation of the Instruction Liturgiam Authenticam.”

Last, after recognizing Liturgiam Authenticam’s value in promoting “faithful” translations, Archbishop Roche clarifies that the “Instruction Liturgiam Authenticam itself…must be interpreted in the light of the new formulation of canon 838 when it speaks about seeking the recognition” (italics added).

In short, Archbishop Roche’s “key to reading the motu proprio” acknowl-

edges Liturgiam Authenticam as a valuable tool for producing faithful translations but sees its prescriptions about the process of finalizing liturgical texts are now out of date.

Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, apparently publicized on October 1, 2017, his own commentary and interpretation on the motu proprio, including his thoughts on how it relates to Liturgiam Authenticam. (I say “apparently,” for when responding to this commentary, Pope Francis would say the note was “incorrectly attributed” to Cardinal Sarah.) In this note, Cardinal Sarah says that, even though recognitio and confirmatio are not synonymous— the former concerns ritual adaptations while the latter vernacular translations—these are essentially interchangeable as far as the Holy See’s work is concerned. In fact, were one to strike the word recognitio from the document Liturgiam Authenticam and replace it with confirmatio, there would in reality be no difference in the authority of the Instruction from pre-Magnum Principium applications. In other words, little to nothing has changed in practice. On the whole, though, this note concerns not Liturgiam Authenticam’s translation principles but its procedures, of which confirmatio and recognitio speak.

Pope Francis, after receiving the Cardinal’s letter and note on September 30, responded publicly to Cardinal Sarah’s note (or at least the one attributed to him) on October 15. The Holy Father makes clear in his response to Cardinal Sarah that confirmatio and recognitio are not interchangeable, as the Prefect’s commentary put forth.

Thus, the process of completing liturgical texts as outlined in Liturgiam Authenticam is in need of restructuring in light of the motu proprio and Canon 838. The Holy Father names specifically paragraphs 76 and 79-84 of Liturgiam Authenticam, each of which deals with procedure—but not translation principles. On the necessary “fidelity” of translations, the Holy Father offers this point: “in the light of the motu proprio, the fideliter of number 3 of the canon implies a threefold fidelity: in primis to the original text; to the particular language into which it is translated, and finally to the intelligibility of the text to those for whom it is destined.” Since Liturgiam Authenticam’s principles speak directly to these three elements of fidelity (see number 20 concerning fidelity to the original text, numbers 20, 21, 57, 59 for fidelity to the receiver language, and numbers 25, 27, 32, 47 about fidelity to intelligibility), then its norms are still valid.

So, after this recent and winding (and, perhaps, yet to be resolved) drama surrounding Liturgiam Authenticam, does the Magisterium consider it still in force and applicable to today’s liturgical translations? At this writing, we can posit a definite “yes” and “no”!

Yes: From all that has been said, Liturgiam Authenticam’s translation principles are still applicable for a “faithful” ritual text. (Of course, whether it’s the Bishops or the Congregation who have the final word on whether the translation is “faithful” seems an ongoing question.)

No: the procedures and work to achieve a final product outlined in the Fifth Instruction are no longer entirely applicable.

—Answered by Christopher Carstens, Editor, Adoremus Bulletin

11

Adoremus Bulletin, January 2018

Adoremus Thanks Benefactor ($5,000+) Lynn P. DeMarco Charitable Foundation Springfield, Nebraska Anonymous Millennium ($1,000+) Mark R. Abbott Woods Hole, Massachusetts Mr. George A. Ross Vero Beach, Florida Anonymous Jubiliee ($500+) Mr. Carey B. Bottom Brownsburg, Indiana Mrs. Alison J. Krutzig Big Lake, Minnesota Sustaining ($200+) Mr. David A. Bertocchi Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

deeply grateful for your financial support of the work of Adoremus.

Augustus M. Fennerty Astoria, Oregon

Mr. William R. Smith La Jolla, California

Mr. Robert G. Thoman Dayton, Ohio

Msgr. Richard W. Gilles Tomah, Wisconsin

Mr. Thomas Suddes Athens, Ohio

Mr. Greg R. Wagner Middleton, Wisconsin

Mrs. Penelope C. Greene Somerset, Pennsylvania

Mr. David F. Sullivan Alexandria, Virginia

Mr. F. Gregory Walsh Ronkonkoma, New York

Mr. William S. Griffith, III Mooresville, North Carolina

Fr. Edward S. Szymanski Timonium, Maryland

Mr. Bradley L. Williams Indianapolis, Indiana

Mr. Michael S. Guarnieri Stamford, Connecticut Paul and Sandra Harvey Old Beach, Tasmania Mr. Thomas M. Hicks Sunset Beach, California Mr. & Mrs. Robert Howell Omaha, Nebraska Fr. Joseph R. Johnson St. Louis Park, Minnesota

Mr. Edward W. Bryce Sauk Centre, Minnesota

Mr. Dwight D. Johnson Cherry Hill, New Jersey

Mr. John A. Cart Morgan City, Louisiana

Fr. Thomas Kocik Fall River, Massachusetts

Mr. & Mrs. Ray Castaldi Abingdon, Maryland

Miss Katarina Kolumbic Williamstown, New Jersey

Rev. Dennis G. Dalessandro Numidia, Pennsylvania

Ms. Barbara Konrad Shumway, Illinois

Rev. Msgr. Patrick E. Dempsey Washington, DC

Mr. James A. Kortes St. Clair Shores, Michigan

Mr. John J. Filicko, Jr. Glen Mills, Pennsylvania

Judith A. Krauser Pocatello, Idaho

Edmund and Jeanette Gieske Cedar Park, Texas

Deacon Albert G. Krieger Jackson, Michigan

Dr. Richard J. Joachim, DDS Blue Ridge, Virginia

Maureen A. Long Lindenhurst, Illinois

Ann F. Miller Signal Mountain, Tennessee

Mr. & Mrs. Peter J. Mercier Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan

Rosalind E. Mohnsen Malden, Massachusetts

Rev. James E. Merold Waukegan, Illinois

Mr. Anthony E. Nunes Lemoore, California

Fr. C. Anthony Miller Littlestown, Pennsylvania

Fr. Patrick J. O’Connor Citrus Heights, California

Mr. & Mrs. Don Munhall Worthington, Ohio

Mr. & Mrs. Stanley J. Rooney, Jr. Troutdale, Oregon

Mrs. Shirley A. Norris Elwood, Illinois

Patricia and James Schaaf Cupertino, California

Betty A. Piorkowski Tucson, Arizona

Mr. James R. Schmidt Livonia, Michigan

Fr. John A. Quill Caldwell, New Jersey

Fr. Gabriel Smith Charleston, South Carolina

Mr. Robert M. Randolph Weatherford, Texas

Mr. & Mrs. Ruud Veltman Greenville, South Carolina

Diane Schick Clinton Township, Michigan

3 Anonymous

Dr. Richard J. Siegel Crest Hill, Illinois

Patron ($100+) Mr. Mark W. Biolo Eleva, Wisconsin

our donors for special gifts received in the past months. We are

Mr. & Mrs. John M. Sisevich Upper Lake, California

Most Rev. Liam Cary, Bishop of Baker Redmond, Oregon

Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Eucharist Independence, Missouri

William and Heidi Coffey San Pedro, California

Mrs. Lydia Skelly South Bend, Indiana

Deacon W. Patrick Cunningham San Antonio, Texas

Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Skiba Bluffton, South Carolina

MEMORIAL FOR: CHRISTINE L. BOTTOM - Carey B. Bottom TEDDY CARSON - Aunt Sis BARRETT CART - John A. Cart BILLY H. CORDOVA, SR. - Son LOUIS J. DALESSANDRO - Son, Fr. Dennis G. Dalessandro LAWRENCE EHORN - Family IN HONOR REV. CÉSAR BETANCOURT Anniversary of Ordination from Deacon Pat and Carolyn Cunningham FR. THOMAS FLOWERS - Anniversary of Ordination from Ann F. Miller DON AND KITTY RICKETTS - Anniversary from Gretchen K. Reese IN THANKSGIVING PASTOR & PRIESTS OF THE BASILICA OF ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST - Michael S. Guarnieri Our special thanks to our Friends, Members, and to all our faithful monthly donors. May God bless each of you for your generosity. A Mass is said for all our donors each month.

We appreciate your prayers, and we remember you in ours.

Continued from BAPTISTERY on page 8 things, external expression in art and architecture ought to grow from the essential nature—the ontological reality—of the liturgical rite for which they are used.

It has been common for half a century for liturgists to call architects to the concept that form follows the needs of the rite, even parroting Modernist architects with the words “we want our churches to be functional.”10 While this is indeed a good start, a mystagogical view requires more.

In order to move from the external things to the spiritual realities behind them, a sacramental worldview uses ornament, imagery, color, marble and mosaic to “vest” the naked realities of liturgical action with the splendid robes of their heavenly and cosmic significance. Then the catechumen—or even the passerby— can be enchanted by beauty and behold the mysteries of divine adoption and eternal life present in their midst.

____________________________

Denis R. McNamara is Associate Director and faculty member at the Liturgical Institute of the University of Saint Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary, a graduate program in liturgical studies. He holds a BA in the History of Art from Yale University and a PhD in Architectural History from the University of Virginia, where he concentrated his research on the study of ecclesiastical architecture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He has served on the Art and Architecture Commission

of the Archdiocese of Chicago and works frequently with architects and pastors all over the United States in church renovations and new design. Dr. McNamara is the author of Catholic Church Architecture and the Spirit of the Liturgy (Chicago: Hillenbrand Books, 2009), Heavenly City: The Architectural Tradition of Catholic Chicago (Liturgy Training Publications, 2005), and How to Read Churches: A Crash Course in Ecclesiastical Architecture (Rizzoli, 2011).

1. M. Francis Mannion, “Toward a New Era in Liturgical Architecture,” in Masterworks of God, Essays in Liturgical Theory and Practice (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 2004), 145.

2. In The Roman Ritual, the blessing of a baptismal font included a rubric that the bishop would breathe across the baptismal waters three times just after asking that the “Sanctifier of spiritual waters” make the baptismal waters “ready to cleanse and purify mankind.” See “Blessing of the Baptismal Font,” The Roman Ritual, v. 1 (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company, 1950), 191.

3. Book of Blessings, 1084: “…as befits the place where, from the womb of the Church, so to speak, Christians are reborn through water and the Holy Spirit.”

4. United States Catholic Conference, Built of Living Stones, par. 66.

5. See Built of Living Stones, page 27, footnote 91.

6. J.B. O’Connell, Church Building and Furnishing: The Church’s Way—A Study in Liturgical Law (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1955), 124.

7. H.A. Reinhold, “The Liturgical Church,” Church Property Administration 5 (June-July 1941): 8.

8. Roman Ritual, II, I, 46. For more on this topic, see O’Connell, 125.

9. O’Connell, 125.

10. Reinhold, 8.

12 Continued from USCCB on page 3 First, this new translation responds to the Holy See’s mandate that the post-Conciliar liturgical books be translated with greater precision than they were in the first generation of translations, and this mandate was not changed by the motu proprio. Second, this new translation will bring the Rite of Baptism into harmony with our other recently-approved books, such as the Roman Missal, the Rite of Marriage, and the Rite of Confirmation. And third, the Committee is of the mind that ICEL has made good progress in the years since the Missal was issued, and that these newer translations—while still very precise—read more smoothly and naturally. The Committee also feels that since the bishops have already had two opportunities to make suggestions for modifications, the text should be brought forward for vote, according to the schedule already in place.

With that, I’d like to introduce the Order of Baptism of Children. This ritual was among the first post-Conciliar liturgical books made available in English, and the English translation we’ve been using dates to 1970.

A second Latin version of the ritual was released in 1973, but the changes were minimal, and a new English edition was not prepared.

The new ICEL translation that you have in your documentation is technically a translation of a new edition of the rite (that is, the second edition [of 1973]), but there are not any changes to the structure of the ritual

“ The new translation of the Order of Baptism is bringing it into conformity with texts that we find in the Roman Missal; for example, the renewal of baptismal promises that we do at Easter are now the same as those that are used in the Rite of Baptism.”

- Bishop Christopher Coyne itself. A number of suggestions from bishops of our Conference have been incorporated into the translation during the course of its development.

The book itself suggests several areas in which Conferences of Bishops might wish to make adaptations to the text. The Committee on Divine Worship discussed these options and decided that in general it would be best to retain the decisions that our predecessors made when they approved the edition we currently use. In addition, a handful of minor adaptations have been proposed, mostly to make the English version consistent with the Spanish-language Rite of Baptism that was approved for the United States in 2008. […]

The Committee on Divine Worship is proposing one adaptation to the text that is more significant, however.

The Introduction to the ritual permits the celebration of Baptism during Mass, and even encourages it in certain circumstances, and provides instructions on how this is to be done. However, these instructions are not very clear.

Therefore, an Appendix has been drawn up that lays out the celebration of Baptism during Mass in an orderly manner, both for the baptism of several children and for the baptism of a single child. The texts are drawn almost completely from the Order of Baptism and from the Roman Missal, with only minor adjustments where necessary. This is an adaptation to the book that we think will be helpful for our priests. […]

Continued from EXORCISM on page 6 There’s a specific order to the prayers. You always address the initial prayer to God first and then you may use the prayer addressed to the demonic entity. But you do not reverse that order. You never address the prayers to the demon only. After all, this is God’s work—Jesus is the exorcist, not the priest.

AB: Do exorcists find some prayers more effective than others?

FG: That’s unique to every case. That’s why oftentimes exorcists do have someone as part of the prayer team who keeps notes of those kinds of things. Those are the things you want to revisit. In this ministry, exorcists are trying to bring solace and relief to the suffering; we’re not looking to make them suffer more. But we are looking for the hot-spots and pressure points, the prayers which elicit a response, if you will—and return to those prayers, phrases, references to saints, or titles of Mary—

Adoremus Bulletin, January 2018 Approval of this text requires affirmative vote by twothirds of the Latin Church members of the USCCB, with subsequent confirmatio and recognitio by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

Cardinal DiNardo, I suspect that we might have questions of clarification on both the motu proprio and on the new translation of the Order of Baptism.

Might I suggest that we take questions on the motu proprio first, and hold the questions on the Baptism ritual until after the motu proprio questions have been responded to?

Cardinal DiNardo: I’d like to second what Archbishop has said: questions first on Magnum Principium, and then on the Baptism document. With that said, those who want to propose some clarification questions….

Archbishop John Wester (Archdiocese of Santa Fe, NM): Archbishop, could you explain just a little bit about the difference between the confirmation and the recognition?

Archbishop Gregory: […] The confirmatio is really an approval of the translated text, and this is an interpretation from the documents that accompany the motu proprio. The Holy Father has made it clear that he wishes the Conference of Bishops to be more actively involved in approving the translations and the Congregation to be more benign in accepting the approvals.

With the issue of the recognitio, that is the Congregation’s approval of adaptations, changes to the texts, and it will continue to follow pretty much the approach that has been in place to date.

Archbishop Alfred Hughes (retired Archbishop of New Orleans): Thank you Archbishop Gregory, that is a very helpful explanation of Magnum Principium. As an ex, or emeritus member of Vox Clara, I don’t know whether you have any enlightenment about the future of Vox Clara? Is that going to remain in existence, or will that be retired? [Editor’s note: Vox Clara committee was established to assist the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in its review of English-language translations, especially in light of Liturgiam Authenticam.]

Archbishop Gregory: Archbishop Hughes, I really could not say. The Congregation to my knowledge has not yet decided if Vox Clara will continue to function and, if it will continue to function, how will that function be engaged. So, I don’t know of any change either in its existence or in its future function.

Cardinal DiNardo: Should we go to the questions on the Baptism?

Bishop Earl Boyea (Diocese of Lansing, MI): Archbishop, will there be musical accompaniment in the Baptism text eventually? We have some in the Confirmation texts for certain parts of the ritual. I am just wondering if you will do the same thing for Baptism.

Archbishop Gregory: I don’t know if any musical texts or settings that will be included. […] Well, first of all, there are no musical accompaniment texts for the existing ritual, and we don’t anticipate that there will be any sent [now]. It would be a little awkward to send it post-approval.

Bishop Donald Trautman (retired Bishop of Erie, PA): In the past, this body of bishops has been engaged in a process of approving liturgical texts drafted by the Holy See: for example, new Latin prefaces, new Latin it could be a whole host of things—that have a demonstrable effect.

AB: How frequently is the Rite of Exorcism used today?

FG: It’s used as often as is needed. Records are not kept of how often exorcisms have been performed in the Archdiocese of Chicago. I do believe full-blown demonic possession remains rare. There are a lot of borderline cases, obsession or oppression; those have increased because of the number of people opening themselves up to all sorts of dark things and esoteric practices.

AB: Why has the USCCB issued the Prayers Against the Powers of Darkness?

FG: There is a second appendix in the revised rite which is a collection of prayers. Effectively that is what has been published in a little booklet as Prayers Against the Powers of Darkness. These prayers are intended to be used by the laity because, truth be told, there are so many pamphlets and booklets and prayer books with

collects. But the action item before us, the approval of the ICEL translation of the Order of Baptism, is not a new translation, it is not a translation of a new Latin text, but is simply a new translation of a text already approved and authorized in the 1970s by the Holy See. There is not one iota of change in the Latin text. The Church in the United States has been baptizing children and adults with this original Latin text for over 45 years—a text that is canonically approved by Rome.

Since the Holy See has not altered one word of this original Latin text that has already been authorized, why are we seeking approval of an ICEL translation when we already have a Vatican-sanctioned text? I see no pastoral need. We will be spending millions of dollars to print a new ritual which we do not need, a new ritual which Rome has not altered.

“ When it comes to translation, the Conference now has more authority to determine the best way to apply the guidelines in Liturgiam Authenticam to vernacular translations.”

- Archbishop Wilton Gregory Archbishop Gregory: If I can use one of the terms that you used in describing the situation, there is an iota of change in the Latin text. Now, whether that justifies a translation of the entire text or not, there are some very minor changes in the Latin text. Again, I leave to the body of Bishops to decide whether we want to advance this, but we are responding to, obviously, a very few minor changes, perhaps not worthy of a full, new translation. But we are also responding to the Holy See’s request that the liturgical texts be translated in conformity with Liturgiam Authenticam. […]

Bishop Christopher Coyne (Member of the Bishops’ Committee on Divine Worship and Bishop of Burlington, VT): As someone who has served on the committee with Archbishop Gregory, I also recall two things.

One was the important point that you raised that the new translation is bringing us into greater pastoral conformity with the Spanish version of the Rite that is in the United States. So, while Bishop Trautman’s question is a valid one, there is that very good outcome that we are having the same practice between our two very important communities, the Spanish and the nonSpanish communities in the United States. The second is that it is also bringing into conformity with texts that we find in the Roman Missal; for example, the renewal of baptismal promises that we do at Easter are now the same as those that are used in the Rite of Baptism, and that’s just one example we are seeing. So, it’s not just a matter of translation of Latin texts, it’s also a matter of the pastoral unity of the rites of the Church’s liturgy.

Editor’s note: The discussion questions ended with Cardinal DiNardo calling a vote on the action item, the Order of Baptism for Children, which was approved by voice vote. Bishops had until 5:00 that evening to propose amendments to the text, which would be considered Monday evening and before the final discussion and vote took place the following Tuesday. The proposed text eventually passed with 200 for, 23 against, 3 abstentions. The rite has been sent to Rome for both recognitio and confirmatio. a whole host of authors—including some questionable works that do not have the approbation of the Church and, frankly, contain inaccurate theology. So this collection, forming Appendix II of the revised Rite of Exorcism, the laity can use with peace of mind, knowing it has been approved by the Church.

Have mercy, Lord God, on me your servant, who have become like a vessel that is lost because of the host that besieges me.

Deliver me from the hands of my enemies and draw near to me, that you may seek what is lost, restore to yourself what is found, and not abandon what is restored; so that in all things I may be pleasing to you, by whom I know I have been powerfully redeemed.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

- from Prayers Against the Powers of Darkness in the Rite of Exorcism