Adoremus Bulletin
JANUARY 2019
News & Views
For the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy
Vol. XXIV, No. 5
Abel the Just, Abraham the Obedient, and Melchizedek the Mysterious:
How Old Testament Sacrifices Prefigure Catholic Liturgy
Mixed Reactions to Italian Bishops’ Proposed New Translation of Lord’s Prayer
Adoremus PO Box 385 La Crosse, WI 54602-0385
Non- Profit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Madelia, MN Permit No. 4
he Italian bishops have submitted for Pope Francis’s approval a proposed change to the words of the Our Father. According to a December 11 report by Valerie Richardson of the Washington Times, the Italian Episcopal Conference has changed the words “lead us not into temptation” to “abandon us not when in temptation” (emphasis added) and that the pope is “expected to approve” the new change to the ancient prayer. The news that the pope may give his approval has prompted some Catholic writers to address the concerns the proposed translations—and the pope’s related comments—have raised. “A year ago,” Richardson writes, “the pope brought the issue to the forefront when he described the petition widely used for centuries in many languages, including English and Italian, as ‘not a good translation.’” Richardson was quoting comments Pope Francis made during a December 6, 2017, Italian television interview. Elise Harris quoted the full context of the pope’s words in a December 8, 2017, Catholic News Agency report: “I am the one who falls, it’s not (God) who pushes me toward temptation to see how I fall,” Francis said. “A father doesn’t do this, a father helps us to get up right away.” “The Pope said that the one who leads people into temptation,” Harris writes, quoting the pope, “‘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.’” Please see PRAYER on next page
AB/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
T
Christ's sacrifice—and ours—is foreshadowed by the three Old Testament figures who are mentioned by name in the first Eucharistic Prayer: Abel, Abraham, and Melchizedek.
By Bruce D. Marshall
A
priest friend now in his 70s observed recently that when he was growing up, Catholics regularly referred to their worship as “the holy sacrifice of the Mass.” Now we just call it “Mass.” This seemingly small point about the way we talk indicates an issue of deeper significance. At least in America, we Catholics no longer have much feel for the fact that the Mass is, at its heart, a sacrifice. It is not only a gift we receive from God, our own communion in the body and blood of Christ. It is that, of course. But the Mass is also, and quite fundamentally, our offering to God of what we have received. The Mass is our offering to the Father of the most precious possible gift, the body and blood of his own Son. In just that sense the Mass is our supreme sacrifice, the sacrifice of Christians. If it is first of all God’s gift to us, it is also our gift to God. Best Kept Secret We might suppose that the sacrificial nature of the Mass has receded from the consciousness of Catholics because the Roman Canon, the first Eucharistic Prayer, is seldom used. However much we may regret the relative rarity with which priests turn to the Canon, it
AB
Adoremus Bulletin JANUARY 2019
seems unlikely that this is among the causes for the loss of a sense of sacrifice. Prior to the liturgical changes introduced by Vatican II, the Canon was, after all, said sub secreto, in a voice audible only to the priest himself. We can easily get a sense of what this was like for generations of Catholics by
“ At least in America, we Catholics no longer have much feel for the fact that the Mass is, at its heart, a sacrifice.” participating in Mass according to the Extraordinary Form. If Catholics like my priest friend grew up with a more vivid awareness of the Eucharist as sacrifice than most of us now have, they must have brought it to the Mass, rather than learning it from the Mass. It seems likely, then, that contemporary Catholics no longer think of the Mass as a sacrifice because they have never been taught—or better, invited—to do so. The problem is at root catechetical rather than liturgical. At the same time, one way to address this catechetical deficit would be precisely to use the Roman Canon Liturgy with Heart Abel had it, Abraham had it—and so did Melchizedek. Bruce D. Marshall reveals how good old-fashioned sacrifice captures the pulse of the liturgy—and of its priestly participants….1 Inculcation of Inculturation The Vatican instruction Varietates Legitimae turns 25 this year—and Denis McNamara explains how it has helped teach liturgy and culture to play well together in the work of salvation..................................................... 6 Missa Vernacular Jeremy Priest’s brief and insightful linguistic history of the Mass in the West shows that,
much more often in the celebration of Mass. The celebrant now says the Eucharistic Prayer in full voice, with the aim that it be heard and understood by all. The language of sacrifice saturates the Canon, and a close reading of the content and logic of the Canon’s sacrificial utterances—far more than I can undertake here—would yield an exceedingly rich theology of the Eucharistic sacrifice, more than enough to give Catholics a profound sense of “the holy sacrifice of the Mass.” To be sure, the Third Eucharistic Prayer is also deeply sacrificial, and the Second unmistakably, if briefly, so. But the Canon gives us the clearest and broadest view of the Church’s ancient faith in the sacrificial nature of the Mass. Consequential Prayer The Roman Canon is, of course, a prayer, or more exactly a sequence of prayers. We can find instruction on the sacrificial character of the Mass by attending to any one of these prayers. Consider the following, which comes after the consecration, the mystery of faith, and the explicit recollection of the Lord’s passion, resurrection, and ascension. The prayers of the Canon have traditionally been known by the Latin phrase with which each begins; this is the prayer “Supra quae propitio”:
Please see SACRIFICE on page 4 whether in Latin or the vernacular, the Church’s greatest prayer speaks the lingua franca of salvation................................................... 8 Doing Is Believing… And believing is doing, says Richard Budd in a review of Adam Cooper’s book about the bonds that worship forms between flesh and spirit —Holy Eros: A Liturgical Theology of the Body.............................................12
News & Views...................................................2 The Rite Questions....................................... 10 Donors & Memorials................................... 11