{"id":354,"date":"2011-02-28T20:47:07","date_gmt":"2011-03-01T04:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/?p=354"},"modified":"2018-08-14T13:59:01","modified_gmt":"2018-08-14T20:59:01","slug":"say-a-little-prayer-for-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/say-a-little-prayer-for-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Say a Little Prayer for Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/span> have a dirty little secret. Sometimes… sometimes, I pray in Latin.<\/p>\n

It’s not that I think God likes Latin better than English, and I am certainly not fluent in Latin. In fact it’s safe to say that my knowledge of the language is vanishingly small. This brings up two points: why on earth would somebody pray in a language he doesn’t speak? And why pray using some one else’s words to begin with?<\/p>\n

For Latin, you could make an appeal to tradition, I suppose. I’m a Roman Catholic – that is, a Catholic Christian of the Latin Rite. In theory, all of the liturgies and other formal prayers of my Rite are in Latin.<\/p>\n

Many non-Catholics probably assume that praying in Latin is just something that Catholics do. The fact is, by and large we don’t. <\/p>\n

Since the liturgical changes of the 1970s, Latin has very much fallen out of favour in the Latin church. Oh, the irony! Everything these days must be in “the language of the people”; I’ve known priests and laypeople alike who are positively fanatical on this subject. No Latin no more.<\/p>\n

Of course, the practical reason to have everybody all over the world praying in one language that none of them really speak is universality<\/em>: no matter where you would go anywhere in the world, the words of the Mass were exactly the same. Everybody had their pocket missal that had translations into their own language so they could follow along. In an immigrant nation like the United States you could have people of many nations praying together, even when they couldn’t speak with each other all that well.<\/p>\n

The argument against the idea of a “sacred language” for the rites is that a lot of folks wouldn’t bother with missals. They’d show up week after week with only the vaguest idea of what was going on. <\/p>\n

So nowadays while people are (perhaps) more engaged in the liturgical prayer, you end up with having separate parishes in the same city with Masses in English, Korean, Spanish, Vietnamese, Polish… and that’s just in my home of Tacoma, a city of 200,000 people. Now imagine New York.<\/p>\n

I actually think that both arguments have varying degrees of merit, but those sorts of decisions are taken by folks way over my pay grade.<\/p>\n

For centuries the universality argument prevailed. The result is that we had poets and musicians composing prayers in Latin for 1800 years or more. Some of these are quite beautiful, and in many cases the English translations fall flat.<\/p>\n

I suppose the more basic question is “why pray somebody else’s words at all?”<\/p>\n

I confess that I’m an amateur here, as in so many things. I converted in my late 30s, and I’m still learning how to pray. Nevertheless, and in full awareness of my vast ignorance, I’ll venture my theory.<\/p>\n

As I see it, there are three kinds of prayer, all good and valid and useful:<\/p>\n

You’ve got your spontaneous prayer<\/em>, where you’re just talking to God. In my case, this usually involves a great deal of rambling.<\/p>\n

Formal prayer<\/em> is talking to God using somebody else’s words.<\/p>\n

Liturgical prayer<\/em> is formal prayer where the community talks to God.<\/p>\n

Now most people don’t make prepared speeches when they talk with somebody they love, so why do so with God, who is Love Himself?<\/p>\n

Well, formal prayer includes within it the step of disposing us to talk with God, elevating our finite minds to the infinite mystery – to the Trinity, to the Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, to the continuing creation in which we are called to participate, to beauty, to love, to redemption.<\/p>\n

If your formal prayers don’t do that, you’re better off improvising – it’s the difference between playing in a symphony and playing in a jam session.<\/p>\n

The genius of the liturgy is that it is designed <\/em>to do this: it was designed to elevate us, to peel back the scales before our eyes which is the blindness of sin, to bring us face to face with the transcendent God. <\/p>\n

It is not man (or even committee) that designs the liturgy for this; it is the Holy Spirit Himself.<\/p>\n

In these rites I discover that something is approaching me here that I did not produce myself, that I am entering into something greater than myself, which ultimately derives from divine revelation. This is why the Christian East calls the liturgy the “Divine Liturgy”, expressing thereby the liturgy’s independence from human control. <\/p>\n

(Pope Benedict XVI, The Spirit of the Liturgy<\/i>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is the same reason we pray the psalms, though we did not write them. They contain every human emotion found in our dealings with God: joy, fear, love, abandonment, communion. They plead and they rage, they praise and they ring with songs of thanksgiving, and they do so with voices far beyond our poor eloquence.<\/p>\n

If you don’t need to think of the words, you can be swept up in the universal yearnings of the human soul, perhaps yearnings that you yourself did not know how to articulate, or even know were buried within you.<\/p>\n

An Example<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before Mass, I typically pray a prayer composed by Saint Thomas Aquinas. I usually pray the Latin sotto voce<\/i> to hear the rhythm and the poetry of the words, their sound. Then I silently read the English, the meaning.<\/p>\n

Here is the prayer, followed by the same English translation I use. Even if you don’t know how to pronounce the Latin, you can still see the rhyme and the rhythm in the words, which are totally absent in translation.<\/p>\n

Oratio Sancti Thom\u00e6 Aquinatis Ante Missam<\/b><\/p>\n

Omn\u00edpotens sempit\u00e9rne Deus,
\necce, acc\u00e9do ad sacram\u00e9ntum unig\u00e9niti F\u00edlii tui,
\nD\u00f3mini nostri Jesu Christi;
\nacc\u00e9do tamquam inf\u00edrmus ad m\u00e9dicum vit\u00e6,
\nimm\u00fandus ad fontem miseric\u00f3rdi\u00e6,
\nc\u00e6cus ad lumen clarit\u00e1tis \u00e6t\u00e9rn\u00e6,
\npauper et eg\u00e9nus ad D\u00f3minum c\u00e6li et terr\u00e6.
\nRogo ergo imm\u00e9ns\u00e6 largit\u00e1tis tu\u00e6 abund\u00e1ntiam,
\nqu\u00e1tenus meam cur\u00e1re dign\u00e9ris infirmit\u00e1tem,
\nlav\u00e1re f\u0153dit\u00e1tem,
\nillumin\u00e1re c\u00e6cit\u00e1tem,
\ndit\u00e1re paupert\u00e1tem,
\nvest\u00edre nudit\u00e1tem:
\nut panem Angel\u00f3rum,
\nRegem regum et D\u00f3minum domin\u00e1ntium,
\ntanta susc\u00edpiam rever\u00e9ntia et humilit\u00e1te,
\ntanta contriti\u00f3ne et devoti\u00f3ne,
\ntanta purit\u00e1te et fide,
\ntali prop\u00f3sito et intenti\u00f3ne,
\nsicut \u00e9xpedit sal\u00fati \u00e1nim\u00e6 me\u00e6.
\nDa mihi, qu\u00e6so, Dom\u00ednici C\u00f3rporis et S\u00e1nguinis
\nnon solum susc\u00edpere sacram\u00e9ntum,
\nsed \u00e9tiam rem et virt\u00fatem sacram\u00e9nti.
\nO mit\u00edssime Deus, da mihi Corpus unig\u00e9niti F\u00edlii tui,
\nDomini nostri Jesu Christi,
\nquod traxit de V\u00edrgine Mar\u00eda, sic susc\u00edpere,
\nut c\u00f3rpori suo m\u00fdstico m\u00e9rear incorpor\u00e1ri,
\net inter ejus membra connumer\u00e1ri.
\nO amant\u00edssime Pater, conc\u00e9de mihi dil\u00e9ctum F\u00edlium tuum,
\nquem nunc vel\u00e1tum in via susc\u00edpere prop\u00f3no,
\nrevel\u00e1ta tandem f\u00e1cie perp\u00e9tuo contempl\u00e1ri:
\nQui tecum vivit et regnat in unit\u00e1te Sp\u00edritus Sancti Deus,
\nper \u00f3mnia s\u00e6cula s\u00e6cul\u00f3rum. Amen. <\/td>\n

Prayer of Saint Thomas Aquinas Before Mass<\/strong><\/p>\n

Almighty and ever-living God,
\nI draw near to the sacrament of your only-begotten Son,
\nour Lord Jesus Christ.
\nI come sick to the physican of life,
\nunclean to the fountain of mercy,
\nblind to the light of eternal brightness,
\npoor and needy to the Lord of heaven and earth.
\nSo I ask you, most generous Lord:
\ngraciously heal my infirmity,
\nwash me clean,
\nillumine my blindness,
\nenrich my poverty,
\nand clothe my nakedness.
\nMay I receive the Bread of angels,
\nthe King of kings and Lord of lords,
\nwith such reverence and humility,
\nsuch contrition and devotion,
\nsuch purity and faith,
\nand such resolve and determination
\nas may secure my soul’s salvation.
\nGrant as I may receive not only the visible sign of the Lord’s Body and Blood,
\nbut also all the reality and power of the sacrament.
\nGrant, most kind God,
\nthat I may receive the Body of your only-begotten Son,
\nour Lord Jesus Christ,
\nwhich he received from the Virgin Mary,
\nand may receive it in such a way that
\nI become a living part of his Mystical Body
\nand counted among his members.
\nO most loving Father,
\ngran me your beloved Son.
\nWhile on this earthly pilgrimage,
\nI receive him under the veil of this sacrament’
\nso may I come at last
\nto see him face to face for all eternity.
\nFor he lives and reigns with you
\nfor ever and ever. Amen.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a dirty little secret. Sometimes… sometimes, I pray in Latin. It’s not that I think God likes Latin better than English, and I am certainly not fluent in Latin. In fact it’s safe to say that my knowledge of the language is vanishingly small. This brings up two points: why on earth would somebody pray in a language […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26,6,19,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latin","category-pope-benedict-xvi","category-pray","category-sacred-liturgy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1aGBK-5I","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1432,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/the-new-translation-part-4-the-penitential-act\/","url_meta":{"origin":354,"position":0},"title":"The New Translation Part 4: The Penitential Act","author":"Thom","date":"10 September 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the fourth installment in a series of short articles I wrote\/adapted\/edited for my parish bulletin. I will publish the others as they they appear. The new Mass translation is coming in Advent! Back in 2000, Blessed Pope John Paul II issued the third edition of the Roman Missal.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Prayer"","block_context":{"text":"Prayer","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/pray\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/confiteor-216x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":90830,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/introibo-ad-altare-dei-the-prayer-and-the-posters\/","url_meta":{"origin":354,"position":1},"title":"Intro\u00edbo ad Alt\u00e1re Dei – the Prayer and the Posters","author":"Thom","date":"28 March 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"At our parish of Holy Rosary, the clergy and servers pray Psalm 43 (42) before Mass in the narthex. Well, since we were forced to move to the auditorium this past November, we pray it in the hallway outside. This psalm begins with the antiphon, \"I will go to the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "inside baseball"","block_context":{"text":"inside baseball","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/inside-baseball\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Introibo-ad-altare-Dei.jpg?fit=584%2C877&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Introibo-ad-altare-Dei.jpg?fit=584%2C877&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Introibo-ad-altare-Dei.jpg?fit=584%2C877&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/thanks-be-to-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":354,"position":2},"title":"Thanks Be to God","author":"Thom","date":"11 October 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"This story is breaking right now. Though many have expected for a long time, I doubt that many are actually prepared for it. POPE WILL BROADEN USE OF LATIN MASS Vatican, Oct. 11 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI is preparing to release a motu proprio extending permission for priests to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "History"","block_context":{"text":"History","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/history\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":639,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/instruction-universae-ecclesiae\/","url_meta":{"origin":354,"position":3},"title":"Instruction Univers\u00e6 Ecclesi\u00e6","author":"Thom","date":"13 May 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The instruction Univers\u00e6 Ecclesi\u00e6 was issued today in Rome. It is a clarification of Summorum Pontificum, which Pope Benedict XVI promulgated on 7 July 2007. By far the best source for information that I've found so far is Father Z's PODCAzT on the subject. 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