Oh dear. Wrong again. I had a wager with myself that Libidinis gaudium would be the title of our Holy Father's imminent bombshell. Instead ... Amoris laetitia ... he does so let one down ...
According to Lewis & Short, a highly useful dictionary for lucky pupils learning the delights of Latin Prose and Verse Composition and for their instructors, Gaudium and Laetitia do differ in meaning. The former suggests the internal Joy one feels; the latter, a Joy which expresses itself externally. So the Sovereign Pontiff's first magis quam magnum opus, entitled Evangelii gaudium, implied that the Gospel makes one feel all jolly inside, while next Friday's opus etiam maius suggests that Sexual Love is manifested externally.
So ... according to these texts, we keep the Joy of the Gospel bottled up inside us, while rushing over to the extrovert side of our personalities for the Joy of Sex (wasn't there some much celebrated booklet with that title back in the seventies? Controversial, I seem to recall, because it included diagrams?). What an interesting distinction. The nuances of Christian anthropology gradually open out before us, like daisies in the dewfall.
Apart from these highly suggestive initial words, leaks of the text are in short supply. If you're interested, I can leak to you the reason for this. Translators, printers, and journalists have been taken, batch after batch, down into the dungeons beneath the Sant'Angelo ... probably the same dungeons where Pope Urban VI, enlightened Pontiff, had some of his Cardinals tortured to death ... and have been encouraged to look through the peep-holes into the cells where the defendants in the Vatileaks trial are being held 'languishing' (as journalists would put it) in irons and dreadful conditions (please forgive the zeugma). The penalties for leaking Pontifical Secrets are then explained to them. Robert Mickens, formerly of the Tablet, was given a specially extended tour which incorporated the unlit lower levels of the prison where the local Biodiversitas (cfr Laudato si) breeds in tenebris et laetitia (please forgive the zeugma). He no longer makes jokes about the Rats.
Personally, I just can't wait to read it. I would be most aw'fly grateful if some kind reader could keep watch and let me know when the official Latin text is 'released'.
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Official Latin text? We're still waiting for the Latin text of Evangelii Gaudium. Is there a Latin word for 'waffle'? (The spoken rather than the edible variety.)
Somewhat on topic, note this report from Rorate, Father. http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2016/04/pope-and-sspx-superior-fellay-met.html
It is hard to imagine that what Rorate hears was a very positive meeting did not also address issues that might be raised by the apostolic exhortation, and how the Society might react publicly. We shall see.
Reverend and dear Father, you have outdone yourself. I nearly choked on my morning yogurt. (It still a.m. on this side of the pond.) I now approach the week in pacem et gaudium knowing that the sky will not fall until Friday.
If we are nicking a previous work's title, I should have gone with a longer title for the exhortation and trimmed the content by 10,000 words of more.
"May heaven grant you in all things your heart's desire- husband, house, and a happy, peaceful home; for there is nothing better in this world than that man and wife should be of one mind in a house. It discomfits their enemies, makes the hearts of their friends glad, and they themselves know more about it than any one."
That's an exhortation.
My apologies for my previously unattributed quotation. I should have given the nod to Homer.
It 'should' be released this coming Friday, Fr. Or at least that's the scheduled date. We will keep you posted. It 'should' be a JOY!
There is a Facebook page sponsored by an Italian organisation called Evangelii Gaudium, which seems to be promoting and trailing the forthcoming publication of the document. I don't know if it has any official backing or link to the Vatican:
https://www.facebook.com/amorislaetitia/timeline?ref=page_internal
(By the way, the book you mention, Father, had graphic illustrations that were more than just "diagrams", but I don't want to dwell on the thought because I only know such things from a time of sinful disobedience and regrettable immaturity. The coincidence of titles has been noted by others and is very unfortunate.)
The Vatican press release announcing the publication says that the text will be available in Italian, French, English, German, Spanish, and Portuguese on the release date of April 8th, without mentioning Latin – similar to the publication of Francis’ 2013 apostolic exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium”, which although having a Latin title, has yet (if ever) to have a Latin text. The first (2015) encyclical solely written by him (Benedict XVI wrote most of “Lumen Fidei”, to which Francis added a few “finishing touches” and refers to it as having been written by “four hands” – I did not know that both popes were ambidextrous) “Laudato si'”, whose opening words are from Saint Francis of Assisi’s “Canticle of the Sun” in the 13th-century Italian dialect of Umbria, has been translated into Latin.
Benedict XVI used the phrase "amoris laetitia" in his Motu Proprio for the Year of Faith:
"Amoris laetitia, responsio ad tormentum passionis et doloris, robur veniae prae suscepta offensione atque vitae victoria prae mortis vacuitate, haec omnia consummationem inveniunt in mysterio eius Incarnationis, cuius vi homo factus est, et nobiscum humanam infirmitatem participavit ut eam virtute suae Resurrectionis transformaret
Vatican translation reads:
"The joy of love, the answer to the drama of suffering and pain, the power of forgiveness in the face of an offence received and the victory of life over the emptiness of death: all this finds fulfilment in the mystery of his Incarnation, in his becoming man, in his sharing our human weakness so as to transform it by the power of his resurrection."
The front cover has been leaked:
http://thatthebonesyouhavecrushedmaythrill.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/apostolic-exhortation-front-cover.html
Reverend and dear Fr. Hunwicke,
Does amoris generally refer to sexual love? If so, what is one to make of the 16th-century hymn O Esca Viatorum, whose second verse begins "O lympha, fons amoris"?
I must have been choking still when I wrote that last sentence. Correction: "in pace et gaudio."
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