Father Zed has a good piece about the Ratisbon (Pustet) prayer book for priests. I possess an earlier edition, about which I wrote on 17 October 2010. Here is what I wrote.
Pray for the people of S Giles', Reading, that they may receive a priest, a good priest, soon, to succeed Fr Michael Melrose, who died more than a year ago now. And, for that matter, a worthy successor to Blessed John Eynon, Vicar of S Giles', martyred in the time of the second Henry Tudor.
Among the liturgical books left by Fr Melrose, which I am now fortunate enough to possess and use daily, is a very slender volume: Preces ante et post Missam. It consists of the prayers to be said "According to the opportunity of the priest", found in the old Missal and also included, for convenience, in old Breviaries. But this separate edition (Pustet, 1913) is interestingly augmented. Firstly, it includes two lists, of the quick and of the dead, whom a priest should remember in the Mementos of the Canon. Among the rather chilling categories listed are "all to whom I have been a burden (gravamen), a scandal, and an occasion of sin". And, inter mortuos, "souls who, because of me, are suffering in Purgatory".
I think it is a very good idea to be reminded, day by day, what a very great opportunity for doing evil, and provoking others into disbelief or sin, we priests have. I wonder when and why these lists disappeared. They appear in nineteenth century breviaries in my possession, and apparently survived until at least 1913. So ...?
The booklet also includes "Actus virtutum", from the writings of S Francis de Sales. I invite comments on a detail that made me pause for thought. The Act of Adoration begins: "O God in three persons ... and thou, Lord Jesus Christ, I adore from my whole heart ... And because my adoration is exceedingly slight and weak, I offer to thee those adorations which continually thy most holy Humanity offers to thee ... " What surprised me was the idea of praying to Our Lord Jesus Christ's Godhead separately and as divisible from his Sacred Humanity. Isn't this, I wondered, something a tadge more in the spirit of Nestorius than of S Cyril? What, I thought, becomes of akhoristos and all that? But S Francis de Sales is a Doctor of the Church, and I am not ... er ...
14 comments:
I, too, Fr H., have been troubled by a like prayer.
Years ago I was given a copy of the St Andrew's Daily Missal (1954 edition), which, amongst its many precious liturgical texts and devotions, included the following Act of Adoration, about which I quizzed my parish priest as seeming to separate the Divinity and Humanity of the Eternal Word:
"O Lord Jesus, I have received Thee within myself, and from within the sanctuary of my heart into which Thou hast deigned to descend, do Thou give to almighty God, in my name, all the glory that is His due. I unite myself to Thee, O sacred humanity, who in heaven and in the Holy Eucharist, dost never cease offering to the most Holy Trinity an infinite worship, that which alone is truly worthy of the three divine Persons. Through Thee, O divine Priest, I wish to render glory to the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, even in proportion to the immensity of their divine Majesty, because I know that by Thee, with Thee and in Thee all honour and glory are given to them. In union, therefore, with Thee, I prostrate myself in adoration before God, acknowledging His sovereign dominion over me and over all creatures."
Really! It would seem that this prayer first separates the Sacred Humanity of Christ from His Divinity, and then from the Trinity, placing It as a sort of sacerdotal demi-urge between us and God!
Troubled as I was by these words, which seemed not altogether orthodox, or at the least mala sonans, I modified them as follows:
1. I changed "O sacred humanity" to "Second Person of the Godhead";
2. I changed "the Word" to "Thee the selfsame Word";
3. I changed "their" to "the" before "divine Majesty";
4. I changed "them" to "the Trinity".
Was I barmy, or did I rightly feel disturbed by this prayer?
I must now look up Denzinger...
Didn't the Jansenists carp at the Sacred Heart by pretending that that devotion separated the Word from the Sacred Humanity? And didn't the Holy See attest to the orthodoxy of this and all devotions (as to the Five Wounds, Precious Blood, Holy Shoulder Wound, etc.) as not separating the Humanity from the Divinity, but paying them all to the One Hypostasis, the Hypostatic Union of the Eternal Word, the Second Divine Person of the All-Holy Trinity?
Was not the devotion to the Sacred Head particularly questioned, as being very suspect of dividing the Humanity from the Divinity?
Hmmm...
My copy of that amazing collection of devotions verging on superstitions, The Pieta Prayer Book (which still contains all the promises attached to the 15 Oes of St Bridget, promises that the Holy Office has been trying to stamp out for four centuries), includes a prayer to (actually in honour of) the Shoulder Wound of Our Lord, giving the affecting detail that this dread lesion is the most hidden and forgotten outrage suffered by Christ, being the gory mess gouged out of His innocent flesh by the splintery wood of the Cross He shouldered...
It seemed a tad morbid, that particular oration; it came supplied with a curious quotation, said to be from St Bernard, affirming that Our Lord revealed all this, and in particular that "all who shall venerate this Wound, I will remit to them all their venial sins, and will no longer remember their mortal sins".
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I think the incoming priests of the Ordinariates all deserve a copy of this little book of devotions, so as to familiarize them with the important axiom that "there is always a stranger Catholic devotion". (Example: everyone knows of the Infant Jesus of Prague. But who knows of the Infant Mary - Maria Bambina - of Milan?)
The Pieta Prayer Book, amongst more reasonable devotions and orations, also includes a "true Letter of Jesus Christ" as revealed, apparently, to SS Bridget, Matilda and Elizabeth,and yet moreover supposedly kept in the Holy Sepulchre; a letter penned by the Virgin Mary, allegedly kept in a reliquary in Messina; a prayer to St Joseph over 1900 years old, having the curious quality that one who reads or carries it will not be defeated in battle, nor drop dead suddenly, nor take ill from poison, etc.; and "three very beautiful prayers" accompanied by a lengthy rubric about their being prayed when a certain Pope lay dying in despair at his sins; one gains 400 years' indulgence for them, plus knowledge of the hour of one's death. How convenient.
Fr H.,
If you don't have a copy of the Pieta Prayer Book, those nice Filipino ladies you occasionally mention would be sure to provide you with one if you ask.
I think I've gone on for long enough now!
See here: http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/rafaelmarie/ThePieta/athepieta.html
Fr.Daniel,
The site will not allow direct access: go to
http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/rafaelmarie/
and scroll down for "A wonderful and HIGHLY recommended Prayer Book, just barely touching the rich Traditions of the Catholic Faith (it was instrumental in my re-conversion!)"
Regards,
John U.K.
Oh, good, I'm glad you've already found it.
It fascinates me sociologically, so to say, since some of the rubrics attached to the prayers are entirely mediæval in style, resembling the apocryphal promises of indulgences that Trent ruled ought be expunged from the prymers.
Separately mentioning the Humanity and the Divinity of our Lord as two aspects in one and the same prayer, does not have to be unorthodox, as long as the one praying realises and confesses that the PErson of Jesus Christ is ONE, and that Person is God. His humanity is assumed. In the Mass, after all, Chirst our God is offering His perfect and sinless Human nature - to the Holy Trinity, of Which He is one of the Three Persons! As an example of archaic litrugical expression, this is the translation into English of the last sentence of the so-called Canon of Hyppolytus (which i myself have never used, nor hereby suggest to anyone else to use it)
''that we may praise and glorify thee through thy Son Jesus Christ, through whom be glory and honour unto thee, to the Father and the Son with the Holy Spirit in thy Holy Church, both now and for ever. Amen.''
''I unite myself to Thee, O sacred humanity, who in heaven and in the Holy Eucharist, dost never cease offering to the most Holy Trinity an infinite worship, that which alone is truly worthy of the three divine Persons.''
This prayer is perfectly orthodox. INdeed, Christ offers His Sacrd Humanity in the Mass to the Blessed Trinity. He does not offer His GOdhead to the Trinity!!!
He does offer both His Godhead and His Manhood, only to us, who receive HIm in Holy Communion.
It is surely quite proper to maintain the distinction of natures between the humanity and the divinity of Christ. They are not co-mingled or confused, and each retains its proper character and energies, yet both are fully and truly predicated of the One Divine Person.
Is it not defined doctrine that Our Lord has two wills, for example? When I first came across this teaching I struggled to understand how this did not make Christ two persons. I am still far from understanding it, and will doubtless never be able to grasp what it feels like to be God Incarnate. However, I did find it helpful to think about the remote analogy of my own composite nature as flesh and spirit in the unity of one created person.
My flesh has its own energies and demands - my stomach very much so at this time of year! - which are proper to its operation and distorted as flesh, even though they are exaggerated through my fallen nature. My spirit - intellect and will - also has its own drive and priorities. Sinful as I am, these twin drives are often at war (the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak), but even if I were in a state of plenary holiness in which my flesh was perfectly obedient to my spirit, they would still remain identifiably distinct within my being and in my conscious experience.
This is, of course, only an analogy. The human distinction of body and soul within one nature exists in the humanity of Jesus Christ too, but in Him there is the further and deeply mysterious distinction between his human and divine natures, which are yet so utterly united in the One Person of God The Son that both natures are wholly and immediately His.
So his human and divine wills are always perfectly integrated and aligned within the hierarchy of his incarnate Self. Yet the one does not obliterate the immanent and natural operation of the other. Does this mean that his humanity can be said to "adore" his divinity? I can give that language a meaning and see it as a rather beautiful thought. After all I just spoke of my flesh as "obeying" my spirit when it submits to the commands of holy restraint. This does not necessarily personify my body as some separate entity from my soul.
This is what I take St. Francis de Sales to mean by the humanity of The Lord offering "continual adorations" within himself. Although saying that these "adorations" are offered "to thee" (Christ) might sound like the Lord's Divine personality is somehow an external or separate locus of identity to his human nature. The saints are not infallible in their manner of expression, especially when being poetic. But I do see a potential for confusion and a risk of error in addressing the humanity of Christ directly and separately as "thee" in the prayers cited by some commentators. There is only one "Thou" in Jesus - only one centre or personal agency and identity - The Second Person Of The Holy Trinity, who is both wholly Divine and wholly human.
@Joshua mentions devotion to the wounded shoulder of Our Lord. I'm sure graphic descriptions of such a wound would be gory, but I suppose everything to do with crucifixion is gory.
According to Stefano Campanella, author of "Il papa e il frate" (The Pope and the Friar), Karol Wojtyła (the future Pope John Paul II), while still a priest, visited Padre Pio and asked the question of which was his most painful wound – much like the manner Bernard did to Christ. Wojtyła expected that it was Pio's chest wound, but Pio replied: "It is my shoulder wound, which no one knows about and has never been cured or treated".
This unexpected, modern and physical confirmation of the private revelation to St.Bernard is impressive to me. This devotion forms a regular part of my meditation on the fourth sorrowful mystery of the rosary. I humbly commend it to others.
Anonymous, precisely so! Our Blessed Lord is One Eternal Divine Person with a Divine Will, costubstantial to the Fsther and the Holy Ghost; He assumed in time as full assumed human nature, inluding human soul, human will, and human body, forever uniting thst nature to His Everlasting Godhead. And in the Mass, He offers His holy manhood to th er Most Holy Trinity, whereof He is "The Second Person", God the Son. Christ is thus at the same time Victim, Priest, and God, or Sacrifice, Sacrificer, and Receiver of the Sacrifice. An orthodox catholic need not have any oroblems with this theology, nor with prayers that reflect this mystery of God-made-man Who offers His humanity to His own Godhead on the Cross and in the Mass, and Who offers His Godhead and Manhood to us in Holy Communion. I do have a problem with the post-Fatima prayer and the Divine Mercy prayer, both of which state that "we offer to God the Body, Blood, Soul and DIVINITY of Jesus Christ in all the tabernacles". How can "we" ( which includes laymen) offer up the Godhead of Our Blessed Lord to God???
I have trouble with the Divine Mercy prayer too, in part because my dear former pastor said people should be offering a daily rosary first, and then, if they have time, add other prayers.
However, on the prayers addressed to God the Father by Christ, if we look at the moment of the death of our Lord, we know that He offered Himself to His Father & the Holy Ghost, who witnessed this sacrifice IN TIME. So I think that may have something to do with those prayers such as from St. Francis de Sales, possibly my favorite saint. The goal is perhaps to place us at the foot of the crucifix, at the moment it occurred, and inspire deeper faith.
Thomas above explained everything so very clearly. Yet, if i may, I should like to add one moe consideration. In spite of tge Council of Orange, it helps to envisage man as being a spirit directly made by God (which is the conscious identity, the person itaself), which at conception joins the soul (with its faculties of intellect and will) and a fleshly body. Saint Paul the Apostle writes of this tripartite composition of man. The spirit is immirtal: the soul, after desth, cleaves to the spirit by God's grace, awaiting the resurrection of the body. The soul then, is like software in a computer. In our Blessed Lord's case, His uncreated, divine Spirit with divine will - which is His very Person of God the Son - took upon Himself at conception in Blessed Mary's womb, a soul (with its faculties) and body. Thus, His created human nature cleaves to and is under the perfect rule of His Divine Spirit/Person - His Ubcreated, Everlasting Self - which at tge incarnation did duty for a created spirit person. His human will is not a separate person but merely a faculty of His created assumed human soul in His glorious human Body, forever joined to His One Eternal Divine Spirit Person, Who, together with the Father and the Holy Ghost, lives and reigns, one God, forever and ever. En fin, this is a wondroys mystery, which we shall more fully understand only in the next life, when we shall have a purified mind and will, and,
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