Today
you get a twofer, my weekly Faith Filled Friday (an old prayer in Latin perfect for
Passion week) and my humble attempt at a poetic translation of the prayer to English.
The
prayer comes from Fr. Mark Daniel Kirby, a prior at a Benedictine Monastery who
blogs at Vultus Christi.By the way, hat tip to Joyce who blogs at The Unprofitable Servant for pointing out Fr.
Mark’s wonderful blog for me a few weeks ago.
The
prayer is titled from the first line, “O Passio Magna," and you can read the
prayer's history from Fr. Mark’s blog entry. Here's the Latin prayer.
O passio magna!
O profunda vulnera!
O inestimabilis dolor!
O largissima effusio sanguinis!
O abundantissima effusio lacrimarum!
O dulcis dulcedo!
O mortis amaritudo!
Da mihi vitam aeternam.
Fr.
Mark provides what he says is one variant of a translation:
O
great Passion!
O profound wounds!
O immeasurable sorrow!
O most copious shedding of blood!
O most abundant outpouring of tears!
O surpassing sweetness!
O death suffered in every bitterness!
Give me eternal life.
Well,
I began thinking.If there are
variations, then I don’t think it would upset anyone if I came up with one more variant,
and while at it give it a more poetic feel. Here's my translation:
O great Passion
With wounds arcane and deep,
With boundless pain,
Diffusive spray of blood;
O tears, bursting tears,
Sweet-scented sweetness
In most bitter death,
Give me eternal life.
My thoughts on the translation were such.Straight translation of Latin tends to lack full
context that the Latin typically implies.So I tried to expand a little in some lines.I avoided the over use of the repeated expressive
interjection “O.” That doesn't do well in English. I also have some diction differences that I don’t think alter the
meaning, but I think makes it more interesting English.The only word I translated with a different
meaning is in the third line, “dolor,”
which I translate as “pain” rather than “sorrow.”I can’t claim to being anywhere near an
expert in Latin, so I can’t say if “sorrow” is accurate. I'm pretty sure "pain" is a legitimate option. Either way, I think “pain” fits the meaning
better.
Here he is today riding around in the Popemobile. Notice he stops and gets out to physically touch and bless a disabled man.
Now I've made this comment at several Catholic blogs today. I want to post it here so that I can share with my readers and preserve it for myself.
"The last few days have made it apparent that B16′s strengths were intellectual at the expense of human contact. Given what I’ve seen of Francis’s human contact approach to his ministry, human contact is much more important than intellectual pontificating, pardon the pun. The intellectual underpinnings of Catholicism are there in the magisterium. Whatever updating B16 did to it is marginal, and non-Catholics weren’t listening anyway. I like what I’ve seen Pope Francis. This contact ministry is the human contact that I’ve argued brings Christ to everyone. Through human contact is where Christ is revealed. Pope Francis is a shot in the arm!"
What a gift this man has become. God bless Pope Francis!
Merle is probably my favorite Country and Western. His voice is perfect for country, and I can so identify with them.
Wish I was down on some blue bayou, With a bamboo cane stuck in the sand. But the road I'm on, don't seem to go there, So I just dream, keep on bein' the way I am. Wish I enjoyed what makes my living, Did what I do with a willin' hand. Some would run, ah, but that ain't like me. So I just dream and keep on bein' the way I am.
The way I am, don't fit my shackles. The way I am, reality. I can almost see that bobber dancin', So I just dream, keep on bein' the way I am.
Two quick stories from when Daddy alone was in charge of
Matthew on Saturday afternoon.
One
There was a little paint brush that was left on the dining
room table from when Matthew and my wife were doing some water based painting
on a white page.A page with orange
brush strokes lay near it.We walked by
it.
Matthew: Daddy, can we paint?
Daddy: No, I don’t know how.
Matthew: Don’t worry daddy.When you get big you’ll learn.You’ll do it.
Two
On the kitchen counter was a bag with some little chocolate bunny
rabbits for Easter.Matthew pointed to
them and asked for one.I said alright.I took one out for each of us.Actually I took a couple more for myself when
he wasn’t looking.He came back and asked for more.I gave him another.He wanted even more.I said that was enough, and he scampered off
understanding.Then I took a couple of
more for myself.
Then we spent some time on the computer.He loves the little nursery rhyme videos on
Youtube.He’s gotten the hang of
clicking them on too.I got a little
bored after a half hour and opened up a video with a set of nursery rhymes that
would last over a half hour.I went to
sit and then lie down on the couch.I
fell asleep.In my sleep state I could
sense Matthew had walked away from the computer and was walking around the
house.He went up and down the stairs
and by me a couple of times.When I woke
up an hour later I didn’t see him around.He came down from upstairs and asked if he still wanted to look at
Youtube.No he didn’t.And I put on the TV for him.
My wife shortly thereafter came home.She walked into the kitchen and burst out, “Who
ate the chocolate bunnies?”Uh oh, I thought, she found out.It was only a couple I thought.I walked into the kitchen and there was a step
stool by the counter and the bag opened and the aluminum wraps on the
counter.I didn’t do that.
“Matthew, come here.Did
you take some chocolate bunnies?” hi mother sternly asked.
“No, Daddy gave me.”
“I gave him one.Now,
tell the truth, you went and took more.”
“Yes.I did mom," he said turning to his mother.
Then his mother turned to me.“And where were you when he took them?”
Sheepishly I said, “I guess I wasn’t in the kitchen.”
First, it was an incredible surprise on the timing.Not much more than a couple of hours (maybe
it wasn’t even that long) before the white smoke I had just finished reading a
blog by a church historian on how long some of these conclaves take to come to
a decision.He was implying to not hold
your breath.Well, he was wrong.
I was also surprised on who was picked.I had been researching the leading
candidates, and I had settled on a few who I thought would be good picks:
Cardinal Erdő from Hungary,
Ouellet from Canada, Tagle from the Philippines, or even possibly Dolan from
here in New York.Everyone was looking
at candidates seventy or younger.Bergoglio
was never mentioned as a leading candidate.He seemed to have come out of nowhere, though it’s now been mentioned he
was a runner-up when Benedict XVI was elected in 2005.It was while sitting at my desk at work that I
saw a headline come across of the white smoke from the Sistine Chapel, and
therefore a Pope was selected.I
switched on some video feed from the Vatican and I waited in anticipation like
the rest of the world as to who the man was.Suddenly my boss comes into my office and we start talking work.He couldn’t see my computer screen and it was
muted, so he didn’t know what was going on.After we finished talking I told him that they had selected a Pope and I
was waiting to see who it was.He was
interested.He’s Catholic too, though
somewhat cynical, and he came over and had me put the sound up.We waited for a bit, and another person,
another Catholic , came in and we three, me in my chair, the other two standing
behind me, stared at the screen until the new Pontiff came out.What a surprise that the man selected, Jorge
Mario Bergoglio from Argentina, was 76 and he took the name of Francis.
First let me state some less profound, more emotional
connections to the man.He’s from this
side of the world!Who needs the Europeans!That’s tongue-in-cheek but it’s fantastic
that the Pope comes from the New World side of the Atlantic.I probably would have been just as excited if
he had come from Africa or Asia, though from the Americas is just a touch more
special.Christopher Columbus and
Amerigo Vespucci must have prayed a few extra Ave Marias for this to come
about.;) Next, he’s from Italian
immigrants.I can certainly identify
with that!In fact his middle name is
the same as my father’s first.His
father was a railway worker, the same with my great grandfather.Before he went into religious life the Holy
Father was either a chemist or a chemical engineer (I’ve seen both and can’t
verify which), earning a master’s degree, and after becoming a Jesuit went on
to teach among other things literature.Hmm, an engineer (or a science background) with links to
literature?There’s only one person I
know with that combination, and I identify with him extremely well.:pFinally
he takes the name of Francis, after Francis of Assisi, which I have always
considered to be my personal patron saint since before pre-teen when I took the
name as my confirmation name in his honor.
Another interesting fact is that he’s a Jesuit, a religious
order, and it’s very rare for a Pope to be from one, and he’s the first from
the Jesuits.The Jesuits are one of the
intellectual arms of the Catholic Church, but the Jesuits have more of an
evangelical bent than the others, and I think that’s significant.They don’t just teach; they persuade with
rhetorical skill.Poet Gerard Manly
Hopkins was a Jesuit priest and James Joyce was Jesuit trained.Given the slow secularization across western
culture, the Cardinals picked a man trained to deliver sharp, disciplined
argument.I also think this is in
contrast to his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI.B16 was known as a deep, profound theologian, arguably the leading
theologian of this age, even before he became Pope.Wikipedia lists 66 books under his name from
before and during his Papacy.But B16 presented
arguments as a scholar and, if you will, as an artist: full context, intricate
logic, subtle connections, and rounded in a sort of beauty.While that might be good for the intellectual
believer, and I certainly grew to love the man through his incredible
illuminations, I don’t think the non-believer, or the lapsed Catholic, or even
average person in the pew really contended with his thought.Jesuit persuasion is more of a
disputation.It’s not artistic.Its thought is honed to clarity and it
responds to the rebuttal by picking apart its fallacies.This will be more of an engaged counter to
the philosophical Zeitgeist of our day.And
I can it see already.On that first day
on the balcony, he was radiating Francis of Assisi, simple and humble.But on the second day, he gave a homily reflecting
his Jesuit mind in his first mass as Pope, and I caught it.The homily given was completely
extemporaneous, no notes, no teleprompter, completely off the top of his head,
in, mind you, his second language of Italian.But when you look at the translated transcript what you see is a central
thesis that links the three biblical readings; then boom-boom-boom, three
points that flesh out and substantiate the argument, and then builds toward a
higher point from where he started, all in about eight paragraphs.Now that’s a trained mind.
The fact that he took the name Francis after St. Francis of
Assisi is most significant.No Pope has
ever done that.It’s dramatic, stunning
actually, especially when you realize that Francis of Assisi wasn’t even a
priest but a deacon.That may be a first
in itself too.What does the connection
to Francis of Assisi signify?Several
things actually.First simplicity.St. Francis was known as a most simple soul, a
“fool for Christ,” living in the most rudimentary lodging, begging for meals,
working only for a day’s wage, never saving any money, giving anything left
over away.He eschewed planning,
organizing, systematizing.The Friars
Minor still try to live that way, though I don’t know how.(By the way, when I say above that I consider
St. F of A as my personal patron saint it’s not because I’m of the same
constitution; quite the contrary, he’s my opposite, and in order to be grounded
I need to embrace him as counter ballast.)Second, St. Francis embraced and actually loved poverty, both his own poverty
and those who lived in it.Pope Francis
in his constant reference to the poor since the moment of his selection and in
every public moment since seems to be completely focused on this.While this is nothing new for the Catholic
Church, which happens to be the largest charitable organization in the world
(hospitals, orphanages, homeless, destitute, developing countries, natural
catastrophes, etc.), the impression the general public has is of opulence.Well, 1.2 billion Catholics each donating a
little something adds up to several billion dollars.I think he wants the image to reflect the
Church’s spirit of poverty.Third, the
Franciscans, unlike the previous religious orders, were a city ministry, and
quite the opposite of the monastic orders.Monastics withdrew from the world into monasteries in the isolated
countryside.Franciscans, formed in the
high middle ages with the resurgence of cities, engaged people’s needs on a
street level, caring for the destitute and evangelizing on a personal
level.It’s most telling that the previous
pope took his papal name from the most famous of the monastic’s, St. Benedict,
while this pope stands in stark contrast.Finally, the significance of the name Francis for this Holy Father is
the link to the charge Christ Himself
directed St. Francis at a ruined chapel outside of Assisi named San
Damiano.“Francis, can’t you see my
house is crumbling.Go and rebuild the
church.”And so the saint is a known
also as the mender of the church, and certainly there is some mending to be
done in the current church.
We have these two strands in this pope, the disciplined mind
of a scholarly Jesuit with the humility, simplicity, and human engagement of
the Franciscan ministry.The implication
is that he’s going to challenge the spiritually indifferent trend of western
culture, both through rhetorical argumentation and humble example.And in him we see the real deal.He is inherently a humble man, lived in a
small apartment, cooked his own meals, rode the subway, embraced the people in
the slums.St. Francis embraced and
kissed the lepers; Bergoglio washed and kissed the feet of today’s equivalent
of the lepers, AIDs patients.On Holy
Thursdays Catholic religious wash the feet of lay people in reminiscence of
Christ washing His disciple’s feet (John, chpt 13).And at another Holy Thursday Bergoglio washed
the feet of pregnant women to highlight the unborn, the truly least of
humanity.(Christ: “Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for
one of these least ones, you did not do for me.” Mat, 25:45)The unborn, the lowest caste of the secularized world, are so least of
humanity that they can’t speak out, they can’t resist power, they can’t even
show you their face to activate some element of compassion; compassion has to
be there a priori.It will be the Holy Father’s mission to validate
that compassion resides somewhere in every human heart, and connect it to our
everlasting God.So far I am impressed
with the selection.This seems to be an
inspired pick.May God bless his words
and deeds.
The Lord wants us like Him: with an open heart, roaming the streets of
Buenos Aires. He wants us walking the streets of Buenos Aires and carrying His
message! Like Him, on the road and on the street. He doesn’t want us hoarding His word just for
ourselves, locked inside our own hearts, our own house, or in the temple,
instead that we spill His word on the street. He wants us walking out on
the street.
One of the unique aspects of Catherine’s discernment was
that it was both inwardly contemplative and outwardly engaged.When she essentially locked herself in a cell
at her parent’s home engaged in mystical union with her “Bridegroom Christ”
alone, she felt an “indescribable happiness” [p.46].Her betrothal to Christ is one of her early experiences
where Christ comes to her and says, “I here betroth you as My Bride in perfect
faith, which for all time shall keep you pure and virgin, until our marriage is
celebrated in heaven with great rejoicing” [p. 49].She probably would have been so inclined to be
in contemplation for the rest of her life if let be, but Christ had other
plans.The excerpts for this blog will
touch on some of her mystical experiences and the process in which Christ drew
her out of her contemplative cocoon and thrust her into the issues of the
outside world.
A little while after her mystical
betrothal Catherine again saw her Lord in a vision.It was the time of day when the good folk of
Siena gathered round the dinner table.Jesus said: “You are to go and seat yourself at the table with your
family.Talk to them kindly, and then
come back here.”
When Catherine heard these words
she began to weep—she was so completely unprepared to leave her cell and her
life of contemplation and mix again with the people of the world.But Our Lord was firm:
“Go in peace.In this way you shall serve Me and become
more perfectly united to me through love of Me and your neighbor, and then you
will be able to rise even more quickly to heaven, as though on wings.Do you remember how the desire to bring souls
to salvation burned in you while you were still a child—and that you dreamed of
dressing yourself as a man and entering the order of the Friars Preachers to
work this end?”
Although Catherine was more than
willing to obey the will of God she tried to raise objections: “But how can I
be of any use in the work of saving souls, I who am merely Your poor servant
girl?For I am a woman, and it is not
seemly for my sex to try to teach men, or even to speak with them.Besides they take no notice of what I say,”
she sighed.
But Jesus replied as the Archangel
Gabriel had once replied:
“All things are possible for God
who has created everything from nothing.I know that you say this from humility, but you must know that in these
days pride has grown monstrously among men, and chiefly among those who are
learned and think they understand everything.It was for this reason that at another period I sent out simple men who
had no human learning, but were filled by Me with divine wisdom, and let them
preach.To-day I have chosen unschooled
women, fearful and weak by nature, but trained by Me in the knowledge of the
divine, so that they may put vanity and pride to shame.If men will humbly receive the teachings I
send them through the weaker sex I will show them great mercy, but if they
despise these women they shall fall into even worse confusion and even greater
agony.
“Therefore, my dear daughter, you
shall humbly do My will, for I will never fail you; on the contrary, I will come
to you as often as before and I will guide and help you in all things.”
Catherine bowed her head, rose and
went from her chamber and seated herself at the table with her family.It is a pity none of Catherine’s biographers
has described for us the amazement it must have caused Jacopo and Lapa [her
parents] to see their hermit daughter seated among them—not to speak of her
brothers and sisters-in-law and their children.But although Catherine had returned in the flesh to the bosom of her
family, her thoughts were with her Savior.And as soon as the Benincasas rose from the table Catherine fled back to
her cell, filled with longing to continue her conversation with her Lord.For the young girl who was later to have such
experiences with unyielding courage, this first return to the family circle
after having lived outside it for three years must have been a terrible
ordeal.[p51-2]
When Catherine went into her contemplative moments, it was
truly an ecstasy, consuming her whole body.Here is a description of what her body became in one of these moments.
From the time when she began her
life of active charity, her familiarity with the secrets of the supernatural
world became more apparent to the world around her.When her soul rose upwards in prayer and
contemplation, her body became as rigid, cold and insensible as a stone.It happened also that her companions saw the
motionless, kneeling woman lifted from the floor, “so high that one could put
one’s hand between Catherine and the floor”—they had certainly tried for
themselves.At other times, and
especially after she had received the Body of the Lord in the Blessed
Sacrament, as she was withdrawn in ecstasy, it was as though her body was
flooded with such heat that beads of sweat appeared all over her flushed face.
As the ecstasies came over her most
often in church, the whole town was soon talking about her.For her friends, who were convinced that
Catherine was a chosen vessel of God, these extraordinary attacks of unconsciousness
were a source of awe and joy; when her soul had been lifted up to the presence
of Divine Love it always returned bearing gifts for her fellows.Andrea di Vanni, the painter who once, while
Catherine was in her twenties, made a sketch of her on a pillar in St.
Dominic’s church, firmly believed she was completely sincere, although it does
not even seem he had at that time joined the circle of her nearest
friends.He has given us the only
authentic portrait we possess of St. Catherine.The lily which she holds in her hand, and the woman kneeling before her,
were added after Catherine’s death.[p58-9]
Other than receiving the stigmata, one of the few saints ever
be so blessed, the most glorious mystical experience was the displacing of her
heart with that of Christ’s heart.I’m
not sure how many saints were praying to Christ’s heart before St. Margret
Mary’s Sacred Heart, but Catherine was doing so three hundred years earlier.
The same day Catherine was
meditating over the words of the prophet, “Cor mundum crea in me, Domine,” and
as she prayed for God to take away her own heart, in which her self-will was
rooted, she saw a vision.Her heavenly
Bridegroom came to her, opened her left side, took out her heart, and carried
it away in His hand.This impression was
so strong and was accompanied by such a physical reaction that Catherine told
Fra Tommaso at confession that she had no heart in her body.The monk could not help laughing, “Now, now,
no one can live without a heart…”But
Catherine was adamant.“But it’s true
Father, I would have to distrust my own senses if I were to doubt that I now
have no heart in my body.It is certain
that with god nothing is impossible.”
A day or two later Catherine had
been to Mass in the Capella della Volte and remained in church to pray along
after all the others had left.Suddenly
Christ appeared to her; in His hand he carried a human heart, deep red and
sparkling with light.When Catherine saw
how it shone she fell on her face.But
again Our Lord opened her left side, and put the burning heart into her body.“My dear daughter, the other day I took away
your heart.To-day I give you My heart,
which will give you eternal life.”
Her most intimate friends assured
her biographer that they had with their own eyes seen the scar under her left
breast where this exchange of hearts had taken place.From now on Catherine no longer prayed,
“Lord, I offer You my heart” but “Lord, I offer You Your heart.”And often when she received the Blessed
Sacrament, the heart beat so violently that those who stood near her heard it
and were amazed.[p.104-5]
I don’t know what to make of such extreme spiritual experiences
that are physically transformative such as that and go outside my personal
ken.The displacing of her heart sounds
more like a bit of folklore, but that would be presumptuous on my part.Ultimately I hold open the possibility of it
being exactly true, especially since I revere St. Catherine so, but I can’t
help a hint of skepticism.I believe,
help my unbelief.
Later that summer she lay in her bed ill (she had a problem
with holding down food most of her life and hardly ate anything) and went into
one of her ecstasies.This passage is
too long to quote in its entirety, so I’ll use ellipses (…) to reduce the
verbiage and get the crux down.
But all these ecstasies seemed to
take such a toll on her physical strength that the moment came that the body
could stand no more…
For many days she remained so weak
that she could not move.But most of the
time she was in ecstasy, and her friend who listened to her low whisperings
said afterwards she seemed transported with bliss: she smiled and laughed
softly, while her lips uttered expressions of love to her Bridegroom, talking
of her ceaseless longings to be called to that heavenly home where Christ would
be hers for ever and no separation could force her back to the world of the
senses.
She was so tired of this body which
shut her out from all she desired.But
when her Lord said to her that she must not be selfish, He had still work for
her which she was to carry out among her fellow men on earth, she humbly bowed
before His will.But she asked that she
might be allowed to taste a little, only a very little—as much as she could
bear—of the agony He had suffered in His body here on earth for the salvation
of mankind…She was granted this.But
when in this way she learned how bitter His pains had been, how boundless was
the love which succumbed to such suffering because His heart pitied mankind,
then it was as though her heart broke and the breath of life left her body…
She wept unceasingly for many
days.But little by little she told
Tommaso della Fonte something of what she had experienced when she lay as
though dead.She was quite certain that
her soul had been freed from its prison of flesh and blood; she had seen a
little of the pain and the burning desires of the souls in purgatory who know
that the time will come when they shall possess God as He is, but as yet are
cut off by their deeds and thoughts from that revelation that is blessedness
itself.She had seen the agonies of the
lost souls in hell, and for a moment had tasted the joy of the blessed in
heaven…
Finally Christ had said to her:
“There are many whose salvation depends on you.The life you have led up to now will be altered: for the sake of the
salvation of souls you will be required to leave your native town, but I shall
always be with you—I shall lead you away, and I shall lead you back again.You shall proclaim the honor of My name to
rich and poor, to clerks and laymen, for I shall give you words and wisdom
which no one can resist.I shall send
you to popes and the leaders of My church and to all Christians, for I choose
to put the pride of the mighty to shame by the use of fragile tools.”
It is not strange that Catherine
asked her confessor at times, “Father, can you not see that I have
changed?Can you see that your Catherine
is no longer the same?[p.107-10]
It is at this point that Catherine went on first to aid the
poor and ill of her town, and then to be regarded as a true holy woman
throughout her city limits, her region, and then Italy and beyond, from which Princes,
Bishops, and Popes would seek her intervention.I take her “no longer the same”
to refer the transformation from the shy young girl who wanted to hide to the assertive,
bold woman who scolded men, the aristocracy, and church leaders to have courage
to do the moral thing.She castigated
Pope Gregory XI when he wavered from returning the Papacy to Rome from Avignon
because he feared the French Cardinals to “Be a man.”
I came across this interview on EWTN with Fr. Mitch Pacwa with a Dominican scholar who
has written a book on her teachings and writings, Fr. Thomas McDermott, OP.It’s an hour
long, but it captures her life well.
In my Fur Elise blog of a couple of weeks ago, in a reply to Antonella I mentioned I would tell a funny story about me taking up an instrument. When my siblings and I were children, my mother tried to get us into activities. She had my sister take painting lessons, and my brother play in a sports league, and for some reason thought I should learn a musical instrument. I'm not sure how she could afford it, but my mother was a great scrimper and saver. I must have been around ten years old when she took me to a musical instructor who asked me what I wanted to learn. I had loved saxophone music as a kid for some reason, and I thought this was my chance to be a jazz player. I think I had dreams of being a great one. Well after the first lesson, the instructor went to my mother (he must have noticed that this was a financial challenge for her) and told her to save her money because i didn't have any talent that could be drawn out. LOL!
Nonetheless I have always loved saxophone jazz. Here's a great piece by one of my all time favorites, Stan Getz. There's not much I could find on this work on the Internet, but there is a Wikipedia entry on the album it first came out on, Focus. There's a line in there about this song.
Notice the wonderful interplay, a real dialogue, between the sax and the rest of the band. Who is late, the band voice or the sax voice? Not sure who is urging who.
