Pro seipso sacerdote

I read this great post by the incomparable Father Z today on the prayers that the priest said for himself on the anniversary of his ordination. The first mentioned are those of the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite. They emphasise the humility of the priest as a servant to all, above all to God, who in His mercy established the priesthood. The post speaks for itself so I'll just post it all here.

In the traditional, Extraordinary Form a priest can add orations for the anniversary of his ordination, Pro seipso sacerdote.

The 2002MR has three formularies Pro seipso sacerdote while the 1962MR has but one.

Since this is a time of year when new priests are being ordained, and many priests are observing their own anniversaries, let’s have a WDTPRS look at the prayers Pro seipso sacerdote from the traditional, Extraordinary Form.

COLLECT (1962MR):
Omnípotens et miséricors Deus,
humilitátis meae preces benígnus inténde:
et me fámulum tuum, quem,
nullis suffragántibus méritis,
sed imménsa cleméntiae tuae largitáte,
caeléstibus mystériis servíre tribuísti,
dignum sacris altáribus fac minístrum;
ut, quod mea voce deprómitur,
tua sanctificatióne firmétur.

SLAVISHLY LITERAL VERSION:
Almighty and merciful God,
kindly hark to the prayers of my humility:
and make me, Your servant, whom,
no merits of my own favoring me,
but by the immense largess of your indulgence,
You granted to serve the heavenly mysteries,
to be a worthy minister at the sacred altars;
so that, that which is called down by my voice,
may be made sure by Your sanctification.

The prayer focuses on priest’s self-awareness of his lowliness and that who he is and what he does is from God’s grace and choice and not his own. 

It also emphasis the relationship of the priest to the altar, that it, the bond of the priest and Holy Mass.  In the older form of Holy Mass, after the consecration during the Canon at the Suppplices te rogamus... the priest bends low over the altar, puts his hands on it… they were annointed, the altar was annointed… kisses the altar, makes the sign of the Cross over the consecrated Host on the corporal, over the Precious Blood in the chalice, over himself.  Christ is Victim.  Christ is Priest.  The priest is victim and priest as well.  This moment during Holy Mass reveals the mysterious bond of altar where the priest sacrifices the victim, the sacrificial victim and the sacrificing priest.  They are one. At the altar he is alter Christus, another Christ, offering and offered.

What also comes to mind as I look at this is the Augustinian reflection of the speaker of the Word and the Word spoken, and the message and reality of the Word and the Voice which speaks it.  The voice of the priest and the priest himself are merely the means God uses in the sacred action, the sacramental mysteries at the altar, to renew in that moment what He has wrought.  Finally, this is done through mercy.  The words misericors, clementia, largitas, benignus all point to the mercy of God.

The priest speaks and God makes what he speaks reality.  He takes the insubstantial words and makes them firm and real.  How important it is for the priest to get himself out of the way when he is at the altar, where the True Actor is in action, Christ the Eternal and High Priest.

SECRET (1962MR):
Huius, Dómine, virtúte sacraménti,
peccatórum meórum máculas abstérge:
et praesta;
ut ad exsequéndum injúncti offícii ministérium,
me tua grátia dignum effíciat.

SLAVISHLY LITERAL VERSION:
O Lord, by the power of this sacrament,
cleanse the stains of my sins:
and grant;
that it may make me worthy by Your grace
unto the performance of the ministry of the office that has been imposed.

Priests are sinner in need of a Savior just like everyone else.  They confess sins and receive absolution like everyone else.  They, to, must do penance for past sins like everyone else.  They come to the altar as sinners.  In the older form of Holy Mass, the texts of the ordinary constantly remind the priest of who he is and who he isn’t.  In this Secret, spoken quietly, the priest prays for what only God can do: remove the stains of sins from his soul.

The prayer brings also to mind the burden of the yoke of the priesthood, symbolized as by the priestly vestment, the chasuble.  As the priest vests he says as he puts on this vestment, "O Lord, Who said: My yoke is easy and My burden light: grant that I may bear it well and follow after You with thanksgiving. Amen."   The yoke is the ancient sign of subjugation.  The ancient Romans caused the conquered to pass under a yoke, iugum. 

POSTCOMMUNION (1962MR):
Omnípotens sempitérne Deus,
qui me peccatórem sacris altáribus astáre voluísti,
et sancti nóminis tui laudáre poténtiam:
concéde propítius, per hujus sacraménti mystérium,
meórum mihi véniam peccatórum;
ut tuae majestáti digne mérear famulári.

SLAVISHLY LITERAL VERSION:
Almighty eternal God,
who desired me, a sinner, to stand at the sacred altars,
and to praise the might of Your Holy Name:
propitiously grant, through the mystery of this sacrament,
the forgiveness of my sins for me;
so that I may merit to wait upon Your majesty.

On the day of ordination the priest lies down upon the floor.

He becomes the lowest thing in the church.

As I read this, I am struck by the two sets of contrasts.

First, there is the contrast of the low state of the servant sinner and the majesty of God.

Second, there is the present moment contrasted with the future to come.

Majestas is like gloria, Hebrew kabod or Greek doxa, a divine characteristic which – some day – we may encounter in heaven in such a way that we will be transformed by it forever and forever.  When Moses encountered God in the cloud on the mountain and in the tent, he came forth with a face shining so brightly that he had to wear a veil.  This is a foreshadowing of the transformative power of God’s majestas.

A priest waits on this majestas.  He awaits it and waits upon it.  He desires it for his own future, but in the present moment he waits upon it as a servent.  He is an attendent, in every sense, one who waits and one who waits.

May God have mercy on priests, sinner servants, attendent on the unmerited grace and gifts of the Victim Priest and Savior.

Consider the mercy of God in His gift of the priesthood during these last days of the year of the priest.

The feast of Corpus Christ this year falls on the first Thursday of June, the last day lay people can gain a plenary indulgence by praying for priests in this Year of the Priest.

He also posted a second item on the same matter. This time he discusses the prayers in the ordinary form.

Since this is a time of year when new priests are being ordained, and many priests are observing their own anniversaries, and since the Year of the Priest is drawing to its close, let’s have a WDTPRS look at the prayers Pro seipso sacerdote… For the priest himself.

On the anniversary of his ordination, in the traditional form of Holy Mass with the 1962MR a priest can add orations for the anniversary of his ordination… Pro seipso sacerdote.  I wrote about those prayers here:

WDTPRS: Pro seipso sacerdote – For the priest himself (Part 1 – 1962MR)
The 2002MR has three Mass formularies Pro seipso sacerdote.

We can look at the third of the Masses Pro seipso sacerdote... subtitled In anniversario propriae ordinationis… On the anniversary of his own ordination:

Ant. ad introitum Cf. Jn 15,16
Non vos me elegístis, dicit Dóminus; sed ego elégi vos, et pósui vos ut eátis et fructum afferátis, et fructus vester máneat. [You have not chosen me: but I have chosen you; and have appointed you, that you should go and should bring forth fruit; and your fruit should remain]

COLLECT:
Pater sancte, qui me
ad communiónem cum aetérno Christi tui sacerdótio
et ad Ecclésiae tuae ministérium nullis meis méritis elegísti,
praesta, ut Evangélii strénuus ac mitis praedicátor exsístam,
et mysteriórum tuórum fidélis dispensátor invéniar.
Per Dóminum.

SLAVISHLY LITERAL VERSION:
Holy Father, who from no merits of my own chose me
for communion with the eternal priesthood of Your Christ
and for the ministry of Your Church,
grant, that I emerge a relentless and also mild preacher of the Gospel,
and that I may be found a faithful dispenser of Your sacramental mysteries.

The Latin forces some tricky choices.  First, the conjunction ac, "and", has its own impact. Ac is like atque and it in your Lewis & Short Dictionary found under that entry.  Keeping a close eye on that ac, it is hard to get a grip on strenuus ac mitis.   This is what in rhetoric is called hendiadys, the use of two differing words to form a single complex notion.  In Latin when hendiadys is employed ac gives the preceding word more importance than the second.  Strenuus can mean "brisk, nimble, quick, prompt, active, vigorous, strenuous".  Mitis, on the other hand, has a range of meanings, from "mild, mellow, mature, ripe; of the soil, mellow, light, kindly, fruitful; of a river, calm, gentle, placid", to "mild, soft, gentle".  You could take this hendiadys in a couple directions. 

What I notice in this prayer is the association of the priest with the priesthood of Christ primarily for the sake of preaching.  To my ear not only the precedence, but also the hendiadys gives emphasis to the preaching dimension.  I don’t want to say exactly that this seems to diminish the sacramental ministry of the priest, but… well… perhaps it does.  This prayer is a new composition for the Novus Ordo.  There was at the time this was all being pasted together a trend toward viewing the priest more long the line of the "preacher/minister" rather than the "priest/mediator".  There was a push toward facing the people and using vernacular.  The rite of ordination of priests in its post-Conciliar reform approved by Paul VI deemphasized the role of the priest in his sacramental role.  In the revision of the rite of ordination of priests issued by John Paul II in 1990, language was put back into the rite – at the time of the questioning of the ordinands – which stressed the priest’s role in absolving sins and saying Mass.

The prayers in the 1962MR strongly emphasize the priest’s unworthiness and sinful nature, that it is not he himself who does what he does, and his role at the altar.  The prayers in the 2002MR say that the priest was not chosen by his own merits and them, while not ignoring the sacramental office, strongly stresses preaching.  The two prayers seem to reflect views of priesthood which stress different dimensions.  At the same time, we cannot lose sight of the fact that in the newer prayer, there is a clear reference at the onset to sacerdotium, "priesthood". This sacerdotium is a saving word for the prayer, I think, together with the phrase dispensator mysteriorum, which has ancient pedigree. St. Paul uses this in 1 Cor 4:1: "Sic nos existimet homo ut ministros Christi et dispensatores mysteriorum Dei". St. Ambrose says "Dispensatores sumus mysteriorum caelestium" (De fide 5). St. Augustine and other Latin Fathers use this formulation as well.

That said, I have a strong sense of a shift of emphases from the pre-Conciliar and post-Conciliar Collects for the priest’s anniversary day.

SUPER OBLATA:
Pro nostrae servitútis augménto sacrifícium
tibi, Dómine, laudis offérimus,
ut, quod imméritis contulísti, propítius exsequáris.
Per Christum.

Here is an ancient prayer, found in the Liber sacramentorum Gellonensis and others for the 17th week after Pentecost, or in some manuscripts at the end of September.  It is also found as the Secret on the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost in the 1962MR. 

SLAVISHLY LITERAL VERSION:
We offer to You, O Lord,
sacrifice for the sake of increase of our condition of being a servant,
so that You may graciously bring to fulfillment that which You have offered to the undeserving.

St. ANDREW DAILY MISSAL (1959):
We offer You, Lord,
this sacrifice of praise for the increase of our devotion in Your service,
that You may complete the work, which without merit on our part, You have begun in us.

I am struck by the fact that the cutters and pasters of the post-Conciliar Missale Romanum didn’t consider it valuable to give to priests, on their own anniversary of ordination, a proper prayer just for that formulary.

That said, the prayer stresses the absolute importance of God’s work, through the priest.  God initiates all good things.  He then gives them to us.  He makes our hands strong enough for the work.  He guides that work to completion.  His is the honor.  Nevertheless, He really does make those works our own as well.  Thus, as St. Augustine so aptly puts it, God crowns His own merits in us. 

That also said, this is the case for all vocations, every state in life. There is nothing about this prayer which bespeaks the priesthood of the ordained that cannot be said of the baptized, who also in their own degree partake of the priesthood of Christ.

Ant. ad communionem Cf. 1 Co 10,16
Calix benedictiónis cui benedícimus, communicátio Sánguinis Christi est; et panis quem frángimus, participátio Córporis Dómini est. ... [The chalice of benediction which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And the bread which we break, is it not the partaking of the body of the Lord?]

POST COMMUNIONEM:
Ad glóriam, Dómine, tui nóminis
ánnua festa répetens sacerdotális exórdii,
mystérium fídei laetánter celebrávi,
ut in veritáte hoc sim, quod in sacrifício mystice tractávi.
Per Christum.

This clunky prayer is obviously a new composition for the Novus Ordo.

SLAVISHLY LITERAL VERSION:
Rejoicing, O Lord, I have celebrated
the mystery of faith unto the glory of Your Name,
repeating the annual feast of the beginning of priesthood,
so that I may be in truth that which I take in hand in the sacrifice in a mystical way.
The word tracto here seems to me to be the key to unlock what the writer was aiming at.  Tracto is thick.  It can mean a range of things, including "to touch, take in hand, handle, manage, wield; to exercise, practice, transact, perform, etc." or also, "to treat, use, or conduct one ’ s self towards a person in any manner".  But there is also "to handle, treat, investigate, discuss any thing, mentally, orally, or in writing".  Among the Latin Fathers, tracto was a choice word for teaching and preaching.  This is why, for example, St. Augustine’s exegetical sermons on the Gospel of John are called "tractates".

The clear intention here is that the priest should be in conformity with that which he celebrates.

While I get what the writer is driving at, I find the flow of ideas to be less than coherent. In have a sense that that important word sacrificium wasn’t originally in the writer’s mind but that it was probably penciled in before approval of the text so that, well…, it not miss the point of who the priest is and what he happens to be doing at the moment he says this (i.e., saying Mass).  Maybe you don’t get the same sense I do, but I think this was in the writer’s mind supposed to read: "ut in veritáte hoc sim, quod mystice tractávi" or maybe "ut in veritáte sim, quod mystice tractávi".  I don’t know that for sure, but that is my guess.

All in all the prayer for the priest’s own anniversary, Pro seipso sacerdote are alright.  But I can’t shake the idea that they reflect a battle taking place in the Church at the time of their composition and at the time this formulary was pasted together on some liturgist’s desk.  There is a prevailing shift from priest who is at the altar of sacrifice to minister who preaches the word and, yes, also does other   things such as handle the sacred mysteries.

The idea that the priest is not a priest because of his own merits remains in the prayers for the day, but not to the degree that they did in the older form of Holy Mass. Furthermore, which the traditional prayers in the older Missal stress in no uncertain terms that the priest is also a sinner (and therefore in need of a savior), the newer prayers stress the need for the priest’s conformity to what he is called on to do… and I say to do rather than to what he is in an ontological sense.  The ontological dimension of the priest’s character is not absent from the newer Mass formulary, but the overarching emphases is on what the priest does rather than his character as a priest.

I think we see in this formularly something that repeats itself whenever we make comparisons of the older and newer Uses: the newer deemphasizes what can be consider as "negative" (such as the priest’s own sinfulness, so clear in the older prayers) in favor of something unquestionably praiseworthy and positive but nevertheless a bit dreamy. 

Take a look at the older prayers and decide for yourselves.