How many sacrifices?

At Mass in the Roman Rite the Priest, having prepared bread and wine and washed his hands, invites the people to pray with the words 'Pray, brethren, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father'. To what do the words 'my sacrifice and yours' refer? Some understand them to refer to the bread and wine that lie on the altar, others to the one sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, about to be made present in the Eucharistic Prayer. A seventeenth-century English Catholic prayer book translates the Priest's words as 'My sacrifice, which is also yours'. When the Missal was being re-translated, one suggested version was 'the sacrifice that is mine and yours'. In both these examples, the words are assumed to refer to a single sacrifice.

But there is another way of understanding this invitation, according to which my sacrifice is different from yours. Every Christian is called to do good works and to offer them to God. The works are many, but as we offer them up to God, we do so in union with that sacrificial community which is the Church. Vatican II put it like this in Presbyterorum Ordinis 2: "By the ministry of the presbyters, the spiritual sacrifice of the faithful is completed in union with the sacrifice of Christ, the unique mediator, which is offered in a sacramental and unbloody manner by their hands, in the name of the whole church, until the coming of the Lord".

At a solemn celebration, as I cense the Altar, I like to think about the sacrifices that the people bring to Mass: one may be caring for a sick relative, another perseveres in boring work, a third endures loneliness, and so on. This meditation helps prepare me to speak of 'my sacrifice and yours'.

I am told that in the Premonstratensian Rite, the Priest says hoc meum ac vestrum sacrificium, that is, 'this my sacrifice and yours', clearly indicating that a single sacrifice is envisaged. We may see this as a symptom of the gradual loss of awareness of the priesthood of the laity that took place during the Middle Ages

A missed opportunity - the Preface Dialogue

When the English version of the Roman Missal was being revised at the beginning of this century, there was much discussion of whether 'And with your spirit' should replace 'And also with you'.

Less discussed was the second exchange in the dialogue:

Celebrant: Lift up your hearts.

People: We lift them up to the Lord.

This was a missed opportunity. 'Lift up your hearts' is not the only possible translation of Sursum corda, for sursum does not always denote movement upwards: it can also denote 'being above'. An example is Colossians 3,1: quae sursum sunt quaerite = 'seek the things that are above'. 

Moreover, sursum corda need not be interpreted as a command. It can also be an invitation: 'Let our hearts be on high'.

'We lift them up to the Lord' is not an accurate translation of Habemus ad Dominum, for habemus does mean 'we lift', but rather 'we hold'. So the people's response can be translated 'we are holding them before the Lord'.

The Preface Dialogue with which we are familiar occurs also in several ancient Greek liturgies, and is still in use today among the Greeks. Their texts support the translation I have proposed.

This translation gives us a more level playing-field between priest and people. Instead of a command that the people obey, he issues an invitation to which they have already responded. This fits his role, for in the Roman Rite it is usually the Deacon who issues commands, while the Priest offers invitations.

The translation we have, and have had unbrokenly since the Roman Rite began to be celebrated in English, goes back to the work of Thomas Cranmer, who devised the Book of Common Prayer in the sixteenth century as the Reformation developed. Cranmer abolished the liturgical role of the Deacon, so that any commands had to be made by the Priest. The influence of Cranmer's texts was greatly strengthened after the Second Vatican Council by the International Consultation on English Texts, much of whose work was adopted for Catholic liturgy. Unfortunately this body, although claiming to be ecumenical, contained no representatives from the Eastern Churches.

The Second Vatican Council sought to return to a more primitive, collegial model of the Church. The Preface Dialogue sensitively translated would have assisted that process, fostering an image of the priest 'among' rather than 'above' the people. Some other vernacular translations are closer to what is proposed here. Italy, in particular, has 

In alto i nostri cuori / Sono rivolti al Signore

'Let our hearts be on high' / 'They are turned towards the Lord’.

The people’s response suggests that they have no need of the Priest’s invitation, for they have already done what he encourages.

The next element of the dialogue needed no change: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God is a perfectly faithful translation of the Latin. Notice also that it is an invitation, not a command. If Sursum corda had also been translated as an invitation, the Priest’s role would have been more consistent.

The people's response became It is right and just. This too is faithful. It was chosen because the Priest immediately echoes it as he begins the Preface. That is, he takes his cue from the people.

The Preface Dialogue has come down to us from very early times in both Latin and Greek. It belongs to the period to whose ecclesiology the Second Vatican Council sought to return. But those responsible for our English liturgy have imported into this ancient Dialogue, used at every Mass, an ecclesiology from sixteenth-century England.

The Paschal Prefaces

1. The opening paragraph or Protocol

The official translation reads "It is truly right and just . . . . at this time above all to laud you yet more gloriously, when Christ our Passover has been sacrificed'. This is surprising, since 'when . . . has' in constructions like this usually refers to future events, for example 'when Richard has opened the door, I shall leave'. The Paschal Preface refers to an event not in the future but in the past, namely the death of Christ, so that 'when Christ our Passover was sacrificed' would be more idiomatic.

But there is another point to be considered. In the background is 1 Cor 5, 7-8: 'Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us: let us therefore keep the feast'. Here, the connection between Christ's sacrifice and our liturgy is causal, not temporal. We are not merely marking the anniversary of Christ's death but celebrating its enduring power. 

The revisers may have been following the classical rule, according to which cum with a subjunctive is causal ('because') and with an indicative is temporal ('when'). But in later Latin this pattern lapses, and cum with indicative, as here, can mean 'because'. So I would argue that this clause would be better translated 'because Christ our Passover has been sacrificed'.

1. The final paragraph or Eschatocol

Concern has been expressed concerning the word 'even' in 'and even the heavenly powers . . . sing together . . . the hymn of your glory'. Why should we be surprised that the heavenly powers sing to glorify God? Is that not their principal activity?

The revisers may have been misled by the words sed et in the original. The Latin word sed is an adversative or contrastive particle, regularly translated 'but'. But when coupled with et, sed loses its adversative or contrastive force: sed et means simply 'and also'.

Sed et recurs often in the Missal, and this erroneous translation is repeated in several places, but not in all. For instance, in the Roman Canon sed et beati Ioseph is correctly rendered 'and of blessed Joseph', not 'and even of blessed Joseph'! 

Our Father

Today's Gospel records Jesus' teaching of the 'Our Father', to his disciples. If you were present two days ago for the Rite of Election of candidates for baptism, you may have been surprised that, unlike most liturgical functions, it did not contain this most central of Christian prayers.

The reason is that Christian tradition regards the Lord's Prayer as part of the arcanum, the secrets that are known only to the initiated, and only passed on to catechumens as their initiation draws near. We have already prayed, in the Collect of the First Sunday of Lent, that we will grow in understanding of Christi arcanum, which our Missal translates (with a nod to Ephesians 3:8) as ‘the riches hidden in Christ’. The Lord’s Prayer will be handed on to the elect as part of the liturgy of the third scrutiny on the fifth Sunday of Lent. But they will only proclaim the prayer with the community for the first time after their Baptism and before their first reception of the Eucharist.

In our culture, the Lord's Prayer is widely known and used. Even unbaptised children in our schools are expected to learn and repeat it. Before the Council, the Roman liturgy contained more indications of its special character. At Mass, the celebrant would sing or say it alone, the rest of the assembly only responding with its final clause, sed libera nos a malo. On many other occasions, the bulk of the prayer was said silently, only the opening and the conclusion being audible. In many monastic communities the custom survives of the superior singing most of it on his or her own.

Theological support for this is found in the New Testament: 'unless a person is born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God' (John 3,5); 'Blessed be the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy we have been born anew . . . ' (1 Peter 1,3). Our new birth through baptism gives us a new Mother - the Church - and a new Father - God.

Hence the tentative tone of the introduction to the Our Father at Mass. The celebrant seems almost to be tip-toeing up to the prayer with a reverent hesitation. He refers twice to the giver of the prayer: 'the Saviour's command . . . divine teaching' but not directly, until finally, having screwed up his courage and presented his credentials, he dares to address God as Father.

Striving on the First Sunday of Lent

In the Post-communion of today's Mass we anglophones are bidden to pray that we may 'strive' to live by every word that comes from the mouth of God. That isn't what the the Latin says. It prays that we may 'be able' so to live. The English stresses human effort more than the Latin does.

The previous English translation was widely, and rightly, criticised for the same tendency. Many accused it of Pelagianism. The new translation has improved matters in this regard, but not entirely, as today's Post-communion shows.

Another instance of this tendency can be seen in the invitation to repentance at the beginning of Mass. We are asked to acknowledge our sins 'and so prepare ourselves' to celebrate the Sacred Mysteries. The Latin says merely 'that we may be ready' (ut apti simus) to celebrate - no mention of human effort there, but plenty of room for God's grace.

Pelagius was a Celt, and a high proportion of English-speaking Catholics have Celtic roots. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that the shadow of his teaching should fall over our translation of the Mass.

The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

This feast did not occur in the Roman Rite before Vatican II. When it was introduced into the 1970 Missal, a new Collect was composed which, like many of the newly-written prayers in our Missal, lacks the conciseness and simplicity of the older tradition. Its seven lines contain no fewer than three participial phrases - a challenge to the translator.

The alternative Collect is simpler and much more ancient, being found already in the Gelasian Sacramentary. In the official translation, the third and fourth lines contain a curious thought:

grant, we pray, that we may be inwardly transformed
through him whom we recognize as outwardly like ourselves.

Line 4 seems to imply that Christ, though outwardly like ourselves, is inwardly unlike us. This seems to me to veer towards the heresy of Apollinarianism, which holds that Christ had no human soul. Orthodox Christianity understands that Christ is 'like us in all things but sin' (Hebrews 4,15). 

The revisers have misunderstood the Latin. In fact it prays that our outward Christian profession may be matched by our inner lives. The problem, as so often in this translation, arises from incorrect placing of an adverb. It easy to mend with the help of the Morecambe Principle:

grant, we pray, that we may be inwardly transformed
through him whom we recognize outwardly as like ourselves.

January 5 Prayer after Communion

One criticism of the official translation of the Missal that one often hears is that it is 'clunky' - that is, clumsy in its language. There are several reasons, but a major one - the major one, I would say - is that the revisers seem not to have understood how adverbs and adverbial expressions behave in English. They put them in the wrong place. A clear example is today's Prayer after Communion, in which we are asked to pray

that, through the working of this mystery,
our offences may be cleansed
and our just desires fulfilled.

move 'through the working of this mystery' from its current place to the end of the prayer, and I think you will find it far less clunky. This is because the normal position for a non-modal adverb or adverbial phrase in English is after the verb that it modifies.

The modification that I propose follows the 'Morecambe principle', named after the comedian Eric Morecambe who, when accused of playing the wrong notes on a piano, retorted that he had played the right notes, but in the wrong order.

If you adopt this change, you may also wish to change 'through the working' to 'by the working' so as to avoid having two occurrences of 'through' in consecutive lines.

I'm back

I stopped writing this blog nearly three years ago because I couldn't find time to achieve the level of coverage that I had been aiming at.
Now that the official translation has been in use for 5 years, it seems a good idea to start again but less ambitiously. I'll post when I come across something in the Missal that seems worthy of comment - that leaves me with plenty of material.
I would also like to hear comments from other people, and so I have (I hope successfully) opened the blog to comments.

SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT

COLLECT


O God, who have commanded us
to listen to your beloved Son,
be pleased, we pray,
to nourish us inwardly by your word,
that, with spiritual sight made pure,
we may rejoice to behold your glory.

Newly composed for 1970 by centonisation of a preface and a prayer from the 1738 Parisian Missal. Clearly, the prayer picks up themes from the Transfiguration narratives, which are read as the Gospel for this day.


PRAYER OVER THE OFFERINGS


May this sacrifice, O Lord, we pray,
cleanse us of our faults
and sanctify your faithful in body and mind
for the celebration of the paschal festivities.

This prayer is found in a large number of manuscripts, and has been used on several occasions in the liturgical year. It occurs 6 times in the 1570 Missal. For 1970 it was adapted with the insertion of ad celebranda festa paschalia. There had already been several variants to this part of the text, determined by the day on which it was used. Also, fidelium ‘faithful’ has replaced subditorum ‘subjects’.



PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION


As we receive these glorious mysteries,
we make thanksgiving to you, O Lord,
for allowing us while still on earth
to be partakers even now of the things of heaven.

In the Gelasian Sacramentary and several other manuscripts for use on various days in Lent, but not the 1570 Missal. For 1970, satagimus has been added to the text, to little advantage, and the official translation sensibly ignores it. The official translation characteristically inserts ‘these’ in the first line with no justification from the Latin.

PRAYER OVER THE PEOPLE


Bless your faithful, we pray, O Lord,
with a blessing that endures for ever,
and keep them faithful
to the Gospel of your Only Begotten Son,
so that they may always desire and at last attain
that glory whose beauty he showed in his own Body
to the amazement of his Apostles.

From the 1738 Parisian Missal, this prayer continues the theme of the Transfiguration. The original says nothing about the 'amazement' of the Apostles, but simply that he showed the beauty of his glory to the Apostles!

THE FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT

COLLECT

Grant, almighty God,
through the yearly observances of holy Lent,
that we may grow in understanding
of the riches hidden in Christ
and by worthy conduct pursue their effects.

In the Gelasian Sacramentary as the Collect for the First Sunday of Lent and in several other manuscripts. Not in the 1570 Missal.

The opening of this prayer may be more military in tone than the official translation reveals, since the word 'observances' is given as a translation for exercitia, which is cognate with exercitus, Latin for 'army'. Moreover, sacramentum is interpreted as meaning 'a holy season', but it can also denote the oath taken by soldiers at the beginning of a campaign. So there is a case for interpreting the second line of the original, per annua quadragesimalis exercitia sacramenti as meaning 'through the annual exercises arising from Lenten commitment'.

The word-order of the official translation is misleading. The original does not ask God to grant through our observances, but rather to grant that we may grow through our observances.

The translation of the penultimate line has been influenced by Colossians 1,27 and 2,3.

PRAYER OVER THE OFFERINGS

Give us the right dispositions, O Lord, we pray, 

to make these offerings, 

for with them we celebrate the beginning 

of this venerable and sacred time. 

From 740 AD (the Gelasian Sacramentary) until 1970, this was the Secret for the Wednesday in Quinquagesima week (which we now celebrate as Ash Wednesday).

The manuscripts differ slightly in their versions of this text. Some, including the Gelasian, have venturum (upcoming) . . . exordium – perhaps reflecting an understanding that Lent began on the following Sunday, Quadragesima, even though the Wednesday that preceded it was already being kept as a fast-day, but apparently with no ash-ceremony as yet.

Moreover, the Gelasian has not celebramus but the subjunctive celebremus. So the Gelasian text could be translated:

Make us suitable and fit, we pray, O Lord,
for offering these gifts,
so that with them we may mark the beginning
of the venerable and sacred season itself.

This gives fuller force to ipsius, which doesn’t really mean 'this'.

The moving of the prayer from before Lent to within Lent has rather weakened its original note of anticipation.


PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION

Renewed now with heavenly bread,
by which faith is nourished, hope increased,

and charity strengthened,
we pray, O Lord,
that we may learn to hunger for Christ,
the true and living Bread,
and strive to live by every word
which proceeds from your mouth.

As one becomes familiar with the orations of the 1970 Missal, one soon learns to spot the newly composed prayers, of which this is one. They tend to be over-long, and over-stuffed with material, in contrast with the compositions of earlier centuries. So here we have a prayer composed from snippets of three pre-existent Prefaces, plus an allusion to John 6.51 and one to Matthew 4,4.

Happily, there are relatively few new texts in the Proper of Time. This is not so in the section of the Missal containing Masses and Prayers for Various Needs and Occasions.

PRAYER OVER THE PEOPLE

May bountiful blessing, O Lord, we pray, 

come down upon your people, 

that hope may grow in tribulation, 

virtue be strengthened in temptation, 

and eternal redemption be assured. 

Like many of the Missal's Prayers over the People (38 by my count), this is from the Veronese Sacramentary. However, it has been adapted for the 1970 Missal. Whereas the original is a series of brief petitions without subordination, the revision has subordinated all but the first, with a clause of purpose introduced by ut. The original can be translated thus:

May bountiful blessing, O Lord, we pray, 

come down upon your people, 

may pardon come,

may consolation be granted,

may holy faith grow,

may eternal redemption be assured. 

ASH WEDNESDAY

COLLECT


Grant, O Lord, that we may begin with holy fasting
this campaign of Christian service,
so that as we take up battle against spiritual evils,
we may be armed with weapons of self-restraint.



In the Veronese, Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries and many other manuscripts. It has been prescribed for many fast days, not all of them during Lent. In 1570 it concludes the rite of blessing and imposition of ashes, which precedes the Mass.

Lent is seen as a military campaign, presumably under the influence of the passage in Ephesians 6 (11-17) on the ‘armour of God’. The Collect for the First Sunday of Lent has a similarly military tone.


PRAYER OVER THE OFFERINGS

As we solemnly offer the annual sacrifice for the beginning of Lent
we entreat you, O Lord,
that through works of penance and charity
we may turn away from harmful pleasures,
and cleansed from our sins, may become worthy
to celebrate devoutly the Passion of your Son.

In many manuscripts. The first line of the Latin contains the word sollemniter, from sollemnis, which can mean either ‘solemn’ or ‘annual’. Either meaning would make sense here: the official translation incorporates both.

The opening line also refers to ‘the sacrifice of the beginning of Lent’, raising the question, what sacrifice is referred to? Is it the Mass, or more generally the self-denial undertaken during Lent?
In 1570 this is the Secret for the First Sunday in Lent, but the latter part of the original text has been remodelled, incorporating an excerpt from a preface. The original, in Fortescue’s translation, ends: ‘that while we restrain our carnal feasting, we may likewise abstain from all harmful pleasures’.


PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION

May the Sacrament we have received sustain us, O Lord,
that our Lenten fast may be pleasing to you
and be for us a healing remedy.

Found in the Gelasian Sacramentary and many other manuscripts. This is the post-Communion for Ash Wednesday in both 1570 and 1970.

The word ‘Sacrament’ in the first line translates a Latin plural. What are the sacramenta to which the original refers? The Eucharist, after all, is only one sacrament. Perhaps the original writer - in the eighth century or earlier - had in mind the imposition of ashes as well as the Eucharist, and a faithful translation of the first two lines would be ‘May the sacred signs we have received sustain us, O Lord’.

After the military theme of the Collect, the imagery here is medical, recalling the words of Jesus ‘those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick’ (Matt 9,12 and parallels). Medical imagery recurs frequently in the Lenten liturgy: the word remedium ‘remedy’ occurs no fewer than 12 times.


PRAYER OVER THE PEOPLE

Pour out a spirit of compunction, O God,
on those who bow before your majesty,
and by your mercy
may they merit the rewards
you promise to those who do penance.

In the 2002 edition of the Missal, the custom was restored of providing a Prayer over the People for each day in Lent. Several theories have been advanced concerning the origin of these prayers, the most likely one in my view being that they were said by the Bishop as he left the Church and passed the penitents who were gathered at the entrance because they were not allowed in. It is characteristic of these prayers to refer to the people in the third person.

This is a composite text made of elements from three ancient prayers. Unusually, it falls into two syntactic units, coordinated by et. The manuscripts and 1570 have ut, not et, which makes a more conventional prayer - ‘Pour out . . . ‘that they may merit’. Perhaps et is a misprint.

FIFTH SUNDAY PER ANNUM

COLLECT


Keep your family safe, O Lord, with unfailing care,
that, relying solely on the hope of heavenly grace,
they may be defended always by your protection.

In the Gregorian Sacramentary and many other manuscripts. This was in 1570 the Collect for the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany.

The translation may give the impression that we pray in line 2 to rely solely on the hope of heavenly grace, but these words translate a relative clause, stating that we do in fact so rely. Cranmer's version conveys the sense of the original more precisely:

Lord, we beseech thee to keep thy Church and household continually in thy true religion; that they which do lean only upon hope of thy heavenly grace may evermore be defended by thy mighty power.


PRAYER OVER THE OFFERINGS


O Lord our God,
who once established these created things
to sustain us in our frailty,
grant, we pray,
that they may become for us now
the Sacrament of eternal life.

In the Veronese, Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries and many other manuscripts, in 1570 this was the Secret for the Thursday after Passion Sunday. It was damaged in revision for the 1970 Missal. The 1570 text, which accords with most of the manuscripts, is translated thus in the 1952 hand-missal of Fortescue and O'Connell:

O Lord our God, who hast commanded and preferred that these material things, created by thee for the support of our frail nature, should also be dedicated as offerings to thy name, grant that they may not only help us in this present life, but prove a pledge of immortality.

The idea is that God has created bread and wine both for a material purpose - to sustain us in our frailty - and, more importantly, for a spiritual one - to be offered to him in sacrifice. Consequently we pray that they may help us materially and spiritually. The revisers removed the reference to sacrifice, but failed to remove the comparative adverb potius, meaning 'rather', which indicated that the spiritual purpose was more important than the material one. So we are left with potius floating free, having no comparison to attach itself to.

The official translation overcomes this difficulty sensibly, by ignoring potius.



PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION


O God, who have willed that we be partakers
in the one Bread and the one Chalice,
grant us, we pray, so to live
that, made one in Christ,
we may joyfully bear fruit
for the salvation of the world.

This prayer, which was not in the 1570 Missal, has been taken from a Dominican source. It is rich in scriptural allusions:

'one Bread' 1 Cor 10,7
'made one in Christ' John 17,11
'bear fruit' John 15,16.

FOURTH SUNDAY PER ANNUM

COLLECT

Grant us, Lord our God,
that we may honour you with all our mind,
and love everyone in truth of heart.

From the Veronese Sacramentary. Not in the 1570 Missal.

In line 2, the 1973 translation had 'with all our hearts' for tota mente. The change to 'mind', a more natural translation of Latin mens, is in harmony with a tendency in the official translation to correct the 1973 version's emphasis on the feelings rather than on the intellect. 'Mind' appears more often in 2011 than in 1973.
But I am uncertain whether this translation is correct, because Latin mente has given us the adverbial terminations -mente (Italian) and -ment (French). The fact that an adjective is used in its feminine form before these suffixes (rigorosamente, rigoureusement) shows the origin of this formation, since Latin mens is a feminine noun.
If this development was already in progress by the time of the copying of the Veronese Sacramentary (early 7th century), then perhaps tota mente simply meant 'totally', fideli mente meant 'faithfully', libera mente meant 'freely' and so on, and the translator need not use the English word 'mind'. But it would not be easy to convince the world's English-speaking bishops of this, or the Congregation for Divine Worship.

'In truth of heart' is a free translation, perhaps suggested by the Grail translation of Psalm 51,6 ('indeed you love truth in the heart') of rationabili . . . affectu, which might be translated literally as 'with reasonable affection'. However, in Romans 12,1, rationabilis translates Greek logikos, which in turn is sometimes translated 'spiritual' (e.g. in RSV). This fact justifies the use of 'spiritual' to translate rationabilem in the Roman Canon. It would also justify a translation of the last line of this prayer as 'and love everyone with spiritual affection'.

The implications of Romans 12,1 for the liturgy have been illuminatingly discussed by Joseph Ratzinger in Chapter 3 The Spirit of the Liturgy.


PRAYER OVER THE OFFERINGS

O Lord, we bring to your altar
these offerings of our service:
be pleased to receive them, we pray,
and transform them
into the Sacrament of our redemption.

Like the Collect, today's Prayer over the Offerings is taken from the Veronese Sacramentary, and was not in the 1570 Missal.

The first two lines might more literally be translated 'O Lord, we bring to your altars the offerings of our service'. The prayer would thus refer to all the offerings we bring to God whenever we celebrate Mass. The official version characteristically narrows the horizon of the text by changing 'altars' to 'altar' and 'the' to 'these', making it refer only to the bread and wine placed on the altar shortly before the prayer is said.

'The Sacrament' is a somewhat anachronistic translation, since our current understanding and enumeration of sacraments was only developed in the scholastic period, long after the Veronese Sacramentary. A seventh-century christian would have understood the Latin to mean 'and transform them into a sacred sign of our redemption'.

PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION

Nourished by these redeeming gifts,

we pray, O Lord,

that through this help to eternal salvation

true faith may ever increase.

Given in the Veronese Sacramentary among the prayers for Masses in July, this is by many later manuscripts, and by the 1570 Missal, to the Saturday in Easter Week.

Again, the official version uses 'these' although there is no equivalent in the Latin. 'Nourished by the gift of our redemption' would be an adequate translation of the first line.

'True faith' (vera fides) raises a theological question. It is traditional to distinguish fides qua creditur, 'the faith by which we believe', that is, the virtue of faith, from fides quae creditur, 'the faith that we believe', that is, the objective content of the christian faith. We refer to the former as 'faith' and to the latter as 'the faith'. Which is referred to in this prayer?

Most translators before Vatican II understood vera fides to denote the virtue of faith:

'true faith may ever prosper' (Fortescue 1926)

'true faith may ever profit' (Finberg and O'Connell 1949)

Some added 'within us' to make this clear:

'true faith may ever prosper within us' (Husenbeth 1847)

'true faith may ever increase within us' (St Andrew Daily Missal 1962)

This is the interpretation adopted by the official version.

Only one translation that I have found interpreted vera fides as signifying the content of the faith:

'the true faith may ever advance' (Dominican Missal 1948).

This last translation is recommended by the fact that this prayer used to belong to Easter Week, when the addition of new members is fresh in the memory of the Church. It could be heard as a prayer that still more converts will be drawn to the faith. However, now that the prayer has been moved to Ordinary Time, this interpretation is less appropriate - an example of the meaning of a text being changed by its context.