Tuesday, February 22, 2011

A Few New Pictures

After lunch today, I thought I would take a few pictures of the sights around Casa O'Toole, the residence for the sabbatical priests at the North American College. There will be more from time to time.



This is the view from the dining room of the "casa". This is the view of St. Peter's Basilica looking over the roof of the Pope Paul VIth audience hall. The street below is the Via Aurelia. It passes along the base of the wall which is visible in the picture. It is part of the walls built by the emperor Aurelius, and hightened and strengthened by Pope Paul Vth in the 16th century. This wall forms a boundary on two sides of the seminary property.

This is the chapel in the "Casa". The reredos, (back wall) is gold leaf. The altar and tabernacle is marble taken from the ruins of an ancient church in Rome. This is where we gather for prayers and Mass. There are many other opportunities to pray the office and celebrate Mass. There are the services at the main seminary too. Also, we can go to St. Peter's and celebrate Mass in the crypt on one of the tombs of the popes, or on an altar along the side wall of the basilica.


Today was a another morning of classes on the new translation of the Roman Sacramentary. After Mass, at which I played the keyboard, (I am playing every day this week), we had other sessions on the new sacramentary. Msgr. Sherman led the group in our opening reflection by inviting us to read together the new translation of Eucharistic Prayer IV. It was an attempt to facilitate our hearing of it. This is something I will have to do on my own. The choral reading of it meant that the group fell into the sing-song-y rhythm that generally happens when many people are reading the same text. I rarely use that 4th prayer. But I think I will begin to use it more often. I like the text of the new translation better than the old one. 

The majority of the changes do not affect the people. Most of the changes are the parts of the Mass which the priest prays. There a few notable exceptions.

"The Lord be with you"
"And with your spirit"

The new translation is decidedly closer to the original Latin text. There is an effort to translate almost literally, the original Latin prayers, which are the official prayers of the church.

The original Latin: "Dominus vobiscum", "Et cum spiritu tuo", has been translated in French as, "Le seigneur soit avec vous", "Et avec votre esprit".

This new translation does not matter in the French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, all the romance languages. They have been praying those words ever since the Mass was celebrated in the vernacular since the Second Vatican Council.

What is trying to be communicated here? The intent of the prayer is the greeting by the priest to the people. It is not a petition asking to God to be present to the people, but a statement of fact. As this community gathers, the Lord becomes present in many ways - in the assembly itself by the shared faith; in individual members by virtue of their baptism; in the prayers of the community; in the gifts what will be shared - bread, wine, time, talent, treasure; in the Word; in the Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood; in the participation of the liturgy. The community acknowledges, "and with your spirit", that the Lord is also present in the person of the priest as part of this community, but also by virtue of his ordination. He now stands at the head of the community with which he prays and works, as leader of prayer. This is the purpose and the meaing of the Latin prayers. In order to more effectively convey these truths, the words more closely resemble the original prayer of the church.

This afternoon, I met with the travel agent who is organizing many of our optional day and overnight trips. Today was the deadline to pay for the trip to a group of historic monasteries outside of Rome. Mid afternoon was spent "blogging" and relaxing in my room (AKA siesta). There is another liturgy session at 5 - 6pm. Aperitivi (AKA as happy hour) takes place at 6 followed by dinner at 7. A group may go out into the city for supper.

So this may be it for the day.