I've been given some indication that I should expect to be sent back to school this coming fall. Should this happen, I anticipate that it will be a spiritually and emotionally challenging transition on several levels.
With some of that rolling around in the back of my consciousness, as it has been for months now, I prayed this morning's gospel canticle antiphon for St. Thomas with gratitude:
Blessed be the Lord; for love of him Saint Thomas Aquinas spent long hours in prayer, study, and writing.
Easily it turns around into my own prayer. If I am asked to transition into a full time assignment of study and writing, may I be without anxiety except to examine myself on my love of God. It is the only purpose and motivation, and the only foundation that will hold me together anyway.
When I checked my typical edition breviary, I was disappointed to see that the antiphon was not quite the same:
Benedictus Dominus, pro cuius amore beatus Thomas studuit, vigilavit et laboravit.
In fairness, though, vigilare in the sense of prayer doesn't have a simple translation in English, and the great labor of St. Thomas was certainly his writing.
5 comments:
Father Charles, ignorance is bliss, isn't it? Had you no knowledge of Latin, you could simply read the English with impunity and and a smile. With this added knowledge you have, it is indeed difficult to accept the acrobatics from the original to the current English translations, isn't it? Was it expediency? Was it condenscention? Or was it a conscious effort to shift thought? But to be fair, as far as translations go, this one is probably a "2" on the "WAY OFF!" o-meter (if you don't own one already, you can probably pick one up cheap).
Knowing Latin is a bit like being a gnostic or taking the "red pill". To quote the late great Keanu Reeves: "Whoa!"
I shall be playing with that analogy!
Good morning Father Charles... Everything is happening for a reason. It is the good Lord's will, so hang in there...
Where do you think you'll end up next year, Father? Rome, or somewhere in the US? Where do the Capuchins send their bright lights?
I don't know where they send the bright lights, but they asked me to apply to BC STM for the STD program.
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