¹ Braga, C., Il ‘Proprium de Sanctis,’Ephemerides Liturgicae 84 (1970) pp. 399, 405–406Google Scholar; Dumas, Antoine, ‘Les oraisons du nouveau Missel’Questions Liturgiques 25 (1971) pp. 263–270Google Scholar passim. An English translation of Dumas's essay is available in Pristas, Lauren, ‘The Orations of the Vatican II Missal: Policies for Revision,’Communio 30 (Winter, 2003) pp. 621–653Google Scholar at 629–639.

² Antoine Dumas, ‘Les oraisons du nouveau Missel,’ pp. 268–69.

³ Ibid., p. 270.

⁴ Saint Thomas lived from 1224/25–1274. He was canonized in 1323 and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1567.

⁵ Lippe, Robert, Missale Romanum Mediolani, 1474: A Collation with Other Editions Printed before 1570, vol. 2, Henry Bradshaw Society XXXIII (London: Harrison and Sons, 1907) p. 181Google Scholar has exactly the same collect for Saint Thomas as does the Missale Romanum (1962).

⁶ The translations in this article are my own.

⁷ “Atque Doctoris” is found only in Dominican missals.

⁸ “Complere” means to fill up, perfect, finish, or complete. The Vulgate translation of Saint Paul's “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church”(Colossians 1.24, RSV) uses the verb “adimplere.”Complere and adimplere have the same root (plere = to fill, to fulfill). Although complere and adimplere do not have the same range of meanings, both can mean “to fill up.”

⁹ Johnson, Cuthbert, ‘The Sources of the Roman Missal (1975),’Notitiae 32 (1996), p. 107Google Scholar does not indicate a source for the revision. Neither is it mentioned in Dumas, ‘Les oraisons du nouveau Missel’ or C. Braga, Il ‘Proprium de Sanctis.’

¹⁰ The International Commission on English in the Liturgy (hereafter, ICEL) translation reads: God our Father, you made Thomas Aquinas known for his holiness and learning. Help us to grow in wisdom by his teaching, and in holiness by imitating his faith.

¹¹ The Consilium is the commission established by Pope Paul VI in 1964 to carry out the reform of the Liturgy mandated by the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, and Annibale Bugnini was its General Secretary. In his book The Reform of the Liturgy (1948–1975), tr. O’Connell, Matthew J. (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1990) p. 360Google Scholar Bugnini describes Braga as the “assistant for studies for the Consilium.” Braga is listed as a member of the Secretariat in Consilium ad exsequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia, Elenchus membrorum – consultorum – consiliariorum coetuum a studiis(Vatican: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1964), p. 8Google Scholar.

¹² Braga, C., ‘Il ‘Proprium de Sanctis,’’Ephemerides Liturgicae 84 (1970), pp. 399–431Google Scholar. Braga's is one of a series of articles published in Ephemerides Liturgicae shortly after the new missal appeared. Each article was written by someone within the Consilium, and each identifies and explains the principles that guided the particular aspect of the reform it discusses. See, for example, Ashworth, Henry, ‘The Prayers for the Dead in the Missal of Pope Paul VI,’Ephemerides Liturgicae 85 (1971) pp. 3–15Google Scholar; Augé, Matias, ‘Le Collete del Proprio del Tempo nel Nuovo Messale,’Ephemerides Liturgicae 84 (1970) pp. 275–298Google Scholar; Braga, Carlo, ‘Il Nuovo Messale Romano,’Ephemerides Liturgicae 84 (1970) pp. 249–274Google Scholar; Dumas, Antoine, ‘Les Préfaces du nouveau Missel,’Ephemerides Liturgicae 85 (1971) pp. 16–28Google Scholar; Ferretti, Walter, ‘Le Orazioni ‘Post Communionem’ de Tempore nel Nuovo Messale Romano,’Ephemerides Liturgicae 84 (1970) pp. 323–341Google Scholar; Raffa, Vincenzo, ‘Le Orazioni sulle Offerte del Proprio del Tempo nel Nuovo Messale Romano,’Ephemerides Liturgicae 84 (1970) pp. 299–322Google Scholar.

¹³ Ibid., p. 404.

¹⁴ Ibid.

¹⁵ See ibid., p. 402 and p. 402, n. 1.

¹⁶ Egit is the perfect indicative form of agere, a verb that has a wide range of meanings the most basic of which is “to put into motion” or “move.” The English “act” comes from its passive form. Gessit is the perfect indicative of gerere. Similarly, it has a wide range of meanings the first of which is “to bear” or “carry.” It also means “to bring forth” or “produce,”“to conduct oneself” or “behave,” and “to accomplish” or “perform.”“Gesta,” which comes from the perfect passive participle of gero, means “deeds” or “acts.”

¹⁷ Another change, the revisers’ choice of “conspicuum,” so like “conspicere,” suggests they were mindful of sound.

¹⁸ No form of the adjective “conspicuus” appears in the Tridentine missal according to André Pflieger, Liturgicae orationis concordantia verbalia prima pars Missale Romanum(Rome: Herder, 1964) p. 115. Thaddäus A. Schnitker and Wolfgang A. Slaby, Concordantia verbalia Missalis Romani, (Münster: Aschendorff, 1983) p. 366 reports three occurrences of the word in the Vatican II missal. One of the three, the collect for the thirteenth Sunday per annum, is an exact transcription of an oration in the Sacramentarium Bergomense. (Cf. Johnson, ‘The Sources of the Roman Missal (1975),’ p. 91 and Angelo Paredi, Sacramentarium Bergomense: Manoscritto del secolo IX della Biblioteca di S. Alessandro in Colonna in Bergamo, VI (Bergamo: Edizioni Monumenta Bergomense, 1962), no. 725). The other two, the collect for Saint Thomas and the oratio super sponsam et sponsum(Missale Romanum (1975) p. 747), seem to have been introduced by the revisers.

¹⁹ Saint Albert lived from 1206 to 1280. He was canonized and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1931.

²⁰ When the verb “inhaerere,” to cling or cleave, appears with the word “vestigiis,” an ablative plural that means “footsteps,”“traces” or “tracks,” it means “to follow the path.” This is why the same verb is rendered differently in the respective translations of the two collects.

²¹ The ICEL translation reads: God our Father, you endowed St. Albert with the talent of combining human wisdom with divine faith. Keep us true to his teachings that the advance of human knowledge may deepen our knowledge of you.

²² The verb “componere,” which means to join, unite or reconcile, appears only once in the Tridentine missal (Pflieger, Liturgicae orationis concordantia verbalia, p. 96). It is used in the invocation of the collect for Saint John of San Facondo (June 12). The invocation praises God for having bestowed upon the saint the grace of uniting those who are divided (or of reconciling those with differences, “dissidentes componendi gratia”). Saint John of San Facondo does not have a day on the revised universal calendar, but the phrase “dissidentes componendi gratia” from his collect been incorporated into the newly minted collect for Saint Elizabeth of Portugal (July 4). The verb componere appears only twice in the revised missal, in the collects for Saint Elizabeth and Saint Albert (Schitcker, Concordantia verbalia Missalis Romani, p. 319).

²³ ‘Proprium de Sanctis,’ p. 419.

²⁴ Ibid.

²⁵ Ibid. “Anzitutto non si tratta di sottomettere semplicemente la scienza umana alla fede, ma di coordinare i due campi, in modo che insieme tendano ad una sempre maggiore conoscenza della verità. E poi anche le scienze, ciascuna nel suo campo, possono e devono portare l’uomo a Dio, cioè alla sua conoscenza e al suo amore. Il creato è la via per cui si può e si deve giungere a Dio.”

²⁶ “il grande cultore delle scienze umane oltre che di quelle teologiche.”

²⁷ Nowhere in his discussion of this collect does Braga use the word “wisdom”(saggezza). Throughout he uses the word “scienza.”

²⁸ This is particularly unfortunate because the idea that faith gives more certain and more reliable knowledge than reason is foreign to our scientific culture and the fact is unknown or incomprehensible to countless well‐meaning persons today – including many Catholic undergraduates.

²⁹ This is not to deny the possibility of natural knowledge of God, but to recognize the proper domain and intrinsic limitations of natural science.

³⁰ Saint Catherine lived from 1347 to 1380. She was canonized in 1461 and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1970.

³¹ In actual fact, however, it is used in the pre‐Vatican missal for only one other, Saint Prisca (January 18) who was a virgin martyr – but with a slight difference in the petition which has “such great faith”(tantae fidei) for “such great virtue.”

³² Before the post‐Vatican II liturgical reform, Saint Catherine of Genoa was celebrated in the dioceses of the United States on March 22. Her collect reads: Deus, qui beatam Catharinam in contemplanda Filii tui passione divini amoris igne flagare fecisti: quaesumus ut ipsa intercedente, tuae in nobis flammam caritatis accendas, et eiusdem passionis participes dignanter efficias[O God, who made blessed Catherine burn with the fire of divine love through contemplating the passion of your Son: we beseech you, that through her intercession you may enkindle the flame of charity within us and be pleased to make us partakers of the same passion].

³³ C. Braga, ‘Proprium de Sanctis,’ p. 411, n. 15.

³⁴ The ICEL translation reads: Father, in meditating on the sufferings of your Son and in serving your Church, St. Catherine was filled with the fervor of your love. By her prayers, may we share in the mystery of Christ's death and rejoice in the revelation of his glory.

³⁵ This is the view, also, of the ICEL translators. Cf. the preceding note.

³⁶ Ibid., p. 411

³⁷ Ibid.

³⁸ Ibid.: “non poteva non portare a dare una nota pasquale al formularia.”

³⁹ The Latin patientia, from which the English “patience” is derived, comes from the deponent verb “pati” which means “to suffer.” The difference between “patience” and “patientia” is that the English word, at least as it is often used popularly, refers more especially to the virtue by which one checks one's emotions or tongue in moments of trial, whereas the Latin highlights more particularly the suffering the trial involves and the fact that one suffers it virtuously. More specifically, “patientia” is the quality of bearing or suffering; it can be translated “forbearance,”“endurance,”“long‐suffering” or “patience.” See Schnitker, Concordantia verbalia Missalis Romani, p. 1798 for the ways in which the word “patientia” is used in the present missal. The collect of the Mass for Palm Sunday is of particular relevance.

⁴⁰ Ibid., p. 403.

⁴¹ Dumas, ‘Les oraisons du nouveau Missel,’ p. 267.

⁴² Ibid., passim. For a discussion of this and other editorial practices of the reformers see Pristas, Lauren, ‘Theological Principles that Guided the Redaction of the Roman Missal (1970),’The Thomist 67 (2003), pp. 157–195CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴³ Saint Thomas, January 28; Saint Catherine, April 29; Saint Albert, November 15.

⁴⁴ While distinct, these two aspects are not unrelated for, in the nature of things, the complicity between form and matter is inestimable.