Page and seminar under development and subject to change.
A Mini Seminar
St Bede Abbey
Peru, Illinois
for one week to be announced
Winter or Spring of 2015
This seminar will teach our method of appreciating the prayers of the Missale Romanum to those who pray with these prayers frequently and wish to reflect further on their meaning. Each participant will select a prayer, a collect, super oblata or post communionem, that they wish to examine throughout the week.
Latin + Interpretation
The two pillars of Appreciating the Liturgy are a clear understanding of the Latin language and the method of interpreting the prayers employed at the Pontifical Institute of Liturgy, Sant’Anselmo.
Latin
The mini seminar presumes a familiarity with the Latin language sufficient to understand one’s chosen prayer of perhaps 20 words. We use the method of Reginald Foster, forty years a papal Latinist, to help participants achieve a clear understanding of the prayer chosen.
Interpretation
The method of interpretation begins with discovering the prayer’s early usage and tracing its later uses in various early and medieval Sacramentaries up until its current usage. The textual variations of the prayer and the way it is used in each respective sacramentary reveal its history. This is possible only due to the fine research library built up over many years at St Bede Abbey library. This part of the mini seminar involves hands-on use of the liturgical books in modern study editions.
Always beginning with the text of the prayer, various interpretative tools will be used to discern specific dimensions of the prayer called by their technical terms:
The anamnetic character of the prayer concerns how the saving deeds of God in salvation history are recalled as presently active in the prayer.
The epicletic character is more pronounced in a few prayers; it concerns the way the prayer invokes the Spirit or in some cases the Word of God to act here.
The eschatological character of the prayer concerns how the prayer suggests we share even now in the glory that awaits.
The theotic character concerns how the prayer indicates we are personally caught up into the divine-human exchange whereby the Word became flesh so that we might share in divine life.
The doxological character of the prayer usually centers on the prayer’s concluding formula.
Presentations and discussion
Participants may be asked to give a presentation on one’s own prayer, and these presentations will serve as the basis of our reflection each day.
Participants
We welcome as participants:
parishioners and oblates of the abbey,
Religious and priests of the area
Diocesan personnel responsible for liturgy
and teachers of theology
… all desiring to deepen their understanding of these prayers.
Learn
Participants will learn:
• How to use the instruments of research, critical editions of liturgical sources and other studies.
• How to trace the historical sources and development of an oration,
• How to analyze the textual variants of an oration,
• How to accurately render the Latin text into contemporary English,
• How to discern the clausal structure of an oration,
• How to map the temporal sequence of an oration’s verbal clauses,
• How to identify the protagonists and their interaction within an oration,
• How to identify the theological characteristics of a prayer,
• How to discern the process of Christian maturation in an oration.
Do
Participants will do the following, with mentoring:
• conduct their own research on an oration of their choice,
• write up the results of their own research,
• present their results in the seminar,
• and to carefully consider the work of other seminar participants.
Scedule
Each day builds on the work of the previous day, so it is presumed that all participants will attend the whole week.
The schedule is in development.
Presenter: Fr Daniel McCarthy, OSB, SLD
earned a Doctorate of Sacred Liturgy at the Pontifical Institute of Liturgy (PIL), Sant’Anselmo, Rome in 2008. He has written commentaries on over 250 prayers as appeared in The Tablet of London. He helped to found the Institutum Liturgicum in Anglia et Cambria where the master’s level curriculum of the PIL is offered in English, accredited by the Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium, where Fr Daniel is a guest professor. He teaches the history of liturgical books at the Institutum Liturgicum as well as Proficient Latin for Liturgists. His publications include Appreciating the Collect, a basic book for this seminar, and Listen to the Word, which contains his commentaries on Sunday and Feast-day collects. Fr Daniel has written with Reginald Foster, forty-year papal Latinist, his unique method of teaching the Latin language; the book is awaiting publication at the Catholic University of America Press.
Books
LEWIS, C.T. – C . SHORT, A Latin Dictionary, Oxford UP, Oxford – New York 1879, reprinted numerous times since. This book is recommended for all serious students of the Latin language.
Appreciating the Collect: An Irenic Methodology, ed. J.G. Leachman – D.P. McCarthy (Documenta rerum ecclesiasticarum instaurata, Liturgiam aestimare: Appreciating the Liturgy 1), St. Michael’s Abbey Press, Farnborough 2008. More information available here. Purchase directly from the publisher or from St Benedict’s Abbey, Atchison, Kansas.
McCARTHY, D.P. – J.G. LEACHMAN, “Listen to the Word” Commentaries on selected opening prayers of Sundays and feasts, The Tablet (weekly from 18 March 2006 – 4 March 2007, thereafter occasionally). More information available here. Purchase directly from Redemptorist Press in the UK or from St Benedict’s Abbey, Atchison, Kansas.
Purchase both books from:
St Benedict’s Abbey
1020 North Second Street
Atchison, Kansas 66002
Phone: 1 (913) 360-7906
Location of St Bede Abbey, Peru, Illinois
Locate us on the map linked here.
Research seminars allow our research to be adapted to the needs of the local community. If you would like to sponsor a seminar, please contact me at dmccarthy AT kansasmonks DOT org.
Cost
The cost of participating for the week is yet to be determined. Because each day builds on the work of the previous day, it is presumed that all participants will attend the whole week, so partial payments for part of the week are not accepted.
Register
Registration is still in development. It will be handled by St Bede Abbey.
Image credits: Images of the illuminated manuscripts are courtesy of St. Michael’s Abbey, Farnborough, Hampshire, UK.
Pictured are participants of a mini seminar given at Pluscarden Abbey, Scotland.
Pictured are the participants of a Latin week, Ealing Abbey, London.
Pictured is Fr Daniel McCarthy, OSB
Pictured are the covers of his two recommended books.