Feast Day: September 21^st | Patronage: accountants, tax collectors, bankers, and civil servants | Iconography: Bearded, Holding or Writing Book, Inspired by an Angel, sometimes his Call is Depicted with Jesus pointing for him to join the apostles.

One of the oldest fragments we have of St. Matthew’s Gospel is academically called “Papyrus 104”, and is a tattered page containing Matthew 21:34-37 on its front, and Matthew 21:43 and 45 on the back. We only have part of the whole page, hence the missing in-between verses, though verse 44 is missing on a handful of other ancient papyri, so it could be that some copies of Matthew’s Gospel lost it along the way. Now, if you knew ancient Greek, you could determine that this page dates back to between 100 and 200 AD (primarily because of the shape and style of the letters and the types of punctuation that are present). But here’s the amazing thing, among ancient documents, the ones we have for the New Testament are massively closer to the events they describe than almost any other ancient texts. For instance, this page from Matthew’s Gospel comes from less than a century after Matthew wrote his Gospel. Compare this to The Gallic Wars, a famous writing of Julius Caesar which historians wildly accept as a legitimate record of that particular campaign, of which our earliest fragment/copy comes from 750 years after it was written! We have thousands of fragments from all throughout the New Testament that attest that the Gospels and Letters and Acts that we read and believe is the same one written by Paul and Matthew, Mark and John, and many of them date back to within a century or two of when those books of the New Testament were first written. Almost every other ancient text has at most a dozen such fragments, some like The Gallic Wars not until several centuries after the fact. (Another example: Homer’s Odyssey was written 7 or 8 centuries before Christ, and the oldest fragment we have of it is 13 verses, chiseled into a clay tablet from about 300 years after Christ.)

Ok, that’s cool enough, but there’s another amazing part of this story. That fragment you can see of St. Matthew’s Gospel is part of what is called a “codex”, a fancy word for a stack of vellum, papyrus, or metal pages held together in some fashion. In other words, it’s a page out of a book, that you can flip around in, with text printed on both sides of the page. There are a few examples of codex-like objects from before the time of Christ, but the vast majority appear in the first century AD (most of these being the Christian New Testament!), and codices outstrip scrolls in popularity around AD 300. Christians didn’t just want libraries or synagogues to contain the Word of God; they wanted to carry it with them, to see the intricacies of God’s word, to see the connections between Old and New Testament, to tease out Who God reveals Himself to be in its pages. (Plus, it’s a bit easier to hide a small book of Matthew’s Gospel in your pocket than it would be to lug around a few scrolls, especially if the government is out to get you and is looking for such things…) Lastly, codices, besides being more accessible and portable, can also contain a lot more text, even up to the entirety of the New Testament.

And one of the first pages, from one of the first books, is from St. Matthew’s Gospel. How cool is that?!

Here’s the front side of this amazing page. (Bold indicates the letters we have; the others have to be filled in from the other copies that we have of this passage.):

“…he sent his servants to
the vine-growers to collect the harvest
that was his. And the vine-growers took
his servants; indeed,
they beat one and they killed another,
and another they stoned. Again, he sent
other servants, more than
the first: and they did …
unto them likewise. But last of all he sent…”

– Fr. Dominic has always liked reading books but never realized that proclaiming the Gospel was the impetus that made books popular in the first place!

– Fr. Dominic 

As I was composing last week’s bulletin on the Opening Collect, it was my hope that I could explain what I wanted to explain in one article, but there is an additional element about the Collect that I think is worth further reflection.

Recall the explanation of the Collect from the GIRM:

Next the Priest calls upon the people to pray and everybody, together with the Priest, observes a brief silence so that they may become aware of being in God’s presence and may call to mind their intentions. Then the Priest pronounces the prayer usually called the “Collect” and through which the character of the celebration finds expression. (GIRM, §54)

I draw our attention to the final phrase, that the Collect expresses the character of the celebration that will follow.  We see this in a few different ways.  When the Church celebrates a feast day of one of the saints, the Collect has the nature of highlighting something about the saint of the day and asking for their intercession so as better to imitate their fidelity to the Lord.  For example, the saint the Church usually celebrates on September 3 is Pope St. Gregory the Great.  Here is the Collect for that Mass:

O God, who care for your people with gentleness
and rule them in love, through the intercession of Pope Saint Gregory,
endow, we pray, with a spirit of wisdom
those to whom you have given authority to govern,
that the flourishing of a holy flock
may become the eternal joy of the shepherds…

During the special seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter, the Collect will take on the character of that season or that day.  For example, here is the Collect for Easter Sunday:

O God, who on this day,
through your Only Begotten Son,
have conquered death
and unlocked for us the path to eternity,
grant, we pray, that we who keep
the solemnity of the Lord’s Resurrection
may, through the renewal brought by your Spirit,
rise up in the light of life…

During Ordinary Time, the Collects are more general and in keeping with the focus of Ordinary Time as “a time for growth and maturation, a time in which the mystery of Christ is called to penetrate ever more deeply into history until all things are finally caught up in Christ.” (https://www.usccb.org/prayer-worship/liturgical-year/ordinary-time) 

In addition to praying with the readings of the Mass as a good way to prepare for Mass, praying with the Collect can also be very fruitful, so do not overlook these gems that the Church offers to us as sources of rich reflection and meditation.

Feast Day: September 16^th | Patronage: | Iconography: Cornelius: Holding Cruciform Staff and Tiara of a Pope, Carrying Book of one who preaches the Gospel and Horn (from his name, which means “battle horn”); Cyprian: Wearing Vestments of a Bishop, including the Pallium and holding a Crosier, Book of one who preaches the Gospel, and Crown or Palm of martyrdom

St. Cyprian was killed, martyred, for the crime of impiety!  Consider this early account of his martyrdom:

When the bishop appeared the proconsul asked him: ‘Are you Thascius Cyprian?’ The bishop replied: ‘I am.’ ‘And have you acted as leader in a community of impious men?’ ‘I have.’ ‘The sacred emperors have ordered you to sacrifice.’ ‘I will not sacrifice.’ ‘Consider your position.’ ‘Do what is required of you. I have no need to deliberate; the issues are clear.’ Galerius consulted briefly with his advisers and reluctantly pronounced sentence in the following words: ‘You have lived in an irreligious manner for a long time now and have gathered about you a large congregation of criminals and unbelievers. You have shown yourself hostile to the gods of Rome and the rites by which they are worshipped. … Your death will be an example to those whom you have gathered into your criminal conspiracy. Your blood will uphold the law.’

[from the “Proconsular Acts of the martyrdom of St. Cyprian”, 258 AD]

Killed for “impiety” because he didn’t worship the gods of the surrounding culture. He chose to give his highest love, and honor, and fealty to the One True God, no one else. We will suffer, like Christ, and like Cyprian, when we make this same choice! Am I ready for that?

We have a letter that Bp. Cyprian wrote to Pope Cornelius (one of the main reasons we celebrate them both on September 16^th), and it offers us a key way that Cyprian practiced this courageous-faithfulness before called to make the ultimate sacrifice: 

Cyprian sends greetings to his brother Cornelius,

My very dear brother, we have heard of the glorious witness given by your courageous faith. On learning of the honor you had won by your witness, we were filled with such joy that we felt ourselves sharers and companions in your praiseworthy achievements. After all, we have the same Church, the same mind, the same unbroken harmony. Why then should a priest not take pride in the praise given to a fellow priest as though it were given to him? What brotherhood fails to rejoice in the happiness of its brothers wherever they are?

     Words cannot express how great was the exultation and delight here when we heard of your good fortune and brave deeds: how you stood out as a leader of your brothers in their declaration of their faith. You led the way to glory, but you gained many companions in that glory; being foremost in your readiness to bear witness on behalf of all, you prevailed on your people to become a single witness. We cannot decide which we ought to praise, your own ready and unshaken faith or the love of your brothers who would not leave you. While the courage of the bishop who thus led the way has been demonstrated, at the same time the unity of the brotherhood who followed has been manifested. Since you have one heart and one voice, it is the Roman Church as a whole that has thus borne witness….

     Divine providence has now prepared us. God’s merciful design has warned us that the day of our own struggle, our own contest, is at hand. By that shared love which binds us closely together, we are doing all we can to exhort our congregation, to give ourselves unceasingly to fasting, vigils and prayers in common. These are the heavenly weapons which give us the strength to stand firm and endure; they are the spiritual defenses, the God-given armaments that protect us. Let us then remember one another, united in mind and heart. Let us pray without ceasing, you for us, we for you; by the love we share we shall thus relieve the strain of these great trials.

[“Letter by St. Cyprian, bishop and martyr”, Epistle 60,1-2, 5]

Two simple things that St. Cyprian did that prepared him to give witness to Christ: First, recognizing and encouraging others when they choose courageous-faithfulness. Do you and I notice when someone makes a certain choice because they are a Christian? Do we tell them how inspiring their action was, that we want to emulate their faith in that way? And secondly, do we simple expect trials to come our way, or have we imbibed in some way, or just in some area of our lives, a “prosperity gospel” that assumes crosses are for other people, that reacts with dis-belief when God allows our Christianity to cost us?

– Fr. Dominic has been impressed numerous times by the faith, sacrifices, joy, or hope of others. As a priest, he gets to see faith alive in people’s hearts on so many occasions, but I often fail to thank them, or mention that they have inspired me. I hope to learn from St. Cyprian how to do that! One quick story: at World Youth Day, like St. Cyprian, I was moved by the witness of my Holy Father, Pope Francis. It’s so easy to get confused or cynical by something we hear about him, yet when I saw him at WYD I was moved to tremendous gratitude that Christ has entrusted his Church to a Pope, a Papa for all of us. And, his reflections throughout that week were so centered on Christ, on the joy that comes from Christ, on the love He has for us. I am grateful for his witness of those truths again to me!

“Let us pray.”  These are the words that the priest says immediately following the Gloria (when there is one), inviting the faithful to unite with him as he prays what is Opening Prayer, or more technically called the Collect.

There are a few things worth mentioning as we consider the Collect.  The GIRM (remember, when I use that acronym, I am referring to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal) explains that the Collect is one of the “presidential prayers.”  “These prayers are addressed to God by the Priest who presides over the assembly in the person of Christ, in the name of the entire holy people and of all present.” (GIRM, §30) This is an important point that can sometimes go overlooked.  When the priest is reciting prayers at Mass, more often than not, he is doing so in the name of all who are present.  When we hear the Opening Prayer, we can sometimes zone out and not pay much attention, treating it as though we are listening to Father pray.  It’s as though he is saying: “Listen to me pray.”  No, we unite ourselves with the priest who is praying on our behalf, praying for us and with us to God.  “”Let us pray.”  I will develop this point further when we get to the Eucharistic Prayer, but it is important for us to have that understanding of these prayers in general.

But what is the significance of this prayer?  Two sources are helpful in our understanding this prayer.  First, we can look at what the GIRM says:

Next the Priest calls upon the people to pray and everybody, together with the Priest, observes a brief silence so that they may become aware of being in God’s presence and may call to mind their intentions. Then the Priest pronounces the prayer usually called the “Collect” and through which the character of the celebration finds expression. (GIRM, §54)

Another source I sometime refer to when reflecting on the prayers of the Mass is a little booklet I found online called Explanation of Prayers and Ceremonies of Holy Mass, which is a collection of reflections taken from conferences given by Dom Prosper Guéranger, a former Benedictine Abbot of Solesmes.  Though these reflections were written about the Mass celebrated according to the Missal of 1962, many of the elements still apply very well.  Here is what he says about the Collect, that it is:

the Prayer in which he sums up the desires of the Faithful, and presents them under the form of a petition. The word Collect comes from the Latin colligere, which means to bring together things previously existing apart. The importance of the Collect is great. Hence, holy mother Church urges us to listen to it with all respect and devotion.

What both of these explanations offer is that this is a time during which we bring our various intentions to the liturgy to be offered up in one prayer of petition to the Father.  Thus the pause after the priests says: “Let us pray.”  Recall how when describing the Penitential Act, the pause seems hardly adequate to call to mind our sins, so too here.  I think it presumes that we have done a little bit of preparation for this moment, perhaps as we pray before Mass.  In addition to examining ourselves regarding our need for conversion, we can also consider the various intentions we want to bring to this Mass – people to pray for, situations that seem unresolved, gratitude for blessings received, etc.  In that brief moment, we present those intentions we have already thought about to the Lord through the priest who collects the prayers of everybody and offers them up on our behalf in one prayer.