The VerbumQUO (mar20quo.htm)

TUESDAY
March 20, 2007
vol 18, no. 79

Hear Him Here and Now!


The VerbumQUO for today is "Exáudi" the demonstrative verb for "Hear", taken from today's Introit and Offertory for Tuesday in the Fourth Week of Lent and the theme of hearing both man's plea and the Word of God - and believing it fully - is carried out in the Epistle and Gospel of today's Holy Mass.

by
Michael Cain
Editor, The Daily Catholic

      Editor's Note: The editor has re-launched this series in order to highlight one word from the Proper of the day's Mass. Taking the Latin Verbum and Quotidianum, which mean respectively "Word" and "Daily", we have coined the word "Verbumquo" by contracting quotidianum to quo and running it together as VerbumQUO for this feature series, thus "The Daily Word," as in the sum of the message, the 'quotient', if you will. It is also our hope that in choosing the Latin word with its meaning and etimology more will be attuned to hearing the word read at the altar and better comprehend the beauty of the Mother tongue. Hopefully in this Time of Lent we can gain a higher appreciation and contemplation on how the Daily Proper of the Holy Mass applies in our lives in alignment with the will of Christ and His Blessed Immaculate Mother and His Mystical Bride, His Holy Roman Catholic Church.


    The VerbumQUO for today's Proper of Tuesday in the Fourth Week of Lent is Exáudi taken not only from the opening verse of today's Introit from Psalm 54: 2, 3, but also the Response "O Lord, hear my prayer" - Domine, exáudi, orationem meam. at the end of the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar just prior to the priest ascending to the Altar to pray the Introit:
Exáudi, Deus, oratiónem meam, et ne despéxeris deprecatiónem meam: inténde in me et exáudi me. (Ps. 54: 3, 4) Contristátus sum in exercitatióne mea, et conturbátus sum a voce inimíci, et a tribulatióne peccatóris
Hear, O God, my prayer, and despise not my sup­plication: be attentive to me, and hear me. (Ps. 54: 3, 4) I am grieved in my exercise; and am troubled at the voice of the enemy, and at the tribulation of the sinner.

    The word "hear" is an Anglo Saxon derivation from hieran or heran. Therefore, to discover the Latin root we return to the etimology of audire, the verb "to hear." From Exáudi is the Latin verb Exaudire - pronounced EX-AUD-EE-RAY with the emphasis on the bold. This is the prefix ex, meaning "out of" + audire "to hear": to hear out of - ears, ergo the means to the end: Hear. Thus, once again, we see the English words "audio" and "audience", plus "auditory" and "audit", all derived from the Latin "audire" let us look at the etimology of the English audio in Webster's:

    "audio" - [From Latin audire, to hear.] 1. Auditory; hence audio -, auditory and, as in audio-visual. 2. Elec. Of or pertaining to currents of frequencies corresponding to normally audible sound waves which are of frequencies approximately from 15 to 20,000 per second; as audio-frequency 3. Television. Pertaining to or used in the transmission or reception of sound; - contrasted with video. audient Listening. audile, audible, adjective Heard or capable of being heard. audibility, audition, audibleness, noun. audibly, adverb. audience, noun [From Latin audientia, from audire to hear.] 1. Act or state of listening. 2. Opportunity of being heard; admittance to a hearing. 3. A formal hearing or interview. 4. An assembly of hearers; hence, the reading public of an author, or an assembly of spectators."

    From audire we also have the words "audit", "audiphone", "audiphile", and "auditor"; the latter of which many are most familiar with the tax deadline less than a month away. But, as today's Proper points out, there was another deadline we are speaking of and that is to repent before it is too late. This is conveyed in the Epistle today from Exodus 32: 7-14 when the Lord God Yahweh spoke to Moses, instructing him to tell the people to hear the Word of God and turn away from idolatry. And Moses, like the Apostles that would follow in the New Testament, still questioned the Almighty, not hearing fully the crux of what God was saying. Moses heard and responded. So also in Psalm 43: 26, 2 in today's Gradual we, with the Prophet David attest that we have heard:
Exsurge, Dómine, fer opem nobis: et líbera nos propter nomen tuum. V. Deus, áuribus nostris audívimus: et patres nostri annuntiavérunt nobis opus, quod opératus es in diébus eórum, et in diébus antíquis.
Arise O Lord, bring help to us, and deliver us for Thy name's sake. V. O God, we have heard with our ears; and our fathers have declared to us the work which Thou didst work in their days, in the days of old.

    Many forget, especially Protestants, that the Bible was not in existence per se until the 4th century when Saint Jerome compiled what was known as the Latin Vulgate Bible. Up until that time - for well over three centuries Christianity grew in great numbers by hearing oral tradition. Few could read or write, but they could hear. That is how the Faith was passed down from generation to generation. Down through the centuries since then the faithful have heard the Word, heard the Truth, and yet still stray from the True Faith. the noted Benedictine Abbot, whose contributions on the meaning of the Church's one-year cycle for each day's Proper are invaluable, writes for today's Mass the following observation about how the men of his generation were no better than the Jews of old who worshipped idols:

       "When the world first received the preaching of the Gospel, idolatry was the prevailing crime. For many centuries after, all the catechumens, who were instructed in the true faith, were tainted with it. It was in order to inspire them with a horror of their past lives, that the Church read to them, on this day, the terrible words of God, Who, had not Moses interceded, was about to exterminate His people, because they had relapsed into idolatry; and this, after He had worked in their favor the most unheard-of miracles, and had come in person to give them His Law. The worship of false gods is no longer to be found amongst us; but it exists in all those countries, where the Gospel has been preached and rejected. Strange as it may sound, yet it is most true: Europe, with all its civilization, would return to idolatry, were it to lose the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. Not much more than a century ago, an idol was erected to reason; it had its altar, its decorations and its incense; and they who paid homage to it were Europeans! Individuals or peoples, once slaves to Satan, are not their own masters to say, 'We will go thus far in sin, and no farther.' The descendants of Noe, notwithstanding the terrible lesson give to them by the deluge, fell into idolatry; nay, Abraham was called by God from the rest of men, lest he should be led away by the almost universal corruption. Let us be grateful to the Church, who, by her teachings of faith and moral, preserves us from this degrading abomination; and let us resist our passions, which if the light of faith were taken from us, would lead us to idolatry."

    In today's Gospel from Saint John 7: 14-31, the Jews can see and hear the Messias in their midst and yet, as we know, they refused to really hear Him. Let us hear what the inspired Dom Gueranger has to say in Volume 5 of The Liturgical Year for this day:

    "They are deaf to all He says; they are men of one idea, and it is that their victim shall not escape death. His miracles are incontestable, and all are wrought out of a motive of mercy and love. The only time He refuses to work one, is when His enemies ask Him to satisfy their curiosity and pride by letting them see a sign. This exercise of His power of working miracles, far from exciting them to envy, and in their envy, they declare, not only that He acts by Beelzebub (St. Luke 11: 15), but that He has a devil within Him. We shudder at such blasphemy."

    And yet, because we have not shuddered enough, not stood up like the saints of old and said 'Enough!' our generation would have to be judged as no better for we have all kinds of audio availability as well as visual aides to the Gospel and to the Truths of the Faith, but we, like the Jews, test God, daring to request God to prove it to us. What audacity we have. And yet, the laver of love, the font of divine Mercy is there for us to be cleansed whenever we come to our senses and truly hear what Christ teaches for He cannot deceive nor be deceived as we say daily in the Act of Faith. Yet, like the Jews of old, we demand signs. Dom Gueranger points to the precedence of this:

    "Yet, such is the pride of these Jewish doctors that they care neither for common sense nor for religion, and their hearts thirst more and more for the Blood of Jesus. Whilst some of the people allow themselves to be seduced by their leaders into the same feelings against Jesus, others, who affect to be indifferent, reason about Him, and then declare it to be their opinion that this Jesus does not realize in Himself the character of the promised Messias!"

    Remember that the Benedictine Abbot wrote this in the mid 19th century, but talk about current, look at The DaVinci Code! There is blatant blasphemy! Look at the attacks on Mel Gibson's The Passion of The Christ when self-appointed Vatican II experts and, heretics, I might add Rabbi Boteach Schmuley and Abe Foxman practically pleaded with the conciliar church to put Mel in his place because he was being "too literal with the Scriptures." You know the modern Jew wants to bury the Gospels because the inspired words haunt them in the lie that they continue to live that "their wait for the Messiah is not in vain" and which the conciliar church has bought into because they have not truly heard the truth, or if they have, they reject it because it is too hard to obey; it offends man. Never mind offending God, it is man they must please. Christ saw this in the Jews of His time and He sees it today in those who stubbornly continue in heresy, because they refuse to really hear God's holy Will. Relativism has created a monster in questioning theological statements, even dogmatic doctrines, which, in the end, are really only their opinions, and opinions are a dime a dozen. Christ never expressed His opinion, but the truth. Big difference. Opinion is formulated according to feelings, environment, education, and sociological/religious culture; whereas fact, forged in truth, remains ever unchanging: the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Those who love to bandy about the "anti-Semitic" tag on anyone who doesn't agree with their opinion of revised history, should be alerted to the words the venerable Dom Gueranger says next, for what he says is unadulterated Catholic Truth:

    "They argue that, when the Christ cometh, no one will know whence He is. But have not the prophets declared that He is to be of the family of David? Now every Jew knows well enough that Jesus is of that royal race. Besides, they own that there is to be something mysterious about the Messias, and that He is to come from God. Had they listened with docile attention to the teachings of Jesus - teachings which He had confirmed by numerous miracles - they would have been enlightened both as to His temporal birth, and to His being the Son of God. But indifference and the perversity of the human heart keep them in culpable ignorance; and, perhaps, on the day of His death, they will join in the cry: 'Let His Blood be upon us and upon our children!'(St. Matthew 27: 25)."

    Ah, yes, the famous passage of Matthew that even Mel shrank from and removed from his masterpiece, which therefore must bear to some degree the stigma of compromise for that very reason. Enough is enough! Let us fulfill our part of the bargain we make when we pray with the Prophet David Psalm 34: 2-4 from today's Offertory:
Exspéctans exspectávi Dóminum, et respéxit me: et exaudívit deprecatiónem meam: et immísit in os meam cánticum novum, hymnum Deo nostro.
With expectation I have waited for the Lord, and He looked upon me: and He heard my prayer: and He put a new canticle into my mouth, a song to our God.
We have heard what The Christ, the chosen Messias, our Lord and Savior has said; let us sing the "new canticle" - His infallible words - heard not only in the prophesies of the Old Testament books, but in the Gospels of the four evangelists Saints Matthew Mark, Luke and John and reinforced in the Epistles of Luke, Saint Paul, Peter, and James, and especially in the concluding Book of the Apocalypse. Two verses stand out from the latter and we had better hear them both: Apocalypse 3: 16, "Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth" and Apocalypse 22: 18-20, "For I testify to every one that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book: If any man shall add to these things, God shall add upon him the plagues written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from these things which are written in this book. He that giveth testimony of these things saith: Surely, I come quickly: Amen. Come, Lord Jesus." The Haydock Commentary in the Douay-Rheims Bible sums up the essence of Scripture in this last sentence:

    "Come, Lord Jesus: come, and remain always in my soul by Thy grace, and make me partaker of Thy glory for ever and ever. Amen. Wi. - CONCLUSION. The Church in sighs and groans, and by the mouth of her children, solicits the coming of Jesus Christ, her divine Spouse. The fruit to be drawn from the perusal of this sacred book, is ardently to desire the kingdom of God, to sigh after the day of eternity, to feel the weight of the yoke of the present life, and the disgrace of our exile, and to live here below as strangers. Enkindle in me, O Lord, this desire; enable my poor soul to join with the beloved disciple in this prayer: Come, Lord Jesus, that she may go and lose herself in Thee, Who art her Center, her God, her All."

    If we truly hear Christ, how can we continue in the erratic ways of the conciliar church? It cannot be done for the fruits of Holy Scripture contradict the bitter, blackened 'fruits' of Vatican II and in weighing both the alternatives and the sum of truth, it is no contest. If Christ says it, we had better acknowledge we hear Him, or else! And, before it is too late, we had better hear Him here and now!

Michael Cain, editor, The Daily Catholic


    Tuesday
    March 20, 2007
    vol 18, no. 79
    VerbumQUO