Someone asked me about the Latin phrase from the Roman Canon (1st Eucharistic Prayer) "omnium circumstantium". This is one of the points surely to be addressed in the meeting of the bishops as they prepare to vote on the draft translation.
A few years back I wrote my WDTPRS columns on the Eucharistic Prayers, but I haven’t posted them online on this blog yet. In any event, here is something I wrote about omnium circumstantium:
Circumstantium is an active participle of circumsto, which means “to stand around in a circle, to take a station round; and, with the accusative, to stand around a person or thing, to surround, encircle, encompass.” The people who are circumstantes are those who are “standing around”, not in a sense of being idle, but of location. In more ancient manuscripts this was circum adstantes. Standing for the whole Canon was the practice for the first thousand years or so. As our understanding of the Real Presence grew and deepened, the practice of kneeling developed. This is not some historical encrustation that needed to be scraped off of the Mass in a desire to return to the “pristine” way of liturgy. Circum means “around” but that does not mean that in the ancient Church people literally stood in a circle about the altar. In Roman basilicas the altar was between the presbytery, the large semicircular part of the apse where the clerics, especially priest(s) were properly situated, and the nave, the proper place of the faithful. Often there is found a semi-circular area in front of altars which was the entrance to the crypt below and the remains of martyrs were found. The most famous of these is the “Confession” of St. Peter’s Basilica. If there were transepts, the people were then on three sides of the altar, but in no way standing around the altar in any close or proximate way.
“Memento, Domine” – The Memento of the Living
LATIN TEXT (2002MR):
Memento, Domine, famulorum, famularumque tuarum N. et N. et omnium circumstantium, quorum tibi fides cognita est, et nota devotio, pro quibus tibi offerimus: vel qui tibi offerunt hoc sacrificium laudis pro se suisque omnibus: pro redemptione animarum suarum, pro spe salutis, et incolumitatis suae: tibique reddunt vota sua aeterno Deo, vivo et vero.LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Be mindful, O Lord, of Your household servants and handmaids N. and N., and of all the bystanders here whose faith and recognized vocational devotion is completely known to You, for whom we are making this sacrificial offering to You: and who assuredly also are offering to You this Sacrifice of praise for themselves and for all of their own loved ones: on behalf of the redemption of their own souls, for the hope of their own salvation and well-being: they also offer back their own solemnly promised sacrificial offerings to You Eternal God, Living and True.
I will add that in the source we call Blaise/Dumas we find under circumsto "se tenir debout autour (de la table de la sainte sacrifice)"
I went on the hunt for some new information about this word and I found a fascinating thing. In Blaise/Dumas, which is a very important source, I found that circumstantes and circumadstantes is used similarly to other terms to denote the Christian people at the liturgy in general, and so it is like terms from the NT and Fathers such as populi tui, fratres dilecti a Deo, dilectissimi, sanctitas vestra.
What is this all about? It means that circumstantes might simply – rather can mean simply refer to the baptized people who are present and participating without any reference to where they are located in the church. This is an important point for anyone considering what it means in the context of the Eucharistic Prayer. I think my version of "bystanders" gets at that pretty well, though perhaps there is a touch of passivity echoing in the modern sound of the word which doesn’t please me. Maybe we can say… "and of all the participants here whose faith and recognized vocational devotion is completely known to You,…" Given the use of circumstantes as a "generic" way to talk of those present, this works.
