Father, Son, Holy Spirit

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I took Latin I and II in high school and in college and have heard variations of “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” From what I remember from Latin it is supposed to be “In nomine Patris, et filii, et Spiritus Sancti.” I have seen on EWTN the priest say something like “In nomine Patris, et filio, et Spirtus Sanctus.” Just wondering if anyone else has any insight. Patris, Filii and Sancti are in the genitive, which is used as possession in Latin (of).
 
scc11 said:
I took Latin I and II in high school and in college and have heard variations of “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” From what I remember from Latin it is supposed to be “In nomine Patris, et filii, et Spiritus Sancti.” I have seen on EWTN the priest say something like “In nomine Patris, et filio, et Spirtus Sanctus.” Just wondering if anyone else has any insight. Patris, Filii and Sancti are in the genitive, which is used as possession in Latin (of).
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In: preposition
nomine: 3rd declension ablative singular (in takes the ablative, or accusative if the meaning is “into”)
Patris: 3rd declension genitive singular
et Filii: 2nd declension genitive singular
et Spiritus: 4th declension genitive singular (in the 4th decl., the nominative and genitive both end in -us, but the genitive has a long u)
Sancti: 2nd declension genitive singular adjective

If the priest has been saying anything else, then either he is wrong, or (more likely) his pronunciation is poor.
 
The sign of the cross in Latin is In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.

The Gloria Patria in Latin begins Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto.

Perhaps you were hearing the Gloria Patri instead of the sign of the cross? Some blessings also include the nominative, Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus. So the exact form of the words may depend on the prayer in which they’re used.
 
I say it In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti

In the “Glory Be” I think it’s Patri, et filio, et spiritui sancto
 
The blessing at the end of Mass has ‘Pater, et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus’. Maybe that is what you are thinking of?
 
scc11 said:
I took Latin I and II in high school and in college and have heard variations of “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” From what I remember from Latin it is supposed to be “In nomine Patris, et filii, et Spiritus Sancti.” I have seen on EWTN the priest say something like “In nomine Patris, et filio, et Spirtus Sanctus.” Just wondering if anyone else has any insight. Patris, Filii and Sancti are in the genitive, which is used as possession in Latin (of).
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It’s easy to make this mistake when not using the Latin phrase often. You are correct in your analysis.
Swiss_Guy said:
I say it In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti

In the “Glory Be” I think it’s Patri, et filio, et spiritui sancto
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It is. It’s in the dative case.

Except there is no “BE” in the Latin. 😉
 
The reason for this is the cases: Latin has them, to designate the function of the word in the sentence. English not so much.

In the sign of the cross, we are doing it “In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” so that “of” indicates they are in the Genetive Case.

In the Gloria, we are giving “Glory to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” and the “to” indicates the Dative Case.

In the final blessing, we ask, “May Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, bless you…” and here God is the subject of the verb, so we have the Nominative Case.

In English, we only use two cases (“normal” and possessive) for nouns, and three for some pronouns (nominative, objective and possessive), so it’s easy to forget which case should be used in Latin, or grab the wrong one.

Unless you intend to use the wrong one, or don’t try to correct it when the error is pointed out, I think God will forgive such an error.
 
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