Latin Mass prayers - "quicken" translation question

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Palomas

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Hi all,

I have been puzzled on the meaning of the translation for some of the prayers in Latin, I don’t have a specific example right now but the word is “quicken” and the context that I remember it being in is for the Postcommunion prayer – praying that the sacrament of the Eucharist “quicken” us. I just can’t guess the meaning except that maybe we’re asking to get to Heaven faster (only half joking, ha!)? Any insights or corrections would be appreciated, thanks!
 
Palomas said:
Hi all,

I have been puzzled on the meaning of the translation for some of the prayers in Latin, I don’t have a specific example right now but the word is “quicken” and the context that I remember it being in is for the Postcommunion prayer – praying that the sacrament of the Eucharist “quicken” us. I just can’t guess the meaning except that maybe we’re asking to get to Heaven faster (only half joking, ha!)? Any insights or corrections would be appreciated, thanks!
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I don’t know if this right or not, but the term “quicken” is an older term when a woman first felt the baby she was carrring move. 🙂 My Latin is at best nonexistent, but it may be used in the sense of the Eucharist giving us life in the Spirit. :knight1::nun1:
 
Palomas said:
Hi all,

I have been puzzled on the meaning of the translation for some of the prayers in Latin, I don’t have a specific example right now but the word is “quicken” and the context that I remember it being in is for the Postcommunion prayer – praying that the sacrament of the Eucharist “quicken” us. I just can’t guess the meaning except that maybe we’re asking to get to Heaven faster (only half joking, ha!)? Any insights or corrections would be appreciated, thanks!
Click to expand...
It’s an archaic English verb meaning “bring to life” more or less. In other contexts I’ve seen it refer to pregnancy in a woman. Oxford could probably do a better job but I don’t have one at hand.
 
The usage is perhaps more common in the UK than in North America. Note that the classic English text of the Creed says “the quick and the dead” so from that it’s clear that “quick” means living. Look, for example, at the 2nd definition here. As another example, take “quicksand” which seems to have been so-called because it appears to be “alive” insofar as it tends to engulf just about anything that touches its surface.
 
Thanks everyone for your responses, that makes more sense now. The Eucharist quickens us, as in gives us life/revives us! My next question would have been how you would use “quicken” when referring to pregnancy/feeling the baby move, then I saw on the first link that Malphono gave, the example “the fetus quickened” to mean that the fetus moved. Thanks Malphono for the link to the etymology dictionary, it should come in handy in the future. 🙂

I never thought of quicksand like that but it’s interesting that its root words are “living sand”, I always thought it had the name “quicksand” because if someone happened to step in it he would quickly to sink in. :eek:
 
Palomas said:
Thanks everyone for your responses, that makes more sense now. The Eucharist quickens us, as in gives us life/revives us! My next question would have been how you would use “quicken” when referring to pregnancy/feeling the baby move, then I saw on the first link that Malphono gave, the example “the fetus quickened” to mean that the fetus moved. Thanks Malphono for the link to the etymology dictionary, it should come in handy in the future. 🙂

I never thought of quicksand like that but it’s interesting that its root words are “living sand”, I always thought it had the name “quicksand” because if someone happened to step in it he would quickly to sink in. :eek:
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As Malphono pointed out, the translation of the Creed that Anglicans use (from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer) written in Early Modern English has “And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead.” I guess slow folks like me are as good as dead then. 😃

According to Wiktionary, quick comes

From Middle English quik or quic, from Old English cwic (“alive”), from Proto-Germanic *kwikwaz, from Proto-Indo-European *gʷih₃wós (“alive”), from *gʷey- (“to live”). Cognate with Dutch kwiek, German keck, Swedish kvick; and (from Indo-European) with Ancient Greek βίος (bios), Latin vivus, Lithuanian gývas, Latvian dzivs, Russian живой (živoj), Irish biathaim (“nourish”), Kurdish jîn (“to live”) and jiyan (“life”).
 
…and don’t forget the old word for mercury, ‘quicksilver’. It seems like a living silver because it moves when you shake a bowl of it.

I’ve never heard the pregnancy connection but it does make sense. There has to be a day when the baby is felt to move for the first time - evidence that it is alive.
 
This is my understanding of the term “to quicken”; The literal Greek meaning of the word quicken is to “make alive, give life or vitality.”

so I think Rich C is closest to correct. 🙂
 
If you read older medical textbooks, or even older other literature which refers to pregnancy, you will see phrases like “quickening begins usually in the fourth or fifth month”, or I haven’t felt any quickening yet." I am 63 years old, and this was a rather common term when I was young, so it’s not THAT archaic, but has fallen out of use in recent years. It refers to the time when a woman first feels the movement of the baby in her uterus.
 
I have found, in the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Bonaventure Press 1904 edition; from the office of Prime, Psalm LXXXIV, the term in latin is thus:

“Deus tu conversus vivificabis; et plebs tua laetabitur in te.” And in their translation in english; “Thou wilt turn again, O God, and quicken us; and Thy people shall rejoice in Thee.”

Their translation in english doesn’t match my Douay Rheims Bible but its close. I don’t have a Vulgate to compare it to so thats the best I can do for now.
 
corsair said:
“Deus tu conversus vivificabis…” And in their translation in english; “Thou wilt turn again, O God, and quicken us; …”
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That’s what I was looking for. Fr Lasance and the Angelus Press translate the same way.

St Joseph’s Missal has it: “Will you not, O God, give us life?”

My Sunday Missal: “Thou wilt turn, O God, and bring us to life.”

St Andrew’s Missal: “Thou wilt turn, O God, and bring us life.”

Interlinear: Deus, tu conversus vivificabis nos.
God, You turn again enliven us.

converto, converti, conversus - to turn around, to direct towards

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The word (or variation thereof) is also found in the Nicene Creed:

Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum, et vivificantem,
And in Spirit Holy, Lord, and life-giver,
 
And this is why I’m trying very hard to relearn my latin from 1955-56. 😃
 
ProVobis said:
The word (or variation thereof) is also found in the Nicene Creed:

Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum, et vivificantem,
And in Spirit Holy, Lord, and life-giver,
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Also Before the Minor Elevation:

Interlinear: Per quem hæc omnia, Domine, semper bona creas,
By Whom these all, Lord, always good things you create,

sanctificas, ** vivificas**, benedicis, et præstas nobis.
You sanctify, You give life to, You bless, and you give to us

EC Missal: By Whom, O Lord, Thou dost always create, sanctify, quicken, bless, and bestow upon us all these good things. (also Fr. Lasance)

St Joseph: Through Whom, O Lord, You always create, sanctify, fill with life, bless, and bestow upon us all good things.

My Sunday Missal: Through whom, O Lord, Thou dost ever create, hallow, fill with life, bless and bestow upon us all good things.

St. Andrew: Through whom, O Lord, Thou dost always create, sanctify, quicken, bless, and bestow upon us all these Thy gifts.

ICEL 1: Through him you give us all these gifts. You fill them with life and goodness, you bless them and make them holy.

ICEL 2: Through whom you continue to create all these good things, O Lord; you make them holy, fill them with life, bless them, and bestow them upon us.
 
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