Sunday, April 19, 2009

Quasi modo geniti infantes

In Catholic calendars nowadays, today is called Divine Mercy Sunday (dominica de divina misericordia). But one of its old colloquial names was derived from its opening words in Latin (from 1 Peter 2:2-3, and pre-Vulgate):

Quasi modo geniti infantes, rationabile,
sine dolo lac concupiscite ut in eo crescatis in salutem
si gustastis quoniam dulcis Dominus.


Quasimodo Sunday has a certain indirect literary fame, in that it is the holy day that gave its name to the central character of Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. In the story, a little deformed baby is left on the steps of the Cathedral of Notre Dame on Quasimodo Sunday; and the theme of the verses that open that Sunday haunts the rest of the tale.