SIC TRANSIT gloria mundi. Thus passes the glory of the world.
It was my Ars Latina professor in the seminary that most impacted to me the full meaning of that phrase – “fleeting are the things of this world” – weaving it around the legendary triumphs of Rome.
Both a religious rite and a civil ceremony, the triumphus Romanusis a celebration of the military achievement of a general or the emperor himself, whereby, dressed as a demigod and riding a decorated chariot, he brought the rear end of a procession of war spoils and booty, the leaders of the army he defeated included.
As the procession marches on, a slave walks alongside the triumphator’s chariot, shouting to him – amidst the din of the praises from the assembled crowd of admirers – ”sic transit gloria mundi.“ To remind him that everything in the world is transitory.
The practice was apparently appropriated by the Church for the ritual of papal coronation. When the newly elected pope, imperial in his sedia gestatoria (the portable throne borne on the shoulders of Swiss Guards), is taken from St. Peter’s Basilica, the procession is stopped three times. Each time, a papal master of ceremonies would kneel in front of the pope, knock a brass staff and mournfully shout:
“Sancte Pater, sic transit gloria mundi.” So what current of events dredged the mind pool of these vignettes from my classical studies?
It is that time of year when elected officials do their respective SOGAs – state of governance addresses, SOPA for provinces, SOCA for cities, and SOTA for towns. SOTAng bastos not included there. But the President’s SONA taking premium spot here.
SOGAs have become the modern versions of the Roman triumphs, the elected official making a verbal procession of what s/he has accomplished in the fiscal year just past: from the kilometers of roads and the number of bridges and school buildings constructed to the volume of funds deposited in the public coffers, from the number of the sick, elderly and persons with disabilities served to the number of jobs generated, etcetera ad nauseam.
The President’s SONA, but of course, takes the scale and scope of the SOGA to higher ground, to loftier plane.
Sic transit…makes some sort of a reality check to officials taken in by the “greatness” of their own doing, most specially those who tend to believe the propaganda they themselves weave around themselves. The double pronouns there, for effect.
Without the sic transit reminders may come what I first came to know this time from my Greek tutor in the seminary:hubris. Generally translated to “arrogance, pride, haughtiness, insolence,” hubris often is indicative of a superior sense of self, an overestimation of one’s competence, most prevalent among those in positions of power.
You’re the dummy if you can’t see the living embodiment of all this today. Thus, there are the officials so suffused with faith in their perfection that just cannot, will not, do not accept the slightest fail in their programs and projects, seeking and finding convenient scapegoats for it.
Not necessarily the devil, as the predecessor comes handily and will readily do to pin all the blame on. Again, the dummy you are if you can’t get the drift here. Worse are those who totally go on denial in the face of the real: What unconstitutionality? What law? What wrong? Ah, bad? It’s not.
And those that just can’t accept losing – be it some court case, support base, or plain face – persistent in their arrogance, their simple- and single-minded pride in maximum overdrive.
Be reminded though: Hubris always ends in self-destruction. Yeah, whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make… abnoy? Sic transit gloria mundi. Hubris.
What nut!
