Fluff piece on new translation

This reads to me like a fluff piece.



Not a word about the serious misgivings some people have about this "new" Mass.

Ugh.

on...they do nothing about. Changes to the mass, as changing certain word or phrases, do not make any sense to any Catholic that I know of.

which were to make the mass more accessible. Certainly, improvements were in order, but just going back to the old literal translation, with the use of archaic words never used today, isn't the way to go. It's a bit like saying that Shakespeare wrote beautiful prose, so let's all go back to speaking Elizabethan English.

Last week, the parish priest substituted the old alternate Collect; yesterday, we had the Jesuit Superior for mass, and he went back to the old version of the Nicene Creed, an old Eucharistic Prayer, and the old prayer before Communion, "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you". And we said "And also with you" all the way through.

This might just be the last gasp before the new translation officially starts next week; it will be interesting to see. But it's a fact that the parish has had feedback from the parishioners, and it isn't good.

And yet I did not die. ;-)

Seriously, I became used to certain phrasing (e.g., the German Und mit deinem Geiste, "And with thy spirit") when I lived in Europe, and some of the "new" form of the Mass is already familiar to me. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

So this really is the least of my theological worries these days, especially since just across the river a bishop is blocking young women from serving at the altar. :grr:

although even after months, sometimes we forget.

My objections to the "mea culpa", which are shared by other parishioners and our priests, is the return to the excessive breast-beating, and the sense of deep unworthiness implied. John XXIII taught us that everyone, Christian and non-Christian, is worthy of love and respect, and it's hard to go back to the grovelling of earlier times. When I look at some of the old prayers, which reiterate over and over how sinful and unworthy we are, I wonder how anybody managed to say them and keep their self-respect. So - we no longer say the Confiteor. And should a visiting priest wish to say it, nobody will be beating their breast. We have the "Kyrie", and that's enough.

The Nicene Creed has also gone, because of the one word, "consubstantial". It's draw a lot of criticism, and rightly so. We substitute the Apostles' Creed.

But along with preventing girls from serving, and trying to eliminate extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, I am concerned with the backward shift from the Vatican. It's foolish - the Pope may have the power, but if people get fed up and walk, he's going to be presiding over a very small church. It's a concept that doesn't seem to bother him ("A smaller, purer Church"), but who's going to pay for the upkeep of the Vatican and all the papal minions?

May your journey,
begun on the commencement of the new liturgical year,
be a peaceful and harmonious
event,
foreshadowing the eternal pilgrimage which we make in this life towards our heavenly home,
knowing full well that the heavenly King is the one who assists us on our journey,
and may your reading of the words “chalice” “consubstantial” and “gibbet” fill you with a renewed spirituality of liturgical transcendence,
knowing that you are assisted by the power of Latin syntax and the approval of
Vatican officials,
thus delivering us closer to masses “ad orientem”,
a foretaste of the heavenly sacrifice renewed each day through the ministrations of validly ordained and orthodox clergy,
working under the guidance of bishops, successors to the apostles and supreme teachers and liturgists in their respective dioceses,
an occasion of renewal in the true understanding of church councils,
which have often been misconstrued,
so that we may be one church gathered in obedience and submission.

That's something the magniloquent Cardinal Pell doesn't understand. Latin is a lovely, very precise language, but it's constructed in a different way to English. You can make an exact translation, but then you need to switch the words around in a sequence that makes the translation easy for the modern ear to comprehend. And you can use the modern vernacular and still have grace and beauty. It's all in the syntax.

Look at these two versions of the Collect of the second week of Advent this year:

2011 translation:

Grant that your people, we pray, almighty God,
may be ever watchful
for the coming of your Only Begotten Son,
that, as the author of our salvation himself has taught us,
we may hasten, alert with lighted lamps,
to meet him when he comes.


And the rejected 1998 version:

Almighty God,
keep your people ever vigilant
as we await the return of your only Son,
that, mindful of our Saviour’s teaching,
we may be ready with lamps burning
and hasten to greet him when he comes.

Commas are very useful little things, and when used properly show where to use pauses and to separate phrases to make the meaning clear. But if they're overused, as in the first one, the writing looks clumsy and can leave the listener asking "What...??"

The new translation of the words may be correct. But the syntax is bloody awful.


*Magniloquent: speaking or expressed in a lofty or grandiose style; pompous; bombastic; boastful. From the Latin "magniloquentia", meaning to speaking grandly.

"It occurs to me that liberal Jew and pop-culture touchstone Steven Spielberg might be a better guide to translation than the hierarchy.
When the American industrialist and secret Nazi, Donovan, and the comely Dr. Elsa Schneider enter the knight’s Grail chamber, they choose poorly: a bejeweled chalice. When Indiana Jones is forced to choose, he chooses a humble “cup of a carpenter” and it turns out to be the true Grail.

Imagine a gaggle of Catholic bishops finding their way into Spielberg’s Grail Knight’s chamber. Would there be anyone left alive by the end?"

(Comment from

http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=16079