Posted on 02/08/2017 8:45:15 AM PST by Salvation
Many groups have a tendency to use words that make sense to their members but are unintelligible to outsiders. I have sometimes had to decode “Church-speak” for recent converts.
For example, one time I proudly announced, “RCIA classes will begin next week, so if you know anyone who is interested in attending please fill out an information card on the table just outside the sacristy door.” I thought I’d been perfectly clear, but then a new member approached me after Mass to inquire about the availability of classes to become Catholic and when they would begin. Wondering if she’d forgotten the announcement I reminded her what I had said about RCIA classes; she looked at me blankly. “Oh,” I said, “Let me explain what I mean by RCIA.” After I did so, I mentioned that she could pick up a flyer over by the sacristy door. Again I got a blank stare, followed by the question “What’s the sacristy?” Did I dare tell her that the classes would be held in the rectory?
I’ve had a similar reaction when announcing CCD classes. One angry parent called me to protest that she had been told by the DRE (more Church-speak) that her daughter could not make her First Holy Communion unless she started attending CCD. The mother, the non-Catholic wife of a less-than-practicing Catholic husband, had no idea what CCD meant and why it should be required in order for her daughter to receive Holy Communion. She had never connected the term CCD with Sunday school or any form of religious instruction.
Over my years as a priest I have become more and more aware that although I use what I would call ordinary terms of traditional Catholicism, given the poor catechesis (another Church word, meaning religious training, by the way) of so many, the meaning of what I am saying is lost. For example, I have discovered that some Catholics think that “mortal sin” refers only to killing someone. Even the expression “grave sin” is nebulous to many; they know it isn’t good, but aren’t really sure what it means. “Venial sin” is even less well understood!
Other words such as covenant, matrimony, incarnation, transubstantiation, liturgy, oration, epistle, Gospel, Collect, Homily, compunction, contrition, Sanctus, chalice, paten, alb, Holy Orders, theological, missal, consubstantial, one in being, Monsignor, narthex, ambo, and Eucharistic, while meaningful to many in the Church, are often only vaguely understood by others in the Church, not to mention the unchurched (is that another Church word?).
Once, at daily Mass, I was preaching based on a reading from the First Letter of John and was attempting to make the point that our faith is “incarnational.” I noticed vacant looks out in the pews. And so I asked the small group gathered that day if anyone knew what “incarnational” meant; no one did. I went on to explain that it meant that the Word of God had to become flesh in us; it had to become real in the way we live our lives. To me, the word “incarnational” captured the concept perfectly, but most of the people didn’t even really know for sure what “incarnation” meant, let alone “incarnational.”
Ah, Church-speak!
During my years in the seminary the art of Church-speak seemed to rise to new levels. I remember that many of my professors, while railing against the use of Latin in the liturgy, had a strange fascination with Greek-based terminology. Mass was out, Eucharist was in. “Going to Mass” was out, “confecting the synaxis” was in. Canon was out, “anamnesis” and “anaphora” were in. Communion was out, koinonia was in. Mystagogia, catechumenate, mysterion, epikaia, protoevangelion, hapax legomenon, epiklesis, synderesis, eschatology, Parousia, and apakatastasis were all in. These are necessary words, I suppose, but surely opaque to most parishioners. Church-speak indeed, or should I say ekklesia-legomenon.
Ah, Church-speak! Here is a list of many other Church words for your edification (and amusement): Church words defined.
At any rate, I have learned to be a little more careful when speaking so as to avoid using too many insider expressions and older terms without carefully explaining them. I think we can and should learn many of them, but we should not assume that most people know them.
The great and Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said that he discovered early on that he often got credit for being learned when in fact he was merely being obscure. And for any who knew him in his later years, especially through his television show, he was always very careful to explain Church teaching in a way that made it accessible to the masses. It’s good advice for all of us: a little less of the CCD and RCIA jargon and little more clear “religious instruction” can help others to decode our Church-speak.
I am not saying that we should “dumb down” our vocabulary, for indeed it is a precious patrimony in many cases. But we need to do more explaining rather than merely presuming that most people will know what our terms mean.
This video has a lot of gibberish in it, but it illustrates how we can sound at times if we’re not careful!
I never talk to non Christians about being “saved”.
I talk to them about receiving eternal life. Eventually we get to what they are being saved from: Death.
I consider practicing “King James” speech to be poison. I occasionally use a KJV if I want to compare versions, but other than that I avoid it.
One day in our southern Baptist church, which is all KJV all the time, the pastor is reading a confusing scripture and explains to the congregation what it actually means. My wife had her NIV bible open and he recited, word for word, her NIV translation of the verse. It was as if he was reading it from her bible.
I hate spending half our time trying to interpret/translate 16th century English rather than focusing on the word of God.
Isn't that what America was when people went to drive-ins during the mid-20th century?
Monsignor Pope Ping!
With all due respect, it sounds like the real problem is the obsessive reduction of self explanatory English (or Latin) words into acronyms. If paper and ink were like gold then I suppose changing forty letter word combinations into four letter acronyms would be an economic measure. But it’s become annoying.
The Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible is quite King James itself, being largely drawn from the same preceding Wycliffe English translation, other than certain passages that are key to Catholic doctrine.
I find the King James beautiful myself, one of the greatest if not the greatest literary works of the English language. Quite a few agree, based upon the sales of it. The majority of Bibles in the United States, almost 60%, are KJV.
However, if one struggles with the now somewhat archaic language usage, there are very decent translations in a more modern form of English. They fall flat by comparison to the majesty of the King James, but if one is not capable of understanding it, then plainer language is clearly in order.
no, it has nothing to do with the wycliffe version, the Douay–Rheims Bible is a translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English made by members of the Catholic seminary English College, Douai, France. It is the foundation on which nearly all English Catholic versions are still based.
I realize that’s the official stance. However, read the two. The Challoner Douay-Rheims is word for word for far too many passages.
I have a preacher friend who is KJV only. For some reason he got a little offended when I said that the reason KJV preachers use it is to add ten minutes to each sermon explaining what the words
Actually mean
I have a preacher friend who is KJV only. For some reason he got a little offended when I said that the reason KJV preachers use it is to add ten minutes to each sermon explaining what the words
Actually mean
It is inevitable hat any particular field of study will develop its own technical terminology. Physicists, geologists, mathematicians, engineers, farmers, machinists, carpenters all speak a language peculiar to their field. Theology is no different.
It’s never good to speak in jargon.
Doesn’t Paul’s instruction to the young preacher Timothy contain the solution to this problem? In I Tim. 6.3-4, he said: If any man teacheth a different doctrine, and consenteth not to sound words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; 4 he is puffed up, knowing nothing, but doting about questionings and disputes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings...
I’ve been studying the Bible seriously for 50 years, and I know its words fairly well. When I read this article, I have no knowledge (at least from the Bible) of sacristy, rectory, catechesis, transubstantiation, Sanctus, chalice, paten, alb, Holy Orders, missal, consubstantial, Monsignor, narthex, ambo, Mass, confecting the synaxis, anamnesis, anaphora, Mystagogia, catechumenate, mysterion, epikaia, protoevangelion, hapax legomenon, epiklesis, synderesis, etc., etc.
Could it be that if these words are not in the Bible, the practices they represent are not, either? If I’m trying to teach something and I can’t find Bible words to get the concept across, perhaps the concept isn’t Biblical.
Thanks for reading, and considering.
Which came first? The Church or the Bible?
Obvious answer — the Church came first since the Bible wasn’t finalized and many parts of it had not even been written — including your quote from First Timothy.
Of course the church came before the Bible, but neither one came before the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, wouldn’t you agree?
Thanks for reading, considering, and responding.
“Could it be that if these words are not in the Bible...”
...in an English translation of the Bible.
If your church was founded in 33 AD, does that mean we shouldn’t use sound words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ?
I was trying to offer a scriptural solution to the problem you identify, which I also consider a problem. If “my church” was founded on Monday of this week, isn’t Paul’s solution a valid one?
Thanks for your response.
I’m not making an issue of the translation. Which translation are these words in: sacristy, rectory, catechesis, transubstantiation, Sanctus, chalice, paten, alb, Holy Orders, missal, consubstantial, Monsignor, narthex, ambo, Mass, confecting the synaxis, anamnesis, anaphora, Mystagogia, catechumenate, mysterion, epikaia, protoevangelion, hapax legomenon, epiklesis, synderesis, etc., etc.
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