Third Edition of the Roman Missal - Credit: Mazur
Posted on 11/27/2011 6:41:43 AM PST by NYer
.- As English-speaking Catholic parishes begin using the new translation of the Mass on the first Sunday of Advent, leading members of the hierarchy are predicting great gains for the Church.
“I have a feeling that this will be a great moment for deepening people’s liturgical piety and liturgical spirituality,” said Cardinal Raymond Burke, a member of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship, in comments to CNA.
“The prayers are much more beautiful and they carry with them a staying power,” observed Cardinal Burke.
He predicted that the newly-rendered prayers would “get people thinking about what they prayed, and taking consolation from it, and also inspiration.”
The Rome-based cardinal has been waiting until this weekend to start using the new English missal, in line with the Church in the U.S. But he offered Mass with the new texts on a recent visit to England, where many dioceses have already switched over.
“I have to say the texts are really much, much richer and much more beautiful,” concluded the cardinal, who described the previous translation as “often very bland and stripped of any richness.”
With his promulgation of a new edition of the Roman Missal in 2000, Blessed John Paul II gave the Church the opportunity to make a more faithful English translation of the Mass. The previous version had drawn criticism for its looser adaptation of the original Latin.
New York Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, currently in Rome for his “ad limina” visit to the Pope, recently used the new translation for the first time. Earlier this week he offered the freshly-translated prayers while prerecording his televised Mass for the first Sunday of Advent.
“Awesome, poetic, reverent language,” he said, summing up his impressions to CNA.
Archbishop Dolan also pointed out that the new texts spoken by the laity have changed less than those prayed by the priest.
“I found myself, personally, having to understandably go more slowly at Mass because I was having to look more closely at the text,” he recalled, “and that’s no bad thing.”
New York's archbishop said he was “praying with more reverence and intention and awe” as a result.
Changes for the laity include the reply “and with your spirit” spoken to the priest, rather than the response “and also with you.” Elsewhere, the threefold “mea culpa” – “my fault” – returns to the Penitential Rite, and the profession of the Creed begins with “I believe” instead of “we believe.”
Australian Roman Catholics made these changes several months ago with their shift to the new English version. “We've had no mutiny or revolution in Australia yet,” said Canberra's Archbishop Mark B. Coleridge, chairman of the committee that prepared the new English lectionary.
“Predictions of chaos, and upheaval and revolution just haven’t come to pass,” he told CNA.
The archbishop added that after a “messy transition” in some places, priests and laypeople are starting to see the new language as “richer and stronger than what we have grown up with.”
He sees almost no hostility to the changes from lay Catholics, who he says are “just getting on with it.”
Among the clergy, Archbishop Coleridge has stressed the need for advance work. While the priesthood is “more than a profession,” he said, priests still have to do their “professional preparation” before Mass – because the new texts are “a different idiom.”
Priests, he cautioned, “can’t just open the book and go for it,” without the appropriate study and practice.
We had cue cards and there were only a few goof ups when Father used a new greeting and a new dismissal that we werem’t used to.
The “Thanks be to God.” on the dismissal didn’t change so he did it all over again. LOL!
I went to a workshop put on by someone who served on the Vox Clara team that re-translated the venacular English and made it match the Latin.
You can look for three things:
Longer sentences
Higher linguistic register (We don’t need to be dumbed down by the English speaking bishops of the U. S.)
and
a more accurate to the Latin wording.
Our Mass was beautiful. With very few errors on the assembly’s part.
.....And also in references to the word “Orthodox”, which I do not touch, being for reasons because it is still in use by the Eastern Christians, but also the day I can drop the word “conservative” although good, is deemed to political when it comes to being a “traditional” Catholic.
And they were there at the Anticipated Mass Saturday evening in Virginia, where we were visiting family.
Just fyi, I can recommend St. Bridget's parish in Richmond as a straight up "say the black, do the red" parish.
:) +
I’m looking for the Preface that our priest said that listed all the angels.
And our priest used Eucahristic Prayer III too.
Now that FR has been made stable again, and though this is very late of me to post, I just want to say that the transition to using the new English wording for the 3rd Edition of the Roman Missal today after my parish 10:30AM Sunday mass, today everyone used the laminated cards and pretty much approached the new wording changes with good humor and even I with the help of my fellow adult choir members helped eased me into the updated prayers as well.
Plus the one prayer I was most pleased with in being updated, the favorite was the updated “Nincene Creed” which uses the simple word “I” instead of “we”, as a reminder that faith in Jesus is an indiviual decision.
The question I ask is, why was the “big deal” in the months leading up to this needed changes?
“Everything was fine, beautiful Mass as always. The “And with your Spirit” will take some getting used to, but regular attendees will not have a problem. Those Christmas and Easter Catholics on the other hand.......”
Truly it will be very interesting in a couple of weeks what the “reaction” from the “C and E” Catholics are going to be when they come upon the word changes in the mass.
After reading your comments, it makes me wonder why is there complaints after the first day or rather first weekend of the new English usage and this is coming from a woman whom for most of her life, up until yesterday, when I only KNEW of the old-style mass as a child of VCII.
This new wording update is simply making the NO a lot more prayerful and reverent.
The new translation is far more accurate - the old version was what used to be called "dynamic translation", which is not what the original language says, but what the 'translator' thinks it means. What that winds up being in reality is just what the translator thinks it ought to be, which may or may not bear any relation to reality.
That's observable in the congregational parts, but far, far more so in comparing the collects and prefaces. Just one example, for the memorial of St. Peter Claver:
Deus, qui beatum Petrum servorum servum effecisti
eumque mira in eis iuvandis caritate et patientia roborasti,
eius nobis intercessione concede,
ut, qua Iesu Christi sunt, quaerentes,
proximos opere et veritate diligamus.
What it really says:
O God, who made Saint Peter Claver a slave of slaves
and strengthened him with wonderful charity and patience as he came to their help,
grant, through his intercession,
that, seeking the things of Jesus Christ,
we may love our neighbor in deeds and in truth.
What the 1973 version said:
God of mercy and love,
you offer all peoples
the dignity of sharing in your life.
By the example and prayers of Saint Peter Claver,
strengthen us to overcome all racial hatreds
and to love each other as brothers and sisters.
. . . thanks and a hat tip to Fr. Z, who has hundreds of examples of translations (and mis-translations) on his blog, What Does the Prayer Really Say?
Do you not agree that, first of all, a translation should tell us what the original says, not something else? (and especially not politically correct blather)?
"Et cum spiritu tuo" does not mean "and also with you." It means "and with your (thy) spirit". "Consubtantialem Patri" does not mean "one in being with the Father" - it means "consubstantial with the Father", or, if you prefer Cranmer's more Anglicised translation, "being of one substance with the Father". They are not the same thing theologically speaking. "Visibilium et invisibilium" does not mean "seen and unseen", it means "visible and invisible" (if I hide behind a curtain, I am unseen. But I am still visible, if you look. Something invisible is never visible and thus can never be seen, whether it's behind the curtain or not.)
And when we're talking about the worship of Almighty God, surely the meaning is more important than in my final exam on Tacitus? A lot more important?
The meaning must be accurate before we address issues of 'flow', which is very subjective, especially when you are rolling out something new for the first time, and even more so when you have a priest and congregation who have not rehearsed the new translation adequately and are stumbling through. On that issue, I would say give it time.
I was accepted into the Catholic Church as an adult convert in 1958. I used a Missal that was Latin on one side (which could never actually hear the priest reading) with the English translation on the opposite page. I used to think that if I could read both pages and arrive at the end with the priest that I would achieve some kind of nirvana and would suddenly be a good Catholic. I never accomplished that. LOL.
This new translation is very much like the English translation that we read while the priest read in Latin. It is very familiar to me.
I've sometimes referred to the Lord's Prayer doxology as "the Protestant Detector". (It caught me fairly frequently in early days as a convert).
Now we have a "C&E Detector".
That's because it's . . . ta-dah! . . . an accurate translation of the Latin! :-D
I am partial to Cranmer's old translation in the 1662/1928 BCP, because that is what I grew up with. But the new translation is very close to Cranmer -- much closer than the 1973 version. That's because both are accurate translations, and other than a certain amount of variation where two possible English words are very similar in meaning, they are going to be using by and large the same words.
The difference between Cranmer and the new translation is most marked where you have a choice of two English words: one with an Anglo-Saxon root, and one with a Latin root. Cranmer headed for the Anglo-Saxon almost every time, while the new translation, like the Douay when contrasted with the KJV/Authorised, prefers the Latin.
Of course, I'm not counting the major alterations to the Eucharistic Prayer that were imposed by Edward VI and his advisers in the interest of Protestantising the rite. That's another whole story, and that's why the Anglican Use Rite in the U.S. has a section of the 1973 ICEL translation dropped in, where it stands out like an unwashed unkempt barefoot hippie at a diplomatic dinner . . . .
Yes, I grew up with the Latin-English missal, and the “new” translation is familiar to me too.
And you’re right...nobody could ever beat the priest to the end of the page!!!
The Preface ended with the following words,
And so, with Angels and Archangels, with Thrones and Dominions, and with all the hosts and Powers of heaven, we sing the hymn of your glory, as without end we acclaim: Holy, holy, holy Lord...
It's mentioned - with great comment - on page 12 of Fr. Jeremy Driscoll's talk to priests in 2010 PDF link. First part of that talk is here.
Thanks all for posting your impressions of the first day of the "new" translation.
I absolutely LOVE every bit of it. For me it brings up the majesty of worship to the point that I almost feel unworthy to be in the presence of the Lord. Which makes me greatful for the gift of faith.
These Bishops live in a bubble.Go out and knock on doors and you will see a great result.
Yes! That’s the one.
Wow! That is some document.
I went to one of Father Jeremy’s worships. Outstanding.
All went ok this evening at mass, until we got to the “Lord I am not worthy to have you come under my roof” (or something). Everybody spoke at a different pace. Oh, well.
One thing: I may have been dozing, but I could swear we did not do the Creed. Is it possible we skipped it? I wanted to try out the new words.
Also, we sang the Kyrie instead of doing that new wording of the Penitential Rite that involves “my grievous fault”. I have a feeling that option will seldom be used, and the celebrant will keep opting for the less guilty sounding “Lord have mercy”.
I’ve been doing that for a year, since I heard the changes. :)
I had to learn them once 5 years ago, so I figured best to get up to speed well ahead of time.
Look for those folks to still do it reflexively for at time, but in time, the “with your spirit” will take over.
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