What are the people saying about the new translation?

[Gedackt flute]

A while ago, I asked people to offer criticism of any music or singing that I help provide for the parish.

I can only say that people have been more that generous in supplying it.

This has been very useful, because when people feel free to say exactly what they think, you can
get some very useful information.

Everyone likes 'Eagles wings' (Craig Kingsbury arr.) -- recessionals -- offertory hymns. I am often asked
to put on more hymns to Our Lady. People like Noel Rawsthorne's easy preludes. Also, rather surprisingly,
Vierne's (in my view tortured, chromatic) music.

Not everyone likes the sound of the organ, or the guitar for that matter.

I have yet to hear anything positive about the new translation -- although it is, of course, very early days.
One parishioner said: 'I'll leave it to those who understand it, and continue reading my old missal'.
'Thru' my fault, etc.' has invited a fair amount of ridicule. A few people have said that it is a step backward
to 'Catholic guilt days'.

Okay ,criticism needs to be informed, but you cannot make people like any text or music setting.

Will people 'take ownership' of this new text?

What do SSG bloggers think? -- what are your fellow parishioners saying?

[Gedackt flute]

PS - Am I being thick -- but is it a bit daft to translate literally from the latin when the original was not in latin?

JQ

[alan29]

Not many comments, and none of them positive.
"There's an awful lot of 'deigning' going on"
"Consubstantial? And that supposed to be English?"
"It would fail A Level as a piece of translation." From a retired Head of Classics at a local grammar school.

I guess most people have put up or shut up.

[Eastern Promise]

I don't think I'm exaggerating too much when I say that some of you have deliberately been going out of your way, desperately trying to find (whip up?) negative comments about the new translation. Too bad. It's here to stay. Deal with it.

[alan29]

I don't think I'm exaggerating too much when I say that some of you have deliberately been going out of your way, desperately trying to find (whip up?) negative comments about the new translation. Too bad. It's here to stay. Deal with it.

Brain disengaged.

[Eastern Promise]

HO!HO!HO!

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2011/12/receptio ... +Say%3F%29

[gwyn]

I love it. In fact it's pretty much back to the Church in Wales Holy Eucharist translation (the little blue book) that I left behind when converting to Roman Catholicism in 1978.

[Southern Comfort]

I am very pleased to see that our clergy are making a real effort to proclaim the texts so that they both make some sort of sense and are actually prayerful. Kudos to them!

However, I am also saddened by what I perceive is a real silencing of the assembly. In some parishes, admitted, the people are having a go with a will. In many others, though, people have given up trying to remember when to look at the Mass cards (or there are simply not enough cards to go round because people are taking them home with the parish bulletin by mistake) and seem to be fed up with the confusion that results from two sets of words going on simultaneously. The result is that they are simply not making the responses at all. I have done "before and after" comparisons in a number of parishes, and can report a marked diminishment in the volume of the congregational responses and texts such as the Gloria and Creed. Only the "enthusiasts" are joining in with them.

In the 16+ weeks since the changeover, more than half the parishes I have visited are using the Apostles' Creed, rather than the Nicene Creed.

A significant number of parishes are still in the process of converting from old to new settings. The parish where I played on Christmas morning is still using an old-text Gloria, for example, but sang a revised-text Sanctus.

The most popular settings in this part of the world appear, in order of frequency, to be:
The Psallite Mass
Chris Walker's In Pace Acclamations
The revised Gathering Mass Acclamations
The revised Mass of Creation

[Nick Baty]

From parishes here in God's own city, I'm hearing frustration caused by stumbling over some of the words mixed with an open-minded approach to fresh music.

We too stumbled through Christmas with an old Gloria – and will use another on New Year's Day. However, we have four sets of Eucharistic Acclamations on the go – one of them in all three of our churches – and will introduce a new through-composed Gloria for the Epiphany which we'll then sing for the seven Sundays from then until Ash Wednesday. New set of acclamations planned for Lent. And a refrain Gloria being introduced on Easter Sunday.

[nazard]

The response seems to be age dependent. People old enough to remember the latin or the pre ICEL translations seem pleased to be rid of the old translation. Those who grew up with the ICEL approximation are surprised that anyone would want anything else, which is pretty much what I would expect.

[johnquinn39]

Most people I have spoken to think that the whole thing is rather silly. People don't say 'through my fault etc.' in everyday speech - so why do so at church? (would 'my sin fills me with dismay' be better?).

The 'new' doxology is, in my view, in a silly, muddled order, and has pretty well snookered singing the great Amen.

Needless to say, I have encountered a choir member who finds the whole thing 'beautiful'.

Who is this translation for? - Latin mass types like it - but they wont be using it as they will be going to latin masses.

PS

Why is it that THEY (the traddies) are allowed to serve God in their way - Altar rails, archaic and non-inclusive language, the EF mass, communion wine, guitars & altar girls banned - but WE (the Conciliars) are not allowed to serve God in His way?

[SOP]

Don't travel round to many different churches so can only comment on the one I attend.

In the choir, we tend to smile if we go into auto-pilot and recite the old words and pick up the card when whatever we should be saying is almost done. Most people are trying and reading from the cards. Looking at the congregation, i would say there are more people joining in because they have the words on a card.

Weekday masses I would say there are definitely more people joining in. Again, there are smiles for those who go into auto-pilot. The biggest stumbler for me was the "Lord I am not worthy ..." but I have forced myself to learn it. Found it especially difficult if I was Eucharistic Minister and had not taken my card up with me!

Becoming used to it. I try and listen to the Eucharistic Prayers and recapture some of the understanding/illumination I felt at Summer School but it just isn't happening. I find I am ready to sing the Sanctus earlier than before as the key words appear sooner in the revised text.

Think I will be happier when people get their heads out of the cards/missalettes etc.

But early days.

[Nick Baty]

I find I am ready to sing the Sanctus earlier than before as the key words appear sooner in the revised text.

At Midnight Mass I cued the Per Ipsum, rather loudly, far too early!

[musicus]

... (snipped some quite sensible stuff)...Why is it that THEY (the traddies) are allowed to serve God in their way - Altar rails, archaic and non-inclusive language, the EF mass, communion wine, guitars & altar girls banned - but WE (the Conciliars) are not allowed to serve God in His way?

You know, I'm not at all sure that such a sharp either/or, we/they division is what is going on (at least, not in my experience). I can think of several 'traditional' folk who, while generally liking the new translation, accept that it (and, especially, the process that led to it) is by no means perfect, and several 'non-traditional' people who don't care for it at all but can accept the need for it (e.g. a more faithful Latin translation etc). However, your final phrase suggests you are speaking from the heart (or elsewhere), rather than from your head

[Eastern Promise]

... (snipped some quite sensible stuff)...Why is it that THEY (the traddies) are allowed to serve God in their way - Altar rails, archaic and non-inclusive language, the EF mass, communion wine, guitars & altar girls banned - but WE (the Conciliars) are not allowed to serve God in His way?

You know, I'm not at all sure that such a sharp either/or, we/they division is what is going on (at least, not in my experience). I can think of several 'traditional' folk who, while generally liking the new translation, accept that it (and, especially, the process that led to it) is by no means perfect, and several 'non-traditional' people who don't care for it at all but can accept the need for it (e.g. a more faithful Latin translation etc). However, your final phrase suggests you are speaking from the heart (or elsewhere), rather than from your head

Tired and emotional, more like...