As I understand it, granted by indult from Rome...rather than arbitrarily introduced.
Personally I think that the pastoral need should be addressed in the base text, rather than done arbitrarily. If one pays close attention to what is said in our Mass and what is said in, for example, the Mass in French, you might almost think that we don't belong to the same Church.
New Mass Translation
Moderators: Dom Perignon, Casimir
Perhaps a better way to express my concern is to ask about the 'honesty' of a text. For example, the Roman Rite is quite deferential in character, and I have no problem with the fact that deference does not, perhaps, sit well with people of the modern age. However, it doesn't change the fact that our liturgy is in fact deferential.
I know I don't sound like a Tablet reader (gave up the subscription because too many things in it wound me up!) but I can't be the only person to have read the series of articles on the Collects of the Mass and been just a little shocked at whole ideas being left out of a translation, or about 'Almighty and Ever-living God' being rendered as 'Father' can I? Do we really need to make God 'cuddly', isn't it just a little dishonest? Don't the translators have a duty to make sure that, if our liturgical texts are vertical as well as horizontal in character, their translations reflect that? If we take the vertical out of our prayers aren't we also inviting people to take the vertical out of their lives? What effect does that then have on our Church? - and then extend that through all the other things that are edited out of our liturgy...
I know I don't sound like a Tablet reader (gave up the subscription because too many things in it wound me up!) but I can't be the only person to have read the series of articles on the Collects of the Mass and been just a little shocked at whole ideas being left out of a translation, or about 'Almighty and Ever-living God' being rendered as 'Father' can I? Do we really need to make God 'cuddly', isn't it just a little dishonest? Don't the translators have a duty to make sure that, if our liturgical texts are vertical as well as horizontal in character, their translations reflect that? If we take the vertical out of our prayers aren't we also inviting people to take the vertical out of their lives? What effect does that then have on our Church? - and then extend that through all the other things that are edited out of our liturgy...
Reginald wrote:If we don't like the text then we should be petitioning Rome to change the Latin original. It is not, I think, appropriate that the English speaking Church should forge its own path in defiance of the Church Universal
That's all a rather loaded way of putting things. It's only 'defiance' if you choose to call it that, but someone else might see authentic liturgical pluralism as a healthy sign of the Spirit at work in local churches. Your point of view is also deeply ahistorical - where do you think the diversity of rites dating back to ancient times comes from - because the Chaldeans, the Armenians and the rest 'petitioned Rome' to be allowed to celebrate the liturgy in their different ways?
For long periods of the Church's history Rome has followed rather than led when it comes to the development of the rites. For about two hundred years (in the eighth and ninth centuries) the powerhouse of liturgical development was the Frankish court, and during this period any number of lasting liturgical innovations came out of France and Germany. (For instance, a great many of the most striking symbolic actions in the Holy Week liturgies: the Palm Sunday procession, the washing of feet on Maundy Thursday, and service of light at the Easter Vigil.)
So what's different now - could it be that modern mass communications make it easier for Rome to lay down the law? Does that mean the Church has only in recent centuries perfected the way in which it safeguards liturgical practice, and in the first fifteen or sixteen centuries it was basically winging it?
Reginald wrote:or about 'Almighty and Ever-living God' being rendered as 'Father' can I? Do we really need to make God 'cuddly', isn't it just a little dishonest?
This is equally loaded, and I find it no more persuasive. If it's 'dishonest' to call God 'Father', then our Lord was 'dishonest' when he taught us to pray in his words. The fact that Latin prayers are traditionally elaborate in structure and couched in courtly forms of address doesn't, I think, touch on matters of truth so much as aesthetics. You're perhaps still entitled to insist on fidelity to Roman models and Roman documents, but do be careful what you accuse others of.
M.
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docmattc
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Reginald wrote:I know I don't sound like a Tablet reader (gave up the subscription because too many things in it wound me up!) but I can't be the only person to have read the series of articles on the Collects of the Mass and been just a little shocked at whole ideas being left out of a translation, or about 'Almighty and Ever-living God' being rendered as 'Father' can I?
That series of articles did illustrate that, if one studies the collects from a scholarly point of view, they are incredibly rich and perhaps some of the translations could indeed be better. But I wonder how much of the rich, multilayered meaning of the prayer can be conveyed to, or grasped by, the average person in the pew on a single hearing each Sunday? The translation given in 13th Jan Tablet (which is the first picked up from the clutter round my desk) would have an opening prayer reading:
All powerful ever-living God,
you who regulate heavenly bodies and also earthly realities,
listen with indulgence to the public prayers of your people
and grant your peace in our times.
rather than
Father of heaven and earth, hear our prayers and show us the way to peace in the world.
I agree that the latter here is somewhat weak compared to the former and maybe a fresh look at the translation might help, but the former in this form would generate a response of "Wot?" rather than "Amen" from my congregation. We do need to maintain a balance between the vertical and horizontal in our worship, but I don't think the way to maintain the vertical is to couch prayers in language incomprehensible to the average person in the pew.
As an aside, on the inclusion of the Hail Mary. According to a discussion we had during a session on GIRM at last year's summer school, England and Wales produced 2 separate volumes of the Prayer of the Faithful and sent them to Rome in, I think, the late 70s. Rome wrote back on receiving the 2nd volume asking that Marian prayers be removed as the Mass was not the place for devotional prayer. They noted that unfortunately the Hail Mary had been included in Volume 1 and that catechesis would be necessary before its removal. While many bishops think E&W has an indult for the inclusion of the Hail Mary, I don't believe that's the case. This however is a separate thread and not an argument I can get worked up about one way or the other.
I have no problem with deferential language in public worship. It is the way of most churches that worship liturgically. However I find it really offensive when I am asked to worship in mangled and corrupt English in a doomed attempt to reflect the exact grammar of Latin. This is just not worthy of the God we worship, and is but a short step from mumbo-jumbo - Yoda speak.
"The word of the Lord" indeed! That shows the same level of verb-less literacy as a Sun headline. Are the people who came up with this native English speakers?
Could it be that the Tridentine tendency is manipulating their way towards a translation that is so literally unspeakable that anything (even Latin) would be preferable?
Alan
"The word of the Lord" indeed! That shows the same level of verb-less literacy as a Sun headline. Are the people who came up with this native English speakers?
Could it be that the Tridentine tendency is manipulating their way towards a translation that is so literally unspeakable that anything (even Latin) would be preferable?
Alan
In no particular order.
Regarding the honesty or otherwise of substituting Almighty and ever-living God for Father and vice versa. Would you not consider that I was being dishonest with the teachings of Jesus if I introduced a prayer that began “Almighty and ever-living God, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…†and called it a translation? I should hope so, as it fundamentally undermines the intimacy of the relationship that Jesus was pointing to. Why then is it not dishonest to do the reverse?
Since 1970 (ish) we've had a single Rite for most of the Western Catholic Church. give or take the odd indult/Anglican-use parish here and there. That not withstanding, I can think of at least 20 different legitimate rites within the Catholic Church. Do I believe that there is a place for liturgical diversity in the Church, yes. Do I think there has always been liturgical diversity in the Church, yes. Do I think that the liturgy can evolve over time – of course. Can I conceive of a variation of the Roman Rite that grows organically from the current Roman Rite that ticks all the right boxes about simplicity of style and language, yes. But hard on the heels of Vat. II, and with some degree of precedent from Quo Primum in 1570 it would seem that 'the Church' (and in both cases we're talking about popes with some kind of mandate from an ecumenical council, and in the case of the latter a pope acting with his brother bishops) has opted to direct that a particular liturgical form be used – certain exceptional cases notwithstanding.
The thrust of the argument is that the way to effect such change is to follow the procedures currently in force. It was once a simple case of organic growth and ‘legitimate experimentation’ – that is no longer the case in the Catholic Church. To return to my speed limit analogy, it’s still wrong to drive at more than 70 mph, even if you disagree with that limit. The proper means of being able to drive in excess of 70 mph would be to speak to your MP and get the law changed. To be absolutely crystal clear, my issue is not so much with the content of the texts, but the means of introducing them, and with the fact that those who would introduce them arbitrarily may not be minded to preserve the traditions of the Church nor to ensure that the liturgy grows organically, rather than by a process of liturgical archaeologism or rupture. Recent pictures on the web of a bishop sat on a sofa, celebrating Mass in a jumper do not, for example, fill me with confidence that such a person has a clear vision of the verticality of the liturgy – albeit that he probably has a very clear vision of the humility and humanity of Christ.
With regard to the opening prayer quoted by docmattc, I wouldn’t be too unhappy with a translation of that prayer that went like this:
“Almighty, eternal God, ruler of all things both in heaven and on earth, listen favourably to the petitions of your people, and grant us peace in our time.â€
- of course the work’s not my own, but rather that of the National Liturgical Commission of England and Wales © 1973. The fact that we lost that translation in favour of: “Father of heaven and earth, hear our prayers and show us the way to peace in the world.†suggests to me that faithfulness of translation and intelligibility were not the only factors involved in agreeing a single translation for the whole English-speaking world.
I really don’t want to cause offence with my ‘conservative’ views. I just think that, as a layman in the pew I’ve got a right to share the same liturgy as someone in India or Finland or wherever without someone putting their own spin on it first – that doesn’t mean that I want to put the liturgical clock back 50 years.
Regarding the honesty or otherwise of substituting Almighty and ever-living God for Father and vice versa. Would you not consider that I was being dishonest with the teachings of Jesus if I introduced a prayer that began “Almighty and ever-living God, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…†and called it a translation? I should hope so, as it fundamentally undermines the intimacy of the relationship that Jesus was pointing to. Why then is it not dishonest to do the reverse?
Since 1970 (ish) we've had a single Rite for most of the Western Catholic Church. give or take the odd indult/Anglican-use parish here and there. That not withstanding, I can think of at least 20 different legitimate rites within the Catholic Church. Do I believe that there is a place for liturgical diversity in the Church, yes. Do I think there has always been liturgical diversity in the Church, yes. Do I think that the liturgy can evolve over time – of course. Can I conceive of a variation of the Roman Rite that grows organically from the current Roman Rite that ticks all the right boxes about simplicity of style and language, yes. But hard on the heels of Vat. II, and with some degree of precedent from Quo Primum in 1570 it would seem that 'the Church' (and in both cases we're talking about popes with some kind of mandate from an ecumenical council, and in the case of the latter a pope acting with his brother bishops) has opted to direct that a particular liturgical form be used – certain exceptional cases notwithstanding.
The thrust of the argument is that the way to effect such change is to follow the procedures currently in force. It was once a simple case of organic growth and ‘legitimate experimentation’ – that is no longer the case in the Catholic Church. To return to my speed limit analogy, it’s still wrong to drive at more than 70 mph, even if you disagree with that limit. The proper means of being able to drive in excess of 70 mph would be to speak to your MP and get the law changed. To be absolutely crystal clear, my issue is not so much with the content of the texts, but the means of introducing them, and with the fact that those who would introduce them arbitrarily may not be minded to preserve the traditions of the Church nor to ensure that the liturgy grows organically, rather than by a process of liturgical archaeologism or rupture. Recent pictures on the web of a bishop sat on a sofa, celebrating Mass in a jumper do not, for example, fill me with confidence that such a person has a clear vision of the verticality of the liturgy – albeit that he probably has a very clear vision of the humility and humanity of Christ.
With regard to the opening prayer quoted by docmattc, I wouldn’t be too unhappy with a translation of that prayer that went like this:
“Almighty, eternal God, ruler of all things both in heaven and on earth, listen favourably to the petitions of your people, and grant us peace in our time.â€
- of course the work’s not my own, but rather that of the National Liturgical Commission of England and Wales © 1973. The fact that we lost that translation in favour of: “Father of heaven and earth, hear our prayers and show us the way to peace in the world.†suggests to me that faithfulness of translation and intelligibility were not the only factors involved in agreeing a single translation for the whole English-speaking world.
I really don’t want to cause offence with my ‘conservative’ views. I just think that, as a layman in the pew I’ve got a right to share the same liturgy as someone in India or Finland or wherever without someone putting their own spin on it first – that doesn’t mean that I want to put the liturgical clock back 50 years.
Reginald wrote:The thrust of the argument is that the way to effect such change is to follow the procedures currently in force.
No offence taken! Nor any intended. But I don't think the argument you mention has all that much thrust.
If organic, local development was once a legitimate means of achieving growth and development in liturgical practice, legislating it underground doesn't, it seems to me, alter its essential authenticity.
M.
Other than that we belong to a Church which, legitimately, makes certain decisions for us.
Cardinal Ratzinger, as was, and Cardinal Arinze more recently both make the point that obedience to the liturgical norms is one way in which a priest can make sure that Christ remains at the centre of his actions. Otherwise, in the expression of personal wishes and tastes, there can be the risk that the Mass is about the priest as an individual - cult of personality is probably too strong a term, but you probably get what I'm driving at.
Cardinal Ratzinger, as was, and Cardinal Arinze more recently both make the point that obedience to the liturgical norms is one way in which a priest can make sure that Christ remains at the centre of his actions. Otherwise, in the expression of personal wishes and tastes, there can be the risk that the Mass is about the priest as an individual - cult of personality is probably too strong a term, but you probably get what I'm driving at.
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docmattc
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Reginald, you're certainly not causing offence. All view points (well argued and politely expressed!) welcome here. If we all agreed with each other the forum would be a very dull place indeed, just as long as we don't resort to pistols at dawn 
)
It seems to my nonspecialist, ill educated mind that the problem here is one of formation. Has local development been legislated against because priests, even bishops, were/are unaware of the history/meaning/symbolism/theology in various aspects of the Rite such that 'legitimate experimentation' has become 'illegitimate experimentation' and abuse such that Rome has decided to clamp down and demand everyone follows its lead to the letter? If more pastors etc had a greater sense of liturgy and were well formed, then sensitive, appropriate experimentation would be more likely to occur than bizarre practices borne out of not really understanding (or caring?) what's happening anyway (viz my "singing the preface" thread for a fairly minor example, or the whole congregation saying the presidential prayers "because otherwise they just have to stand and listen")
This is purely speculation of course, but Rome does tend to legislate for abuses, and even with the most liberal interpretation of 'experimentation' they're not so hard to find. How ever formation rather than (or as well as) legislation is the solution, because simply saying "don't do it" won't stop folk making up their own rites.
But lets be clear that conforming to liturgical norms, in the sense of blindly following the rubrics, does not necessarily make good liturgy. Understanding the norms is needed.
)
mcb wrote: If organic, local development was once a legitimate means of achieving growth and development in liturgical practice, legislating it underground doesn't, it seems to me, alter its essential authenticity.
It seems to my nonspecialist, ill educated mind that the problem here is one of formation. Has local development been legislated against because priests, even bishops, were/are unaware of the history/meaning/symbolism/theology in various aspects of the Rite such that 'legitimate experimentation' has become 'illegitimate experimentation' and abuse such that Rome has decided to clamp down and demand everyone follows its lead to the letter? If more pastors etc had a greater sense of liturgy and were well formed, then sensitive, appropriate experimentation would be more likely to occur than bizarre practices borne out of not really understanding (or caring?) what's happening anyway (viz my "singing the preface" thread for a fairly minor example, or the whole congregation saying the presidential prayers "because otherwise they just have to stand and listen")
This is purely speculation of course, but Rome does tend to legislate for abuses, and even with the most liberal interpretation of 'experimentation' they're not so hard to find. How ever formation rather than (or as well as) legislation is the solution, because simply saying "don't do it" won't stop folk making up their own rites.
reginald wrote:Cardinal Ratzinger, as was, and Cardinal Arinze more recently both make the point that obedience to the liturgical norms is one way in which a priest can make sure that Christ remains at the centre of his actions.
But lets be clear that conforming to liturgical norms, in the sense of blindly following the rubrics, does not necessarily make good liturgy. Understanding the norms is needed.
I couldn't agree more.
I said, in another post at another time, that if I look at the list of 'greats' that formed the committee that worked on the Modern Roman Rite: Jungmann, Bouyer, Messaien et al, I've got to be very sure of myself to dismiss what they thought ought to be included in the modern rite - and we're not talking about a conservative group here. Thoughtfully 'stretching' the rubrics for pastoral reasons I can live with. Not giving a stuff about the rubrics 'cos 'Father knows best' is a different thing entirely!
I said, in another post at another time, that if I look at the list of 'greats' that formed the committee that worked on the Modern Roman Rite: Jungmann, Bouyer, Messaien et al, I've got to be very sure of myself to dismiss what they thought ought to be included in the modern rite - and we're not talking about a conservative group here. Thoughtfully 'stretching' the rubrics for pastoral reasons I can live with. Not giving a stuff about the rubrics 'cos 'Father knows best' is a different thing entirely!
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Vox Americana
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That's it. Building on Vox's observations, specifically about France. You go to Mass on a fine sunny day and you get guitars, tambourines, a priest extemporising the Eucharistic prayer. A little rain and it's Latin, ad orientem and organs. Only problem is that on the continent you'd have to have metrical hymns. Tee Hee
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docmattc
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Vox Americana wrote:Reginald wrote:To return to my speed limit analogy, it’s still wrong to drive at more than 70 mph…
65mph where I live and 75 further west; 80mph in France unless wet, when it's 68mph; unlimited in Germany on the Autobahn. An argument for regional variation in Liturgy?
And if the likely relaxation of the restrictions on the Tridentine Rite come into play, not only will there be regional variation of speed limit, but you might not know beforehand whether you'll be in a car or on a train
