Society of Saint Gregory

contrabordun wrote:I've always assumed it had the sense of "may the Lord be with you"

Correct. It's a mutual greeting: [Sit] Dominus vobiscum. The indicative form that the CofE currently uses (The Lord is here/His Spirit is with us.) is a strong statement, but no greeting (and the weaker for not being so, I think).

I couldn't support translating "Dominus vobiscum" as "The Lord is here." I agree with what Contrabourdon wrote about the subjunctive. I support "May the Lord be with you."

Back on the subject of "Verbum Domini," if there is to be no verb in the translation as "The word of the Lord," then presumably the reply doesn't need a verb either and should be "Thanks to God."

(The Lord is here/His Spirit is with us.) is a strong statement, but no greeting (and the weaker for not being so, I think).

In the context of the mass, I think I prefer this version. It could easier be sung than our current text, and makes us more collective - priest celebrating as part of the congregation, rather than leading it.

Two good points, Sid.

contrabordon wrote:Present indicative… Present subjunctive…

True. Poor old subjunctive; I would that it were not largely lost from modern English! However, we don't know which mood is better used in English because it was omitted from the Latin and actually either fits.

Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary defines subjunctive as "that mood of a verb used to express condition, hypothesis, contingency, possibility, etc., rather than to state an actual fact". Are we in any doubt that the Lord is with us when we are gathered for the Liturgy? [Perhaps, being a good Catholic, he'll slip in late, at the back… .] To say "May the Lord be with you" allows the possibility that he isn't; "The Lord is with you" is a greater statement of belief and one that might eventually persude people that God doesn't just magically turn up at the words of institution - or, worse, reside in the tabernacle!

monty wrote: 'Word of the Lord' after the readings....it sounds aggressive.

It's happening at one of the churches I play. It sounds...odd, incomplete, aggressive, as monty says, nonsensical, pointless...Why????

[quote="nazard"]There are a few places in the mass where there are phrases with no verb where you would expect a sentence with a verb. "Dominus vobiscum" is an obvious one . . .

"Happy Christmas" . . "Good Morning" . . "Good health!" . . hardly a Latin thing - we do it all the time in English. (Perhaps the neatest parallel in the current context is "Goodbye" - "God by ye" - if the celebrant were (subj.) only to use that literal translation before the Gospel we could all escape before the sermon )

It's just a question of familiarity, I guess, certainly not abrupt or threatening.

Good night all.

Hmm - seem to have mastered those little face things, but not the formatted quote. Is it written up anywhere?

You got the start of the quote bit right, all you need is to put [/quote] at the end of the bit you're quoting.

The difference between "Good morning" etc and "Word of the Lord" is, precisely, as you have said, that the former are currently pretty standard English, and the latter is not, so it sounds strange.

My question is, why deliberately exchange something perfectly normal, not (presumably) wrong or misleading for something that sounds odd? Why?

To me (though I would love to be proved wrong) it smacks of an attitude that says that "because the Latin syntax is X, so, at all costs, must the English be" which may be good Latin scholarship but is very poor English composition.

How about "That was the word of the Lord".

There's a curious practis(c)e that's crept in, that of the lector/priest/deacon holding aloft the missal/book of the gospels after the scripture/gospel reading and saying "This is the Word" or "This is the Gospel of the Lord". I read somewhere that it is the words themselves that are the 'Word'/'Gospel', rather than the book that contains them. This might in part explain why "The Word of The Lord" and "The Gospel of The Lord" are to be used so as not to give rise to any confusion as to exactly what is the Word/Gospel.

As ever I could be completely off the track - wouln't be at all unusual