Happy Catholic links to an address by Arthur Roche, Bishop of Leeds, to the gathered U. S. bishops about to vote on the new English translation of the Mass.
The stakes are higher than I realized. I’ve always been comforted that it’s "just the English version" of the Mass that’s somewhat screwed up; other countries’ missals are more faithful to the Latin, right? But Bishop Roche makes a cautionary point. Because it’s English, we have to be extra careful, an argument that in English we should be especially faithful to the text:
Fifteen hundred years ago, Latin continued to be used while the Romance languages were growing out of it. Moreover, Latin became a vehicle of culture and faith for those who spoke Germanic languages. It was by means of Latin that the faith was preserved and transmitted in Western Europe. It needs to be remembered now that in many parts of the world it is English that will be called upon to play a similar rôle.
Also in many countries where English is not much spoken, the English version of liturgical texts plays an important function, because it is used as a guide to translating the Latin. …in Norway and many parts of Africa and Asia, for instance, the translators rely heavily on the English version. I imagine that may be the case here, too, when the Mass is translated into Native American languages. We clearly have a responsibility to these people. At a meeting of the Presidents of English-speaking Episcopal Conferences in Rome, in October 2003, many Episcopal Conferences requested ICEL to share with them our scholarship in order to help them with their own translations. This is readily made available.
Whether we like it or not, the English translation from the Latin will guide people making translations into other languages. It’s like a game of sacramental "telephone."
He mentions a couple of examples that show how so-called "dynamic equivalence" can impoverish the language:
For example, in the Third Eucharistic prayer when we say so that from east to west a perfect offering may be made. The proponents of dynamic equivalence tell us that from east to west conveys the same information as from the rising of the sun to its setting, which we now propose.
And so it does, in the dry language of the cartographer. But the meaning of this phrase is richer: it has a temporal dimension as well as a spatial one. We could have made both meanings explicit by saying from east to west and from dawn to dusk, but I would claim that by staying closer to the form of expression that we find in Malachi 1:11, and I quote:
See, from the rising of the sun to its setting all the nations revere my Name and everywhere incense is offered to my Name as well as a pure offering.
– we have produced a richer and more evocative version, bringing to the mind of the worshipper the beauties of the sunrise and sunset and the closeness of these texts to Sacred Scripture.
Another example is found in the Fourth Eucharistic Prayer in the phrase the fruit of the vine in the Institution Narrative. Currently we say he took the cup filled with wine, as you know, and some argue that the fruit of the vine means the same as the single word wine, and that the simpler expression should be preferred. But we hear the words the fruit of the vine on the lips of the Lord himself in all three synoptic Gospels – which I would consider as being more than enough reason to respect their form.
… Furthermore this phrase has a powerful salvific resonance because of the symbolic value accorded to the vine plant and the vineyard in scripture, as recalled by Jesus’ elaboration in John 15 of the image of Himself as the true vine, His Father as the vinedresser, and ourselves as the branches. This picks up on an even earlier usage in Isaiah 5 – the famous “Song of the Vineyard” – and the Lord’s lament at the degeneracy of his once choice vine in Jeremiah 2.
Of course, the word wine connects with this scriptural patrimony, but it does so less evidently, less directly than does the phrase fruit of the vine which, upon each hearing, encourages us in our imaginations to see the particular Eucharistic event as part of the unfolding of God’s universal plan within history to rescue us from the destruction and chaos occasioned by our sinfulness and bring us into communion with Himself and with each other in Christ.
It’s like the "dynamic equivalence" people have never heard of literary allusion. Or as if they want the language of the Mass to be poorer. Perhaps "more accessible" is what they are going for? But since we hear the Mass every week, some of us every day, why can’t the Mass itself be the path by which the language of the Church is made accessible to each one of us? A large number of people living in the U. S. hear the Mass weekly or daily in their native Spanish, which is far closer to the original and far richer than what we English speakers hear. Why can’t we have what they have?
It seems especially pressing to remain true to the Latin when the Latin echoes Scripture. Right now, before receiving the Lord in the Eucharist, the assembly recites: Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed. But the Latin text, and the proposed new translation, says: Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof. The magazine Commonweal calls that change "perhaps most jarring" of all the proposed changes to the responses. But — didn’t the reporter recognize that text? It’s the confession of the Centurion’s faith, from Matthew 8. It’s an allusion to a story of a healing miracle. Why on earth should anglophones continue any longer with a Mass that has literally excised Scripture? The rest of the church hasn’t.
Read the rest. May the bishops’ vote be guided by the Spirit.
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