More from Claire Mathieu on the new translation of the liturgy:

A defense of the new text:

Complaint: I can’t make sense of those long, fragmented sentences.
Answer: Let it speak to you… don’t analyze it. Let sentence fragments suggest images in your prayer.

Complaint: But I have an analytical mind. How can I pray with text that is syntactically wrong?
Answer: Do not apply the cold rules that legislate the writing of everyday prose. When something in the text is, in your eyes, not as it should be from the viewpoint of English syntax, think of it as poetic license. Most people are less analytical than you are, so it won’t be a problem for them.

Complaint: But it is not beautiful. It is awkward and clunky.
Answer: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. People will enjoy hearing elevated vocabulary that will help them form new images and a new understanding of God and of their relationship to Him. We hope that the refined vocabulary will promote the vertical dimension of prayer, that the faithful have a longing for.

Complaint: But the 2008 version was better! The 1998 version was better! Why are we saddled with an inferior text?
Answer: Why do you care about texts that were never published? That’s all church politics. We have better things to do with our time than follow the intricacies of fights between various committees vying for influence. In the end the result is all that matters.

Complaint: What is wrong with the 1973 text that we use now?
Answer: Besides an excessive de-emphasis of the mysterious and sacral dimension of the Mass, it is also not close enough to the Latin text.

Complaint: Why does it matter how close it is to the Latin text?
Answer: For the sake of unity. When people in different countries pray in different languages, the close similarity with Latin will ensure that the prayer of the Mass teaches the same faith, with the same nuances in belief, without emphasizing one dimension in one language and a different one in another. It will help us have a common faith.
Answer 2: In addition, the unity is not only geographical but also temporal. But staying close to the Latin, we are ensuring that the essentials of our faith remain the same over time, so that we stay united in belief with the People of God who lived in the past, and with those who will live in the future.

Complaint: but the Church’s understanding of our faith evolves and grows over time.
Answer: True, and that’s why the Latin text is regularly updated. Changes have to be done extra-carefully. That’s stuff for the Vatican experts, it’s not for us to meddle with. Doing changes in Latin first guarantees that amateurs will be kept out of it.

Complaint: But I still really, really dislike the New Missal.
Answer: Give it a try with an open mind, and let us hope that it will grow on you. In any case, down the line there might eventually be revisions taking into account the complaints of the faithful.

Complaint: What about the “for many” of the Eucharistic prayer?
Answer: You have to understand it in a special way. What it means is not what it says. It’s a misunderstanding. Your pastor should catechize you on the matter.

Complaint: That’s ridiculous.
Answer: Well, I agree with you, but let’s not let a single unwise word choice get in the way of the renewal of the Mass, shall we?

Complaint: Also, as a woman, I feel excluded by the non-inclusive wording.
Answer: “Man” means “man and woman”, “brother” means “brother and sister”. That’s the traditional meaning, as in the Latin and as it has always been. None of the men in the Vatican have any problem with it. The reason why you feel excluded is that you have been unduly influenced by feminist propaganda. You need to work on yourself to re-learn the normal meaning of “man”. Advent or Lent will be a good time for doing that.

Comments

[Tiggy]

It is coming, thank God. Though as far as I m concerned it is just a small step in the right direction. A direction that leads to a deeper appreciation of the Mass.

[Tiggy]

Perhaps now the liberals amongst us will get a feeling for what Clergy and people went through when the 1969 Missal was forced upon us.
Anyone in any Doubt should read the commentaries by Fr Lang and Fr Harrison of the London Oratory.

[Brian Gallagher]

Is this a joke?

It's like when an actor hurts himself filming a scene and the callous director calls from behind the camera yells, "Use it!" (i.e. the pain)

It's like when a chief torturer asks the man on the rack, "Why are you doing this to yourself?"

It's like when a kid grabs his younger sibling's arm and says, "Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!"

It's a childish exercise in authority and only those with Stockholm Syndrome will defend it.

[Spirit of Vatican II]

Tiggy, you reduce the question of a prayable liturgy to a matter of "feelings" and a settling of alleged scores. The parallel with the introduction of the vernacular is quite wrong -- this was a move welcomed by the vast majority of Catholics; you cite two priests from a somewhat reactionary milieu, ignoring the movement of the entire People of God. This time, in the revenge of the reactionaries, it is the whole People of God who are being short-changed, and even the reactionaries are balking at the appalling text that is being foisted on us; hence their cry,"if you don't like it, just celebrate in Latin" (again with the haughtiest disdain for what the People of God want). By "a step in the right direction" you may mean a return to Latin, whose disappearance seems to have wounded you deeply 42 years ago (or are you speaking poetically on behalf of an older generation?). The whole church, pope, bishops, priests and faithful discerned otherwise back in the 1960s, on the basis of an Ecumenical Council; which should suggest an application of the Augustinian dictum "securus iudicat orbis terrarum". The presumption that Latin is good for everyone and a perfectly adequate vehicle for renewed worship would be a very high-handed one.

[Spirit of Vatican II]

For Fr Uwe Lang, see this dismal piece on celebrating ad orientem (priest with his back to the people): http://www.adoremus.org/0405LiturgicalPrayer.html

Fr Ignatius Harrison is a convert from Anglicanism -- how can he be cited as an expert on what Catholics felt in 1969?

[Spirit of Vatican II]

And Fr Lang is German, so he cannot be cited as a credible witness to how the English vernacular was received. Tiggy, you've got to do better than this!

[Tiggy]

I did not cite Fr Harrison as an expert on what happened in 1969. I just recommended his comments now.
I have heard Fr Lang speaking and saying Mass. His English is better than many native speakers these days, including Clergy, of all levels. Yes Father, I am not the person using "feelings here" You are. I made no personal comment on anyone, until now.

[Tiggy]

I barely remember the changes, but my family and older friends do. Some of them never returned to the Church, sadly. I know of many Priests, who even now would like the opportunity to offer the ER, but are afraid of the Bishop. (Our local Ordinary refuses to allow it under any circumstances.)
I attended my first ER Mass about 15 years ago, and while there was no thunder or lightning, I immediately connected with its serenity and, more to the point, silence.
I think you are just plain wrong that most people and priests will not welcome this small step forward. Even in your own country, it still just remains a vocal minority there, who dissent. I know one or two of these guys, good men, but with axes to grind about the hierachy. Maybe rightly so, but we bums on the pews should not be punished too.
Just on the"reactionary" (how seventies) Oratory. Their clergy are well educated, their homilies are thought provoking and sound, and their liturgies are just that, not manmade shows. Yes, even the ones in English.
They offer nine Masses on a Sunday, ER, OR, English and Latin, and get huge congregations. Enough said.
I really look forward to going there on my visits to London

[Spirit of Vatican II]

Sorry, Tiggy, this is just shooting the messenger. Our association numbers 427 priests, many well known as excellent pastors, and not fairly characterized as a "vocal minority". Your praise of the EF is curiously disconnected from the quality of the new translations, which go precisely in the opposite direction of the qualities you find in the EF and the London Oratory. If the Oratory priests really are as civilized and theologically sensitive as you say, I cannot imagine them sharing your enthusiasm for the drecky new translation. Just take an honest look at what they have done to the Exultet for example -- let me know if you REALLY approve, having read the results: http://www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie/2011/03/the-exultet-old-new-and-latin/ I am pretty sure that like most 'defenders' of the new translation, you are really just sounding off against the vernacular as such or the current translation rather than praising the new translation on its intrinsic qualities. I won't accuse you of buying a pig in a poke, since you can take refuge in Latin, but you are encouraging others to buy a pig in the poke. I suspect that most 'defenders' of the new translation will sheepishly disappear when it is dumped on the faithful in November, just as most defenders of the 2003 Iraq invasion quietly disappeared or repainted their record as the full extent of the debacle became apparent.

[Tiggy]

Whilst it could be argued that some of the language in the Exultet ia a little clumsy, it is hardly unpalatable.
Another example and one from every Mass, as opposed to an annual proclamation,important though that is. The "Domine non sum dignus".. Which is translated in my old Missal, exactly as it to be in the new one. Exactly.
As for me "taking refuge in Latin". Just not possible where I live. If only.
I am still not sure how 427 from a total of 4,500 constitutes anything more than a minority.
I could not type what my former PP in Dublin said about this group when I asked him about it.

[Spirit of Vatican II]

If you find 427 priests lauding the new translations, I'll be impressed...

In your old missal, would Dne sum dignus not be translated as follows: "Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof' -- without the "thou" it has not the same aura. There is a problem with "roof" here due to the unintentional homonymy with the roof of the mouth. In any case the prayer is just a trimming in the text of the missal. We badly need eloquent prayers that make the MEANING of the Eucharist more apparent. The real trouble with the Mass is that people don't know why they are there. You said that many left the Church because of the introduction of the vernacular. I think rather it was the routine banality of the liturgy that sent them fleeing -- often to Anglican churches where they could have eloquent and meaningful liturgies -- in the vernacular.

[Tiggy]

Funny you should say that. The Oratory sometimes reminds me of a High Anglican Church, where, as you say, the liturgies are eloquent, though, as they are not in communion with the See of Peter, less meaningful (though perhaps not quite" Absolutely null and utterly void!!" he he).
You can say that again, people do not know why they are there, or even what it is they are present at. I think the opposite was true in the past, mostly.
By the way I do not think(as some do) that the NO is invalid, or the work of the devil. I just think they made a mess of the language and the whole way it was introduced and developed, at the extreme, I will admit, into things like "clown Masses"
If you are looking for eloquence, look no further than the 1962 Missal. I believe this new translation gets us closer to it. Even without the "thees and thous", which I am pleasantly surprised you seem to approve of?

[Spirit of Vatican II]

They made a mess of the language, you say; in fact, however, the proposed new translation is a true linguistic mess. Even the sawdust collects of the 1973 translation -- always intended to be provisional in any case -- are theologically vacuous but linguistically inoffensive. The 1998 translations, from all I have seen of them, are excellent. Also, the French translation is very beautiful, thanks to the role played by a leading poet, yet the flight from the vernacular was more dramatic in France (Lefebvrites); why?

Was the Mass more meaningful in the old days and did people know why they were there? Some followed the prayers devoutly in their missals, others said the rosary; there was no sense of a worshiping community, but only of individual devotion nourished on (1) offering the sacrifice, (2) adoring the real presence at the consecration; (3) receiving the Lord in Holy Communion. The reading of Scripture, so vibrant an element in Protestant worship, was reduced to a tiny selection of Gospels, which were felt to be the priest's business, and the sermons did not refer to them but to courses prescribed by the diocese -- on the 10 commandments, for example, or the 6 precepts of the church. Despite the great deficiencies of Catholic biblical culture now, it is infinitely superior to what it was back in the "good old days..."

Meanwhile, your defense of the new translations has come up with "hardly unpalatable" -- is this not an instance of damning with the faintest of praise?

[Spirit of Vatican II]

"and the whole way it was introduced and developed, at the extreme, I will admit, into things like "clown Masses""

You are grasping at straws when you pick up that jaded talking point about clown masses. The vast majority of Catholics have never even heard of a clown mass. The anguish about liturgical dancing seems to stem from a puritanical dread of joy and spontaneity in the liturgy. When you say the vernacular was introduced in a bad way, I don't know what you mean. The texts of the 1973 Mass did not cause anything like the unease or outrage the new translations are causing. Since you withdrew Fr Uwe Lang as the witness who was to dispel any "doubt" about the traumatic impact of the new translation, I wonder what basis you have for your suggestion.

[shane]

The reason that scripture is kept so short in the TLM is because it's assumed to be an accompaniment with the liturgy of the hours.

I would suggest that one of the problems historically in the west since the 13th century has been a progressively exaggerated emphasis on Eucharistic adoration and insufficient emphasis on the Divine Office (for the laity).

[Spirit of Vatican II]

I agree totally that the Eucharist has been stripped from its vital context and promoted in solitary splendor in a way that has undermined its reality (and that is not unconnected with the suspicious business of mass stipends). Interesting point about Scripture as accompaniment -- certainly it was not an accompaniment in the early Church -- Origen and Augustine gave long scriptural sermons even on weekdays -- possibly at non-eucharistic liturgies -- I don't think "daily Mass" had caught on back then.

There is a massive block in the Catholic Church against any attempt to think rationally about our eucharistic practices.

[Tiggy]

I Don t remember withdrawing Fr Lang. My thoughts on his comments stand.
I did say that clown Masses were at the extreme end of the spectrum. Most of us attend Masses around the middle. But even here its a combination of the Celebrants personality, some truely awful music, and the dreadful English of the 1970 Missal.Which is the crux of the matter. As we say in this part of the word..Mass-for -the-Daily-Record-man.
I also do not agree that the pld Missal lacked in scripture. It is very heavily peppered with Psalms and verses of the same.

[Tiggy]

Whilst I am aware that we live in very different times. I know of few if any Catholics who left the Church, or indeed stopped attending Mass, up until about 30 years ago. Since then the numbers, certainly in Western Europe have declined catasrophically. I would love to know what the Church has done so well in the past few decades that we are in this situation.
Perhaps you remeber the ER Mass when it was OR so to speak. I don t. But what I do know is now if you attend one, there is a sense of God, of a worshipping community, married with individual devotion. Which you seem to decry, but which I feel is very important. It fosters a personal relationship with the Creator. Which, cutting to the quick, is what its all about!

[Gene O'Grady]

It's a little beside the issue, but I find a lot more Latin in the Sunday service since I joined the Episcopal Church.

[Spirit of Vatican II]

The most Latin I have heard in any Mass in recent years was at St Bartholomew's (C of E) in London. Anglicans just love quality music and language.

"The dreadful English of the 1970 missal" is an exaggeration -- the collects etc. are sawdust, as we all know, but there is nothing wrong with the Eucharistic prayers. Indeed, among other merits, they more clearly point to the Real Presence and to the sacrificial character of the Mass than do the new translations. The current version of the Roman Canon does far more justice to that prayer than the new translation does.

[Tiggy]

I know of that Church. It was stolen at the reformation! They have come a long way since their founder, the serial wife killer Henry VIII and his sucessors banned the Mass!

I quite like the 4th Eucharistic Prayer. The 2nd is awful, and used most.

I think we shall agree to disagree on the "new"...but really old translation. Thank God we are going back to "I believe". "We" sort of lets you off the hook.

[Tiggy]

On the Roman Canon. Have a look at Mgr Bruce Harbert on "Gloria TV"!

[me]

Once again Claire fails to offer a single argument.

[Spirit of Vatican II]

Claire's piece is dialectical -- she exposes the absurdity of the arguments of the defenders of the new translation. In fact, merely to set down these arguments side by side is to have their feebleness automatically exposed.

Claire's own negative comments in the questions she asks represent the usual objections to the new liturgy -- they are not her own invention! You might say that there are good arguments to dissolve those objections. If so, please produce them!

[Spirit of Vatican II]

The Anglican communion does a marvelous job in organizing meaningful, scripturally grounded, socially engaged liturgies Sunday after Sunday all over the world. To cite Henry VIII's marital problems as a put down of this is quite childish. By the same token you could run down the present Catholic Church by citing the horrors of the Inquisition or the sexual proclivities of 16th century Popes. We do not live in a perfect or sinless world, and to trash the work of the Church because of spotty elements in its history is suicidal.

[Tiggy]

Predictable response there.
The only small chink in your arguement is that bad though many Clergy and Popes were, to the best of my limited knowledge, none of them actually started a new Church to suit their own purposes.
Just how is pointing out facts "running down" Father?
Starting a whole new Church is a little more than "spotty elements in history".
You cannot resist the personal comment can you. If I am childish, so be it.

[Gene O'Grady]

If you guys don't mind another Episcopal comment, the rector of the Episcopal church we joined slammed Henry VIII (quite justifiably, but it just came up in the conversation)in a way I haven't heard from a Catholic priest in a good fifty years.

And as to "starting a new church," I think Rowan Williams, e.g., doesn't really conceive of himself as a different or non-Catholic church, and it seems that Pope Benedict is at least willing to finesse the issue.

And on a really petty note, I think the 15th century popes were even more sexually colorful than their 16th century successors -- Sixtus IV must be the only pope to be buried in a sarcophagus (quite beautiful) featured a naked women in high relief. She's beautiful too.

[Spirit of Vatican II]

People who think "Henry VIII and his wives" when they hear the word "Anglicanism" are as far from appreciating the beauty of churchhood as people who think "Inquisition" when they hear the word Catholicism. However, the horrors of the Inquisition were intrinsic to Catholic theology, polity, spirituality, and law for 700 years and have never been renounced and repented of, whereas as Gene points out, Henry VIII has few champions in the Anglican world.

[Spirit of Vatican II]

This, in the Irish Times today, is another instance of childish theology: "In 2007 the Iona Institute, a body committed to preserving orthodox Catholic teaching, conducted a survey among Irish people aged 15 to 24. Only 5 per cent could quote the First Commandment, 32 per cent could not say where Jesus was born, and 35 per cent did not know what is celebrated at Easter. Fewer than half knew what the Trinity is comprised of, and only 15 per cent knew what transubstantiation is."

These people think they know where Jesus was born, what the Trinity is comprised of (!), and what transubstantiation is. They view Catholicism as the swallowing of uninterpreted dogmas. Their social policies follow suit.

[Tiggy]

I am not surprised that Young people have no idea of Church teachings or indeed Christianity in general. Stuff like alive-o, is utter crud.
I think that survey done 30 or 40 years ago would have had a strikingly different outcome. I wonder why? As for poor old Henry VIII , seems to me he has few champions in the world.Full stop. Yet without him, its a fair bet there would not have been The new Church in England, now called the Anglican Communion. Which of course is not in communion with the See of Peter. Yet.

[Tiggy]

Mr O Grady. She may well have been his wife or mistress!!

[shane]

David Quinn wrote a very good article in Studies magazine about the Ryan Report. He attended most of the Inquiry's hearings and felt compelled to give the report greater analysis, having realized that most media commentators had read little more than the summary.

http://www.studiesirishreview.ie/j/page712

Here are a few of the facts: 1,090 former residents reported to the Ryan commission; they named 800 alleged abusers in over 200 institutions.

Boys: 50% of the physical abuse reports and 64% of the sexual abuse reports came from 4 institutions.

Girls: 40% of the physical abuse reports came from 3 institutions; 241 women religious were named as physical abusers, but 4 of these were named by 125 witnesses and 156 sisters were named by only one witness each.

Of the 800 religious and others named as abusers, 400 were named by only one person. Sixteen institutions had more than 20 complaints made against them.

[shane]

Quinn's point about the discipline in Les choristes is also echoed by Fr Michael Hughes, archivist for the Oblates of Mary Immaculate congregation, and who had been involved with supervision at Daingean. According to the Irish Times ( 'Living hell' reformatory claim rejected; Wednesday, June 07, 2006): "He agreed there were gangs and a hierarchy among the boys with newcomers known as "fish". He did not agree it was a situation which got out of control, though there were disturbances at times. "Discipline at the school was very severe for that very purpose, so staff could keep control. It was intended as protection for the children . . . these lads were not small boys."

He agreed the Brothers worked all year around, seven days a week with no day off until the 1970s, and that 20 of them were responsible for 150 boys.

[shane]

The left-liberal Professor of History at UCD, Diarmaid Ferriter (who certainly cannot be accused of pro-Catholic bias) also notes something similar in his book 'The Transformation of Ireland' (page 517):

"Though it was not fashionable to admit it towards the end of the century, many of the members of religious orders had worked hard under difficult conditions to educate and provide for vulnerable children...one can have some sympathy with the contention of Patrick Touher, an inmate of Artane Industrial School, that 'on the whole the [Christian] Brothers were doing their best, within limited circumstances in hard times and with frightening numbers. they too shared in the hard rigid life. They had no luxuries, nothing to look forward to, except more of the same'."

[shane]

I found this comment at the New Liturgical Movement by Jose L Campos:

"The way I look at these facts is the following: I drive to church and leave the car together with many other people in a desertic asphalted plain that I choose to consider Purgatory. I proceed through the little garden that surrounds the church, a pale remembrance of the terrestrial Paradise, into the church proper. There, the faithful form orderly rows, it is like an intimation of the heavenly court. The mass proceeds step by step as far as its culmination, the raising of the Host over our heads, and the solemn contemplation of It. The silence is wondrous until some children alert us to the fact that they also participate. Eventually the honey of grace is distributed from the beehive to the bees that will be strengthened by it and carry its power after the slow descent from the liturgical mountain into the world. We will traverse the terrestrial Paradise again and cross through the Purgatory in to the world, but dialectically we are not the same persons, we have been transformed."

[Tiggy]

Shane. Whilst not disagreeing with the sentiments. The sugary-sweet sentimentality are a little hard to swallow. But I suppose if it works, then for him, that cannot be bad.