This is what many Catholics will be listening to next Sunday, thanks to the vandals responsible for the new translation (the 2010 text, which has not been approved by the world's bishops). They will hear an apposition 'what is proper to each person, their unity in substance' which could lead them deep into Trinitarian heresy. Consubstantiality is common to all three persons, not proper to any of the three.
It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God.
For with your Only Begotten Son and the Holy Spirit
you are one God, one Lord:
not in the unity of a single person,
but in a Trinity of one substance.
(non in unius singularitate personae,
sed in unius Trinitate substantiae.
The translation is infelicitous, since it opposes unity and Trinity, suggesting that the Trinity is in tension with divine unity. The translators of course play fast and loose with their own charter Liturgiam Authenticam. They would have done well to follow it here, and translate: 'not in the singularity of one person but in the Trinity of one substance')
For what you have revealed to us of your glory
we believe equally of your Son and of the Holy Spirit,
(Quod enim de tua gloria, revelante te, credimus,
hoc de Filio tuo,
hoc de Spiritu Sancto,
sine discretione sentimus.
Again this is infelicitous. It suggests that our faith is bounded to a partial revelation of divine glory, 'what you have revealed to us of it'; literal translation would be better: 'What we believe of your glory, as you reveal it, we hold this of your Son and of your Spirit in the same way')
so that, in the confessing of the true and eternal Godhead,
you might be adored in what is proper to each Person,
their unity in substance,
and their equality in majesty.
(Ut in confessione verae sempiternaeque Deitatis,
et in personis proprietas,
et in essentia unitas,
et in maiestate adoretur aequalitas.
Again, 'you might be' is infelicitous. Literal translation: 'So that in the confession of the true and eternal Godhead, what is proper in the persons, and their unity in essence, and their equality in majesty, is adored.' Another nonsense lurking here is the suggestion that 'the Father might be adored in his Son and Spirit, and in their unity and equality' rather than each being adored in exactly the same way.)
With respect Father, I think it is a bit rich for you of all people to be talking about heresy. Glass houses and all that.
Posted by: Martin | June 16, 2011 at 07:20 PM
You still believe in the Holy Trinity Father? I am impressed.
Posted by: Tiggy | June 17, 2011 at 04:07 AM
Tiggy and Martin, you have surpassed yourself in your sarcastic hubris this time. Your ideas of "heresy" have to do with modern quaestiones disputatae, but the original battlefield of orthodoxy was precisely the Trinitarian doctrine. Once again we see how reactionaries, such as the perpetrators of the new translations, show a blithe ignorance of and indifference to real orthodoxy, that is, to the core and substance of Christian faith.
Posted by: Spirit of Vatican II | June 17, 2011 at 03:45 PM
Many thanks for the Homily Father, but I think I was aware of Orthodoxy and Tinitarian doctrine, just.
I am happy to "react" whenever I see something or read something to "react" to. So seventies....reactionary! lol
Posted by: Tiggy | June 17, 2011 at 09:44 PM
I think it would help to remember the "hierarchy of truths" -- the central truths of the Creed (including the doctrine of the Trinity, memorably reduced to nine simple propositions by Cardinal Newman, and clearly expressed in the current translation of the Preface for Trinity Sunday) are not on the same level as such issues as gay marriage or women priests. People who get up on a high horse denouncing others as heretics left and right often lose a sense of perspective.
Posted by: Spirit of Vatican II | June 18, 2011 at 03:24 PM
Again, I think I am aware that in most things there is a Hierarchy, including truth, and faith, and indeed morals. Not that I have had any formal training in these areas, but would seem to me natural.
I have never called anyone a "Heretic". It is healthy to question ones s own beliefs and indeed the beliefs of others, but all in the context of Church practice, faith and history. So that chaos does not prevail, as would happen if everyone just did and believed what suited their particular circumstances.
If, though it seems unlikely, The Holy Father announced tomorrow that Women Priests were to be allowed,I would have great difficulty "getting my head" around that, but in the end would have to accept it, or head for the exit. The latter would not be an option for me.
Posted by: Tiggy | June 18, 2011 at 04:54 PM
If Vox Clara had shared their translation with Anglicans and other Christians (as has been done in the past) before gaining final approval for it, they might have avoided "Trinitarian heresy." Anglicans are sharp on doctrine as well as on language--parallel structure for example, woefully absent in the new translation. The phrases added in apposition to the clause "'what is proper to each person," viz., "their unity in substance and equality in majesty," yield a clunky structure in addition to a doctrinally misleading set of words. Why did the Vatican insist on excluding groups with which Catholics have long been in ecumenical dialogue? I would expect its goal to be to work toward unity of liturgy and doctrine, rather than to assert a unique understanding of doctrine that sets it apart from other Christian churches. If Roman Catholic doctrine is both unique and TRUE, then Catholics should be sharing it as widely as possible with the rest of Christianity. In the case of this part of the liturgy, however, the Anglicans still have the doctrine right and Rome has drifted into error. Like "sheep gone astray, every one to his own way," the Vatican translators seem in sore need of the illumination of the Holy Spirit.
Posted by: MCCCI | June 18, 2011 at 11:07 PM
MCCCI,
I doubt what you say about Rome in error and Canterbury, being pure, is anything close to the Truth.
Posted by: Tiggy | June 19, 2011 at 03:30 AM
In actuality, what is so "seventies" is precisely ignoring the implications of bad translation and bad doctrine. Reactionaries forget that far too often.
Posted by: evagrius | June 19, 2011 at 03:04 PM
Tiggy, if you do not know the meaning of the phrase "hierarchy of truths" you should refrain from remarks bearing on ecumenism, and snide comments on the Church of England.
Posted by: Spirit of Vatican II | June 20, 2011 at 08:03 AM
Cetainly Father. Please also admonish MCCCI for his snide comments on Rome.
I have a feeling not to hold my breath on this one.
Posted by: Tiggy | June 20, 2011 at 04:41 PM
Yes, MCCCI exaggerates in saying that "Rome" has drifted into error. He means the cabal of incompetents who altered the 2008 translations. The 2010 translation is not the one passed by the bishops and given the papal recognition. But it is nonetheless being imposed by Vatican fiat, at the risk of the papacy being associated with apparent heresy -- is this a repetition of the Liberius and Honorius scandals that caused such difficulty for defenders of papal infallibility?
Posted by: Spirit of Vatican II | June 21, 2011 at 12:46 PM
I think that liturgical texts of iffy orthodoxy should be submitted to the Pontifical Theological Commission or the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It is ironical that despite decades of muttering from conservatives that our current translations are full of heresy (Pelagianism, playing down the sacrficial character of the Mass, etc.) no substantive case has been made against them. Meanwhile the wretched new translations that the same people are trying to sell us are rousing extreme disquiet, across the ideological spectrum, not only because of their ugliness but because of their poor theology.
Posted by: Spirit of Vatican II | June 21, 2011 at 02:49 PM
We were given a sheet at Mass on Sunday with the new versions og the people s parts to take home and study. The introduction begins here in Scotland in September.
Posted by: Tiggy | June 22, 2011 at 03:15 PM
Some of it , on the face of it, seems a bit clumsy, but it sure is nearer the Latin. Anyhow, most liberals do not like it, so thats good enough for me!
Posted by: Tiggy | June 22, 2011 at 03:18 PM
No, Tiggy, the 2010 text is NOT nearer the Latin than the 2008 text.
It is closer to the Latin than the current translation, which has, however, the advantage of expressing the orthodox doctrine clearly: "three Persons equal in majesty,undivided in splendor, yet one Lord, one God"
The 2008 text approved by the bishops and given the recognition by Rome read: "so that, in confessing the true and eternal Godhead, we adore the uniqueness of each Person, their oneness in being, and their equality in majesty."
This is a good translation, but it joins the ranks of many ghost texts that we are now forbidden to hear, even though the entire hierarchy and the Pope approved them!
The Latin reads: "ut in confessione verae sempiternaeque Deitatis, et in personis proprietas, et in essentia unitas,
et in maiestate adoretur aequalitas"; "that in the confession of the true and eternal Deity, the property in the persons, and the unity in the essence, and the equality in the majesty may be adored."
Posted by: Spirit of Vatican II | June 23, 2011 at 05:45 PM
I just wish we had the option of The Old Rite, even somewhere in the Diocese, but the Bishop is having none of it. Then all the debate about language and translation would be less than relevant, as we would have the original. In its poetry, psalmody and fullness. Not to mention silence. How I long for silence. Something there is little of in the O.F.
Posted by: Tiggy | June 25, 2011 at 02:50 PM
Beauty of language is not confined to Latin -- or even to 16th century English -- if we cannot find beautiful language to praise God in today there is something wrong with us. I agree totally with you about SILENCE. (I edited an article on that very topic by an Egyptian poet, Yahia Lahabidi, in our Japan Mission Journal in March).
Posted by: Spirit of Vatican II | June 26, 2011 at 05:17 PM
No indeed beauty is not confined to Latin or old English. But there is precious little beauty of either language or form in most OR Liturgies. I write from the liturgical desert that is Scotland.
Posted by: Tiggy | June 26, 2011 at 05:37 PM
My first encounter with a Low Mass was at an SSPX chapel near Dublin. I was 17 at the time and went entirely on my own initiative, mainly out of curiosity. For the duration of the liturgy I alternated between praying a decade of the Rosary and solemnly contemplating the words of the Missal, with its elevated Elizabethan prose --- all in pious awe at the latitude of freedom which I enjoyed. While the Sacrifice of Calvary was being enacted before my very eyes, I could participate supernaturally by whatever means I found most congenial. The anonymity, the meditative solitude, the austere silence, periodically interrupted by faint whispers of 'Dominus Vobiscum', furnished an experience to which I've been addicted ever since. It was a bit like stepping into a warm bath on a cold Winter's morning.
Novus Ordo services are now positively painful by comparison, and require formidable endurance.
Posted by: shane | June 26, 2011 at 11:20 PM
Shane. I hope you now attend Harrington St, and not Monkstown!
I used to live near there and attended Mass soon after the Chapel opened. But I was so afraid I was doing something wrong, I immediately attended the next Mass in The Parish at 12.30.
Posted by: Tiggy | June 30, 2011 at 06:35 AM
Elizabethan prose is neither elevated nor beautiful -- it is sometimes effective in satire or comedy (i.e. mostly in plays), but if you're looking for beautiful prose stick to the 19th century, where a whole range of people from Dickens to George Eliot or Mill to Cardinal Newman write remarkably flexible, moving, and beautiful prose.
I doubt you could find a paragraph of Elizabethan expository or argumentative prose that matches a paragraph of Chesterton chosen at random.
Posted by: Gene O'Grady | July 04, 2011 at 05:34 AM
Shakespeare's prose -- "flexible, moving, and beautiful" -- and the KJV set the very tone of great English prose. There is also Donne.
Would Hooker not be superior for expository prose to Mill? As a true master of prose, I would accept Newman only among those you cite. George Eliot has moments as a great prose writer, but she is usually cumbersome -- which is not to say her novelistic genius lapses. For unquestionable prose quality I would go for Jane Austen and Henry James.
Joyce showed what a magnificent organ English prose had become, but he did not show that modern English is ideally suited to liturgical use. To find a convincing English religious prose today is no easy task.
Posted by: Spirit of Vatican II | July 04, 2011 at 08:16 AM
Interesting that some people don't quite understand the meaning of "liturgy".
Posted by: evagrius | July 06, 2011 at 05:25 AM
@Tiggy,
You write: "I just wish we had the option of The Old Rite, even somewhere in the Diocese, but the Bishop is having none of it."
I have been clearly led to believe that any priest has the right to say the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Mass (the Tridentine Mass) subject only to the conditions set forth in Summorum Pontificum, clarified by Universiae Ecclesiae. Based on the information I have seen published online, I should think that, if a stable group of the faithful have requested the EF Mass and have ensured that everything needful for the celebration is provided, and there is a priest available and able to say the Mass, that the Bishop does not have the authority to forbid the Mass from being celebrated. If the Bishop is adamant, and I were in your situation I would consider writing a letter to the appropriate office in the Vatican (I think it may be Ecclesia Dei, but am not certain) and explaining the difficulty. I do know that any priest familiar with the EF Mass is authorized to respond to such a request without consulting the Bishop, if all of the foregoing conditions have been met. The information I have was obtained from the following blog of an American Catholic priest: http://wdtprs.com/blog. The priest whose blog that is responds to questions sent him via email, and there is a CONTACT link on the page header of the blog. He answered an almost identical question a few months ago, but I have been unable to find the relevant blog article thus far.
Pax et bonum,
Keith Tpfer
Posted by: Martial Artist | December 01, 2011 at 06:40 AM
The NO in Latin as celebrated at Farm St for example is every bit as spiritual as the EF is claimed to be. As for the NO in English, I am plugging the following as a viable alternative to the ridiculous new translations: http://www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie/2011/11/liturgical-resource-for-celebrants/
Posted by: Spirit of Vatican II | December 01, 2011 at 09:42 PM