It was just about a year ago that U.S. parishes began using the new translations of the third edition of the Roman Missal—an implementation process that seems to have gone far more smoothly than some anticipated. Wrinkles remain to be ironed out: There are precious few decent musical settings for the revised Ordinary of the Mass; the occasional celebrant (not infrequently with “S.J.” after his name) feels compelled to share his winsome personality with the congregation by ad-libbing the priestly greetings and prayers of the Mass. Some of the new texts themselves could have used another editorial rinsing, in my judgment. But in the main, the new translations are an immense improvement and seem to have been received as such.
Why that’s the case is explained with clarity and scholarly insight in a new book by Oratorian Fr. Uwe Michael Lang, The Voice of the Church at Prayer: Reflections on Liturgy and Language (Ignatius Press).
From the days of Christian antiquity, Fr. Lang explains, liturgical language—the language of the Church at its formal public prayer—has always been understood to be different: different from the language of the marketplace or public square; different from the language of the home. Liturgical language, at its best, is multivalent; it does many things at once.
It is a language of instruction, teaching Christians to grasp the truths embodied in their prayers.
It is a language of delight, attracting us to those truths through the beauty, even charm, of the prayed words and their arrangement.
It is a language of persuasion and encouragement, urging us to conform our lives to the truths we lift up in prayer and spurring us to greater efforts to imitate Christ and the saints.
It is not, to illustrate the point along the via negativa, the kind of language found in the old Collect for the Twenty-First Sunday of the Year (“Father, help us to seek the values that will bring us lasting joy in this changing world . . .”) or in the old Post-Communion Prayer for the Thirtieth Sunday of the year (“May our celebration have an effect in our lives”).
The language of the liturgy is also a language meant to elevate us, to lift us out of the quotidian and the ordinary. We don’t “speak” at Holy Mass the way we talk at the local mall, and for a good reason: The liturgy is our privileged participation in the liturgy of saints and angels around the Throne of Grace, and the way we address the Lord, and each other, in those circumstances ought to reflect the awesome character of our baptismal dignity. The Latin used in shaping the canon, the prefaces, and the collects of the Roman Rite in the classic period of its formation was not, Father Lang writes, “the ordinary idiom of the people.” Rather, it was “a highly stylized language” consciously intended to give expression to a unique religious experience—an experience of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.
In the post-Vatican II period, Polish translators followed the classic understanding of liturgical Latin and deliberately adopted a high, literary Polish for rendering the Missal of 1970 into their native language. English translators did exactly the opposite, stripping the Latin of its distinctive sacral vocabulary and images, and flattening out the rhythms of liturgical Latin. The results were not happy: collects that informed God of what God presumably already knew (about God’s doings or our needs), and then made anodyne requisites of the Most High; eucharistic prayers that eliminated sacral words and biblical images; post-Communion prayers that, like the nonsense cited above, sounded like requests made to a therapist or dentist.
The Poles made the right choice, and whatever else can be said about post-conciliar Catholicism in Poland, it never slogged through the worst of the liturgical translation wars. The bad choices made by English translators decades ago, often for reasons of populist ideology and dumbed-down theology, have now been largely rectified by the new translations, which take seriously the modern scholarship about liturgy and rhetoric Fr. Lang so helpfully summarizes in his book.
George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. His previous “On the Square” articles can be found here.
RESOURCES
Uwe Michael Lang, The Voice of the Church at Prayer: Reflections on Liturgy and Language
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Comments:
Is it true that these new translations actually do that? I don't disagree with the general idea, but that doesn't mean that the actual language does what you hope it does. Does it really elevate the experience of the people in the pews, and if so, how do you measure that? Perhaps someone will put this to the test someday.
I get chuckle out of the related arguments over the scripture translations used in mass. When some provides an example of what they consider a "bad" translation versus one that is considered "good," I have started asking whoever is sitting near me to read both of them aloud. The results are always quite interesting.
When our priests become more familiar with the text, i.e., understand what they're saying, the better it will sound, the more likely it will be to "elevate us, to lift us out of the quotidian and the ordinary."
Ad Deum qui laetificat, juventutum meam.
Yes, the settings of the Ordinary texts/chants are wretched. Of the versions of the Gloria currently in circulation here in Canada, none are worth the paper upon which they are printed.
The chanted Ordinary and Proper Chants should get more attention. E.g., Simply English Propers ala Adam Bartlett.
The difficulty seems to me to be two-fold. First, the language of the traditional Latin liturgy was developed and refined organically over centuries by saintly bishops and priests rather than manufactured in committees on a rush basis by journeyman liturgical bureaucrats who were not exemplary in holiness or learning. Second, the language of the traditional Latin liturgy deliberates embodies high culture, high theology, high art, and high literature, not mass culture, pop psychology, gender neutrality, and the language and music of the street.
There is an old saying that "one cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear". That is the essential problem of the post-Conciliar liturgy in English. As one post here already notes, the "new and improved" Gloria is utterly leaden and unsingable into the bargain. Other examples are legion, as time will surely tell.
The old prayers were perfect. Perhaps we shouldn't have changed them to be more like the Protestants.
I'm inclined to accept the Anglican BCP 1928, I know I am speaking directly to my God, there is real depth in the"." Prayer of Humble access."
Arrah Spohn -- hoping at this tme to cross the Tiber with the Anglican Rite.
And I witness the occasional acts of humility, as celebrants of my age group, go on automatic then realize the text has been changed, in front of the entire congregation. We are so human.
I often recall the wisdom of a Bishop who claimed that God was Irish, because He roars in mirth at our conduct. Without His Irish wit, we all would be if great trouble.
Liturgy is important; I leave it to liturgists. But we unwashed will be judged, not on our Latin, or words, but on our love for Him, as witnessed to those with great unmet needs.
I am speaking about what should be every liturgist's battle cry: "lex orandi, lex credendi." The fact is, the collects and prefaces of the missal contain the surest compendium of Catholic theology and spirituality that can be found anywhere. Check CCC 1124. That's why the vernacular is so important!
Where else can the average Catholic get orthodox theology nowadays? Certainly not from the SJs. And I think few, other than academic types, get it from the extraordinary form, without having to fumble through tattered booklets with linear translations while struggling to keep up with a barely audible presider (that awful word!).
But as GW suggests and others make plain, the English the translation isn't beautiful at all. if you're going to make changes, might as well go all the way right? Well, thankfully the revisions have at least made the translation more accurate. I am grateful for the vernacular, and wish my Latin was better.
Actually, as a confirmed troglodyte, I must ask-- what was wrong with the Latin?? About the same time the Church dropped Latin, so did most of the High Schools in the US... to the everlasting detriment of both the Catholic Chrch and the United States. (But, what is this I hear -- Pope Benedict XVI wants to re-emphasise Latin and is setting up a Pontifical Institute?? -- Go, Benny, GO!!
Q: What's the difference between a liturgist and a terrorist?
A: One can negotiate with a terrorist.
Looks like we might even get both...
Metaphors and images have been restored (Alleluia!) in the new translation.
A side by side comparison of the new translation with the old minimalist one is startling!
Adding the Fourth Eucharistic Prayer is a blessing when correctly translated and, whatever may be said against the Missal of Paul VI, having two lessons is an improvement over the old mass.
