FOR MANY OR FOR ALL?

DIDN'T JESUS DIE FOR ALL?
One of the most troublesome changes in the new English translation of the mass is the revised version of the words of consecration said over the chalice: “This is the chalice of my blood... which will be shed for you and FOR MANY.” Frankly I had never noticed that there was this discrepancy between the official Latin text and the English translation until I was chatting one day a few years ago with Francis Cardinal Arinze, the then Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship (talk about name dropping, huh!). He mentioned to me that his office had been getting some vehement written protests over the mistranslation of the Latin words of consecration which should read “for you and for many,” not “for you and for all.” So I wasn’t shocked when I saw that the new translation had gone back to the literal translation of the Latin.

But just why did the translators decide to change Christ’s words from “for all” to “for many?” Before answering the question let me point out a couple of assumptions about theology that grew out of the post-Vatican II era.

Assumption #1. For centuries Catholic Christians had been taught an image of a strict, authoritarian God whose main jobs seemed to be things like making rules, keeping count of sins and punishing people in purgatory or hell. Pope John XXIII and the Council fathers were at pains to show the world another side of God as the loving, compassionate and all-forgiving One. The fear of God drifted into the background in light of this new emphasis, and we children of the Vatican Council got comfortable dealing with only the “nice” aspects of God and of religion, and so have little patience with any negative concepts such as sin.

Assumption #2. We children of Vatican II also make an assumption based on the idea behind translating the mass into English: The texts for the mass and the other sacraments were translated into English so that everyone could understand easily what was going on. So we automatically assumed that everything in the liturgy must be immediately and completely comprehensible to the average person the first time it is read or heard. This was surely one of the assumptions driving the English translation of the mass texts that we’ve been using the past 40 years (in which so many rich prayers got simplified to the point of being downright pedestrian). This assumption is, not surprisingly, the basis for one of the chief criticisms leveled at the new translation: “All liturgical texts should be simple enough for everyone to understand immediately upon hearing them, but the new texts are sometimes complicated and difficult to understand.”

I’m mentioning these two assumptions in order to caution the reader that they might not necessarily be correct, or at least may get in the way of appreciating what's behind some of the new translations. With regard to Assumption #1, maybe some of the translations will point out certain theological concepts that have been pushed into the background in the past half-century, such as human sinfulness and our need for redemption. And, contrary to Assumption #2, maybe some of the new translations actually require (God forbid!) deep reflection and instruction over time before we can appreciate the more profound mysteries they express.

“FOR MANY" and "FOR ALL"

So, why DID the translators decide to change Christ’s words from “for all” to “for many?”
Remember Assumption #1 above, that everything must be understandable immediately and effortlessly? Well, that won’t work on this passage. We will need to do some work in order to do it justice. If you’re willing, let’s start with Sacred Scripture.

WHAT DOES SCRIPTURE SAY?

One of the so-called "Suffering Servant passages" (Isa 53:12), often seen as a prophecy about Christ, reads “he bore the sin of MANY, and made intercession for the transgressors.” Jesus echoes this passage in his preaching about humility: “whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for MANY” (Mk 10:43b-45).

In his commentary The Gospel of Mark, (Sacra Pagina Series, Liturgical Press, 2002) John R. Donahue, S.J. says on page 313 “The [Greek] term pollon literally means ‘many’ but can also carry the sense of ‘all’ (e.g. ‘Many have been created but few will be saved’ (4 Ezra 8:3)).”

Now let’s take a look at the account of the last supper in Mark’s gospel, in which Jesus’ words over the cup are “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for MANY (hyper pollon.)” (Mk 14:24). Once again using Donohue’s commentary (p. 396) we find that although in English “many” is often equivalent to “not all,” in Aramaic and Hebrew “many” can be understood in these two passages from Mark as equivalent to “all.”

In an article in America magazine Msgr. Richard Antall reminds us that these words [“for many”] have been translated first from the original Aramaic our Lord spoke, then from Greek to Latin and from Latin to English. The Latin phrase “pro multis” never changed when the new order of Mass appeared after the Council. What changed was the translation of the Latin.
Partly, this new translation was based upon biblical studies that said that, for all practical purposes, the two phrases meant the same thing. (By the way, apparently Aramaic didn’t even have a specific word for “all.”)

In what seems to me to contradict Fr. Donahue, Msgr Antall writes that the problem was that the Greek preserved the distinction between “for many” and “for all.” He says that the “Greek of the New Testament did not express the equivalence that the liturgical translators insisted upon.” In other words, the Greek NT word does not have the sense of both “many” and “all.” This assertion is borne out in two Greek lexicons I consulted.

In any case, the official Latin version was and is still “pro multis” which means “for many” and is translated as such in the Greek, Syriac, Armenian and Slavic Oriental Rites of the Eucharist. Now the new English translation is in line with the official Latin. The other languages (e.g. French, Spanish and German) that had opted for the interpretive translation “for all” must also change their translation.

BUT DIDN’T JESUS DIE FOR ALL OF US?
So, is this new translation saying that Christ did NOT die “for all”? Certainly, a lot the people in the pews must be wondering about this. And they aren’t the first Christians to reflect on the phrase and its implications.
The church’s greatest theologian, Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) comments on why the Gospels and the Mass say “for the many” and not “for all.” He makes a fine distinction which it is worth trying to follow. “The blood of Christ has been shed FOR ALL concerning its sufficient power [i.e. it certainly is intended to save all] but ONLY FOR THE ELECT as regards to its efficacy [i.e. in fact it does not necessarily have to work in every case].”

This is very far from the “double predestination” taught by John Calvin, who said that Jesus’ blood was the redemption of only an elect group, with the rest of the people basically created to go to hell. St. Thomas clearly says that “for many” does not imply that God does not desire salvation for all. IT SIMPLY RECOGNIZES THE POSSIBILITY THAT SOME WILL NOT BE SAVED.

This rubs many moderns the wrong way (remember our Assumption #2 above). In the back of their head lurks the idea that-- no matter what-- everyone is going to end up in heaven. This is the other extreme from Calvin’s “double predestination” (by which the elect are predestined to heaven and the others to hell).

No, what’s at issue is simply this: If hell doesn’t exist, that means that everyone is dragged into heaven whether they choose it or not. But that would mean that we are not truly free, and that human freedom would become a myth. Contrary to Assumption #1 we should not think that there are only happy endings in the universe: Our human freedom is a wonderful and a terrible thing, because we can lose our souls.

Perhaps, some suggest, the translators made a pastoral mistake by changing "for you and for all" and upsetting people who aren't trained to make fine theological distinctions. But, since the change is now in place I suggest (as I always do on this blog) that rather than complain about it we should see what we can learn from it instead.

WHAT’S ALL THIS MEAN FOR ME?
What can we take away from the phrase “for many” which we will be hearing at mass for the rest of our lives?

One lesson that I’ve drawn from the new translation of “for many” is that it implies that my personal salvation is not automatic, but requires that I cooperate with God’s grace. It reminds me, in other words, that I mustn’t take my eternal salvation for granted, but rather that I must cooperate freely and responsibly with God’s grace at work in my heart.

A second lesson I can take away from “for many” is based on an idea I found in Fr. Donahue’s commentary cited above concerning Jesus’ offering of the chalice “for many” at the last supper: “The Markan Jesus understands his imminent death as bringing about a covenant community that will benefit all humans” (p.396). But I am part of that covenant community (the "MANY") through which Jesus wants to benefit ALL of humanity. What am I doing to help extend Christ’s saving sacrifice from “the many” of which I am a part to “all people” according to Christ’s plan for the Kingdom? Do I extend myself toward others in Christ-like kindness and generosity? Do I bear witness to sacred joy by my demeanor? In what ways do I help make Christ present to more people every day?

If the new translation “for many” still rubs you the wrong way, try letting it remind you not to presume that you are automatically saved, and perhaps it can even encourage you as one of the "many" to go out and by your actions extend Christ's love to “all.”

AN OLD NEW WORD

WHAT’S "CONSUBSTANTIAL" ANYWAY?

At every Christmas get-together I attended this year people wanted to talk about the new translation of the mass. Of all the changes in the new English translation of the mass, none seems to have raised more criticism than the word “consubstantial” in the Nicene Creed. It used to be translated “one in being with the Father,” but now reads (following the technical Latin vocabulary) “consubstantial with the Father.”

Since we’ll be living with this seemingly incomprehensible word for the foreseeable future, I suggest that we try to make friends with it by learning something about its background, its meaning and it's practical implications for our spiritual journey. This long post is a short step in that direction.

IT’S ABOUT JESUS

Have you ever asked yourself a question such as “Exactly what do I believe about Jesus? Is Jesus God? If so, doesn’t that make two Gods? If he’s God’s Son doesn’t that make him inferior to the Father? Or is he the same as God, or equal to God but not the same as the Father? What’s the deal here?”

If you have ever asked such questions, you should know that these were also the central questions for the church in the third and fourth centuries, and it took two hundred years of painful struggle and division to come up with a satisfactory way of dealing with them.

During its first 200 years or so, the early church accepted Jesus as a man and confessed and worshipped him as God. It placed him on the same level as the Father and the Holy Spirit. It did this naturally and without any feeling of contradiction. The church recognized, of course, that the person of Christ was a deep mystery that we would never fully understand, but rather than debating the mystery it simply adored and revered it.

By the fourth century, however, the Church had spread into Greece and Asia Minor, the land of Greek philosophy, where people loved to intellectually dissect difficult problems in philosophy and theology. So it was probably inevitable that the mysterious nature of the person of Jesus would eventually come under intellectual scrutiny, and questions would be raised to which there were no answers in the New Testament. For example, what was the relationship between Jesus and God the Father? How was Jesus both human and divine? Exactly what is the Holy Trinity about? The various attempts to invent an appropriate vocabulary for answering these questions fill the history of the church in the fourth century.

The mystery of Jesus is set out clearly at the beginning of John’s gospel:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being… And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son,* full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-3, 14)

So people began to ask analytical questions about this passage: How are we to understand that the Son of God (whom John calls “the Word”) and who became a human being in Jesus the Messiah, is both with God and is God? How can God be at the same time one and more than one? Just how is the Son related to the Father?

These questions, which are all interrelated, led to tremendous controversy. At issue was the very identity of Christ himself. The church considered several competing answers to the questions, often with bitterness and bloodshed, before arriving at an “answer” that most could agree on. The dispute led eventually to the church’s formulating the doctrine of the Trinity.

ARIUS GETS IT WRONG

The heresy of Arianism that eventually engulfed the church in a firestorm, began as an abstruse disagreement between the bishop of Alexandria and one of his priests, a man named Arius. Although it started as a local quarrel about exactly the questions mentioned above, Arius went outside Egypt to enlist the support of bishops and scholars around the near east, so that before long the entire Greek church was bitterly divided over these issues.

Here are some of the beliefs that Arius was teaching. See how they compare with what you've been taught. Being concerned about the unity of God he taught that the Father alone is without a beginning. The Son, the “Word” (in Greek Logos) had a beginning; God created the Logos in order that he might create the world. Since the Logos was the first and highest of all created beings, Arius was willing to call the Logos God. But this was only a manner of speaking. The Logos was a creature.

In Arius’ view, Jesus had a human body but not a human soul. The Logos took the place of the soul in Jesus. He was therefore a creature who was neither God nor man. He was not God because the Logos that was in him was created; he was not a man because did not have a soul. Moreover, the Logos was subject to change: He could become a sinner.

GOSH WAS HE WRONG!

This Jesus of Arius doesn’t sound very much like the Jesus you and I know and pray to. We'll look at the practical implications of this heresy in the last section of this post. You can skip to that part now if you want, but first I want to finish the story with the church's response to Arius and his heresy.

THE CHURCH GETS IT RIGHT

Arius began teaching his errors in the year 311. Despite being condemned by various local councils of bishops his doctrines kept spreading until the controversy reached into every part of the East. The common people, although they did not understand the issues, nevertheless aligned themselves with one side or the other.

At this point the emperor Constantine realized that he had one empire and two churches – Arian and non-Arian. So for reasons more political than theological he moved to restore unity in the Catholic church by calling for a council of bishops to settle the dispute. The Council of Nicea (325), soon to be reckoned the first “ecumenical” or world council because of the range of representation there, included about 220 bishops, most of them Greek. At the solemn opening of the council Constantine urged the bishops to achieve unity and peace.

Skipping over the political and theological details, we can say that the bishops at Nicea ended the controversy over the questions concerning Christ and the Trinity by formulating a document that we now know as the “Nicene Creed” that is recited by Catholics at mass every Sunday and on important feasts. It is sharply anti-Arian.

Arius had claimed that the Son of God "came to be from things that were not" and that he was "from another substance" than that of the Father. So the Council condemned these beliefs by stating in the Creed that the Son of God is "begotten, not made, of the same substance as the Father." The Latin word for “of the same substance” is “consubstanialis.” The recent translators of the Creed have chosen to translate this with a single English word, “consubstantial” to refer to our belief that Jesus and the father are distinct but equal, which is precisely what Arius had denied. If the translators had given us the equally accurate phrase "of the same substance as the Father," they might perhaps have created less of a stir. But we now have "consubstantial," so let's just deal with it.

Well, so what? Whether we say "consubstantial" or "of the same substance" what does it have to do with you and me as we try to live the gospel every day? Here are a couple of thoughts.

THE BEAUTIFUL MYSTERY BEHIND “CONSUBSTANTIAL”

“Consubstantial” tries to capture the beautiful fact that Jesus is both completely human and fully divine. We believe that long ago God decided to set things right with our broken world, and could surely have done so from a distance, like changing the channel with a TV remote control. But instead God chose to come into the world in person, to become one of us in an incredible, totally unforeseen supreme act of self-giving love. And so “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” God came and shared everything human except sin.

Another implication of the doctrine of “consubstantial” is a famous quotation (which doesn’t sound sexist in the original Greek or Latin) variously attributed to St. Athanasius and Saint Augustine and others. It states “God became man so that man might become God.” Doesn’t that seem pretty bold, even arrogant? But it’s true nonetheless. But it could never be true if Arius is correct. That’s why we need to believe that Jesus is truly human and truly divine – consubstantial with the father.

Celebrating Christmas each year has gotten us so used to the idea that God became a human being that we forget that this incarnation business is incredible, unfathomable, and way beyond our ability to understand – which is why it’s called the “mystery of the incarnation.” In theology, a “mystery” refers not to a belief that is totally incomprehensible to us, but rather to one that we will never come to understand fully: There will always be more to understand about a mystery. So, when we reflect on the mystery of the incarnation we need to remember that we are on very sacred and mysterious ground. It is a time to be humble in the presence of an awesome and beautiful aspect of God’s love that we cannot ever fully understand.

Several people have objected to me that the new translation “consubstantial with the Father” is incomprehensible, and that the translators should have used a simpler word that everybody could understand. At least when we used to say that Jesus is “one in being with the Father” we understood what the words meant. The problem was that the latter expression didn’t really say very much about Jesus: everything in creation somehow participates in God’s being, so you could argue that plants and animals and rocks are all “one in being with the Father.” But the Council fathers at Nicea were trying to get at something much deeper and mysterious: that somehow God and Jesus are not completely different but "of the same substance" while being at the same time distinct entities. The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives more information about this in parag. 465

Let me offer a homely example that might help you understand a little bit more about “consubstantial.” If you take a handkerchief and tear it in half, the two pieces are of the same “substance” but are distinct entities. This rough and ready comparison is, of course, inadequate, but it gives us at least a glimpse of the truth that Arius denied when he insisted that God and Jesus were of two different substances, and thus Jesus was not divine.

So if “consubstantial” sounds like gibberish at least it doesn’t give anyone the false impression that we thoroughly understand what we’re talking about in the incarnation! It reminds us rather that the incarnation is a mystery that is ultimately incomprehensible, and that if we think we understand the incarnation completely, well, sorry, we don’t. Because we can’t.

I hope that this post has helped you to understand “consubstantial” a little better. If not, I hope that it will at least remind you to be grateful to those bishops at the Council of Nicea whose courage and determination preserved for us our belief in the ineffable mystery that Jesus who walked among us, sharing our sorrows and our joys, our desires and out dreams, our sufferings and our limitations was also God, the Divine Word made flesh.

To Him be glory and everlasting power! Amen.
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AN IMAGE OF HOPE

MY FAVORITE CHANGE

I’d like to follow up last week’s post about the new English translation of the mass by reflecting briefly on one of my favorite changes so far, a particular metaphor that for some reason was omitted from the first translation of Eucharistic Prayer II but appears in the new one. Originally, you remember, the first paragraph of the Eucharistic Prayer II read:

Lord, you are holy indeed, the fountain of all holiness.
Let your Spirit come upon these gifts to make them holy,
so that they may become for us the body and blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

but the new translation reads,

You are indeed Holy, O Lord, the fount of all holiness.
Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray,
by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall,
so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

The image of the Spirit’s descending “like the dewfall” has become an immediate favorite of mine.

Eucharistic Prayer II is based on a third or fourth century anaphora in a document called the Apostolic Tradition. When the post-Vatican II church used this ancient “anaphora” (canon of the mass) as the basis for a new Eucharistic Prayer, the word “dewfall” was imported from a seventh or eighth century text in the Gothic Missal, an example of how varied sources have contributed to the Catholic liturgical tradition over the centuries.

DEW IN THE BIBLE

In the arid land of Israel, especially in the dry months, dew was a major source of moisture and therefore life for all vegetation. Not surprisingly, then, Old Testament writers use the metaphor of “dew” fairly frequently. For instance, in Hosea the Lord says:

I will be like the dew for Israel:
he will blossom like the lily;
He will strike root like the Lebanon cedar,
and his shoots will go forth.
His splendor will be like the olive tree
and his fragrance like Lebanon cedar (Hos 14:5, NAB)

Notice how the dew causes plants to take root and blossom grow in strength and beauty.





Then the psalmist compares the pleasantness of life in community to dew falling on a mountain, a sign of God’s blessing in this psalm:

How good and how pleasant it is,
when brothers dwell together as one!
Like fine oil on the head,
running down upon the beard,
Upon the beard of Aaron,
upon the collar of his robe.
Like dew of Hermon coming down
upon the mountains of Zion.
There the LORD has decreed a blessing,
life for evermore! (Ps. 133:3).

Finally, in Isaiah the Lord asks the heavens to bring down the dew of righteousness in these words:

Let justice descend, you heavens, like dew from above,
like gentle rain let the clouds drop it down.
Let the earth open and salvation bud forth;
let righteousness spring up with them!*
I, the LORD, have created this (Is. 45:8).

Of course, we moderns know that dew doesn’t fall from the sky but condenses on the ground, yet the metaphor is still a powerful and beautiful image. It has a more dynamic sense in other languages where “dropping like dew” is a single-word verb. Just as in English “rain” can be used as a verb (“It is going to rain”), so in Latin you can also say “It is going to dew (rorare).” In fact this is exactly the verb that was used when the above passage from Isaiah inspired the Latin Advent veriscle:

"Rorate coeli desuper et nubes pluant justum.
Aperiatur terra et germinet salvatorem"
(“Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just one,
Let the earth be opened and bud forth a Savior").

This little verse was assigned in various places in the Advent liturgy to ask the heavens to send forth the savior like life-giving dew. It is also the first line of the beautiful Advent hymn, “Rorate Coeli.”

LISTEN FOR THE DEWFALL

In the past few days I've been asked to pray for a couple of little children whose father committed suicide, for someone addicted to drugs, for someone diagnosed with cancer. So, when I pray the “new” Eucharistic Prayer II these days, I’m conscious that I’m leading the community in a prayer for the Holy Spirit to come down upon the bread and wine "like the dewfall" so that just as those desert flowers draw life from the dew, all of us, especially those experiencing the sufferings of the desert in their lives, may draw new life and beauty and nourishment from the presence of the Spirit of God in the assembly and in the bread and wine on the altar.

So, I hope that whenever you hear Eucharistic Prayer II from now on, you too will be encouraged and inspired by the words “like the dewfall” and draw strength from this rich and ancient phrase and its image of flowers blooming in the desert -- a symbol of Advent hope at any time of the year!


A REQUEST: If you enjoy reading about my experiences with the new English translation of the mass, please let me know in the "comments" space so that I can decide if it's a worthwhile direction to pursue at least now and again in this blog. Let me know what you think.


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THE NEW MASS TRANSLATION

WELCOMING THE NEW TRANSLATION

On Sunday, November 27, during the first mass at which we Catholics were using the new English translation of the mass, I gave a quick summary of the main points behind the changes. I got such nice feedback about my remarks that I thought I might as well share the ideas with you. If you already know all of this, you can skip this post.

There is only one official mass text for the Roman Catholic Church, and this is in Latin. All the language groups in the church translate this text into their own language. In the year 2000, to mark the new millennium, Pope John Paul II caused a new Latin mass book to be produced one that included lots of additions (e.g. prayers for newly canonized saints, masses for various needs, etc.). This meant that a new English translation needed to be produced. It is this text that was officially used on the First Sunday of Advent, 2011.

WHY CHANGE?

For the past 40 years we have been using an English translation of the Roman missal; why do we need a new translation? Here are a few thoughts.

- The first translation was a first attempt at translation liturgical texts into English for use in the liturgy. (Remember that such a task was brand new for the Church – we’d never had to come up with a translation from Latin into a “vernacular” language to be used for worship.) No one can expect to get everything right on the first try. Considering the monumental task and how quickly it was accomplished in 1972, the translators did a great job. But since we’ve been living with the text for four decades we’ve come to see its shortcomings as well as its strengths.

The first translation was done using a different set of guidelines for translation which allowed for paraphrasing, for departing from the exact Latin wording to achieve something similar but perhaps with a different “feel.” For example, the orations at mass in the Latin were all addressed to “God” (Deus), but in the English the word was translated “Father” instead, in an attempt to make the prayers seem less cold and distant.

MORE FORMAL LANGUAGE

The new set of guidelines used for the recent translation require a much more faithful rendering of the words of the Latin text, with no allowance for paraphrasing or adjusting the meaning for various purposes. This closer faithfulness to the Latin text has resulted in a different “feel” to the English translation, a “feel” that is quite deliberate on the part of the translators. Here are just a few examples of such changes.

We Catholics spend a lot of resources on making our worship spaces beautiful and decorated appropriately. Most churches request that people come to church dressed in a way befitting the sacred nature of the liturgy. This notion of sacred formality was not very evident, however, in the first English translation, in which “accessibility” and other such characteristics were aimed at instead. Cultural anthropologists will tell you that the language used in religious rituals in any religion is always a step “above” normal everyday language. So, the language of the new translation is more formal, as befits sacred liturgical language. Two characteristics of this kind of “sacred” language will be immediately apparent in the new texts:

(a) First, the sentences are longer and more complex, reflecting the more complex theology of the original Latin. On a personal note, when the first English translation appeared 40 years ago I remember feeling disappointed that the English of the mass orations lacked the nobility and theological richness of the Latin prayers. The first translation broke the long Latin sentences down into simpler phrases and shorter sentences. The idea at the time went something like this: now that the texts are in English they should be completely understandable to the hearer the very first time they’re heard. Modern English doesn’t use long complex sentences. Now there’s something to be said for the latter argument, of course; and maybe we’ll find that the newer translation sacrifices too much by introducing these long Latin-style sentences, but I personally think the longer sentences may sound more solemn, which is not a bad thing. The more complex sentence structures will certainly demand more “work” (i.e. closer attention) on the apart of the faithful in the pews and more careful preparation on the part of the priest who has to proclaim them aloud in a way that they make sense to his congregation.

(b) A second difference is that the vocabulary in the new translation is much wider and richer and includes many words which are not used in everyday English, e.g. words such as “beseech” and “chalice.” This latter word is a good example of the purpose and effect of the new translation. The priest used to say “When supper was ended he took the cup” but in the new text the priest says “he took the chalice.” The word “chalice” is obviously a very specialized word, one that is pretty much confined to biblical passages and ritual contexts. “Cup” is an everyday word that is at home at the breakfast table, at Starbucks and in the local diner. “He took the chalice” helps locate us in a special, sacred context. What we are engaged in around the altar is not any old supper but a solemn ritual meal. The new vocabulary will help us feel that.

CLEARER CONNECTIONS TO SACRED SCRIPTURE

One of the characteristics of the original Latin mass it its frequent allusions to sacred scripture. Many of these references were lost in the first translation, however, in favor of simplicity and clarity. A good example comes up at the communion rite. The old text says, “Happy are those who are called to his supper,” but the new translation restores the scriptural reference from the book of Revelation, “Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb.” Rather than depriving the faithful of this reference to a beautiful passage in the Book of Revelation (“They’ll never understand the connection with scripture”) the new translation puts the burden on priests and other teachers to educate people and make them aware of the connection. This will take time, but not everything has to happen instantly – even in America in 2011!

The response of the faithful to the priest also contains a similar scriptural citation. The old translation said, “Lord I am to worthy to receive you. But only say the word and I shall be healed.”

The new translation, based on the original Latin, says “Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.” This is based closely on a quotation from the miracle story of the healing of the centurion’s servant (Mt 8:5-13; Lk 7:1-10) in which the centurion tells Jesus “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof; but just say the word and my servant will be healed” (Mt 8:8). Is that scriptural allusion really so hard to grasp? I’m happy that it’s been restored.

One final scriptural allusion that has been re-introduced to us English-speaking Catholics comes in Eucharistic Prayer II. The priest now prays over the gifts: “Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Holy Spirit upon them like the dewfall….” In Israel during the dry months every year, dewfall means water and therefore life. The bible refers in several places to God's life-giving gift of dew. In the early centuries of the Christian church, the church Fathers loved to refer to the Holy Spirit as descending like the dew, quietly giving life to the world. So this change also takes us back to our early Christian roots in the great writers like Augustine and Gregory the Great. I can’t wait to give a homily or two on this new phrase in Eucharistic Prayer II!

MORE THEOLOGICAL DEPTH

This topic is a bit more controversial, but we need to stay open and see how this all feels after we’ve lived with it for a few years.

The most obvious example of a theological nicety that has been restored comes in the common response to the priest’s greeting, “The Lord be with you.” The Latin “Et cum spiritu tuo” was simplified in the first to translation to “And also with you.” This made it seem like a simple exchange of greetings in which the priest says “Greetings, everyone” and the faithful respond “You too, father!” Well, that’s friendly enough, no doubt, but it loses the theological meaning of this second-century greeting of the people to their priest. What they are saying by their response of “And with your spirit” is something like “And with the Spirit that you received in the sacrament of ordination which gives you the grace to fulfill the office of priest at this celebration.” It reminds everyone of the role of the Spirit in the heart of each person present, and is another way of acknowledging that this a special kind of event, one in which various people play specialized roles. There are plenty of good homilies hiding inside of this exchange of greetings!

Another change, and one I will find harder to get used to, comes in the Nicene Creed that we recite every Sunday. It’s the phrase that used to be translated “one in being with the Father,” but which now reads (following the technical Latin vocabulary) “consubstantial with the Father.” What in the world were the translators trying to accomplish by using this seemingly indecipherable technical Latin word? Well, here are a couple of thoughts. First, to say that Jesus is “one in being with the Father” doesn’t say very much about Jesus: everything in creation somehow participates in God’s being, so you could argue that plants and animals and rocks are all “one in being with the Father.” But why this big Latinate word that nobody can understand at all? Well, the reasoning here (whether you agree with it or not) is that the Council of Nicea fought long and hard over the best way to express the doctrine of the Trinity, including Jesus’ nature and his relation to the Father. The bishops at the council settled on a Greek word which is set into a Latin equivalent word “consubstantialis” to express the divinity of Jesus. This was no mere dispute about words: the doctrines of the incarnation and of the Trinity itself were at stake. So now in the 21st century the word “consubstantial” will send priests and teachers scurrying to find out just what the word means and why it was so important back in the 300’s. And that’s okay. A few sermons about the divinity of Christ won’t hurt any of us. Besides, contrary to what most modern American Christians might think, not everything in our liturgical texts has to be immediately understandable. In the case of "consubstantial"it may be enough for now to realize that our ancestors in the faith struggled with the problem of how to express the relationship between God the Father and Christ, and this tongue-twisting word is a reminder of their struggle.

One final change that you’ll notice is in the Eucharistic acclamations. Why did we drop the one that went “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again?” This acclamation was never one of the three in the original Latin mass. The reason it is being dropped is, as I understand it, because the acclamations are all addressed TO Christ, they’re not ABOUT Christ. Look at the other acclamations and you’ll see what I’m talking about. This acclamation was dropped because it is not in line with the idea of the Eucharistic acclamation.

DON'T CHOKE ON THE BONES!

Change is always difficult, and our emotional attachment to sacred texts makes a revised translation that much more difficult. The art of translation is tricky in any case, and the task of the translators of the new Roman Missal was well nigh impossible. I hope that my little excursus may have helped a couple of my readers to appreciate the good points about the new translation. As for the points that bother you about the new translation, try thinking of it this way: When you sit down to a chicken dinner you may find a few bones in the meat. You’ve got a choice: you can decide to choke on the bones or you can just put them to one side and enjoy the rest of the feast. Don’t go to mass to choke on the bones!

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