The new missal discussed in this article was introduced in 2011.
(Doctrine and Life, October 2010, pp.44-49)
Many would agree that the present Order of Mass leaves room for improvement. Forty years’ experience gave time and opportunity for integrating developments in the life of the church and the world into a revised text.
Is the language of the new texts – available on www.usccb.org/romanmissal – inclusive as to male and female? In Eucharistic Prayer 4, we read, ‘You formed man in your own image and entrusted the whole world to his care, so that in serving you alone, the Creator, he might have dominion over all creatures. And when through disobedience he had lost your friendship, you did not abandon him to the domain of death.’ That seems like a simple refusal to make the text inclusive.
‘In the celebration of Mass the faithful form a holy people, a people whom God has made his own, a royal priesthood, so that they may give thanks to God and offer the spotless Victim not only through the hands of the priest, but also with him, and so that they may learn to offer themselves.’ (General Instruction on the Roman Missal, {2001}, n.95) Does the new Missal enhance lay participation at a time when – at least in the Western world – it is more necessary than before? It is difficult to find evidence that it does.
Does it meet the needs of those for whom English is not their first language? English is the principal, or official, language of some sixty-five countries. For most people in those countries it is their second, or perhaps third language; they will not find it easy to assimilate the Latinized English of the new texts, with its many subordinate clauses and a quaint, sometimes stilted, use of English: ‘Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall.’ To many, this language will seem remote, even meaningless. The International Committee on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), set up on the instructions of Pope Paul VI, took into account the needs of people whose mother tongue was not English and avoided unnecessary difficulties. For doing so, its work was bemoaned by semantic purists as banal and undignified, or denounced as unfaithful to the original.
Is the new text ecumenical, sustaining or extending the common ground already reached with other churches regarding agreed texts for prayers such as the Gloria and Creed? Again, the answer has to be no. Indeed, it seems that current thinking in the Roman Curia is that liturgical language should emphasize differences with non-Roman Catholic Christian traditions.(1) How many texts of the Creed have we had since 1969? I think the present is the third or fourth, and I suspect the new one will also need to be revised as it re-instates at least one mistake rectified in an earlier revision.
Was the opportunity used to revise Eucharistic Prayer 1, which makes no mention, much less an invocation, of the Holy Spirit, an epiclesis, or to re-arrange some prayers after the consecration which would make more sense before it, and vice versa? Neither was done.
A necessary correction was made to the start of the preface of Eucharistic Prayer 4, which lent itself to the interpretation that only the Father was God: ‘Father in heaven… you alone are God, living and true…’ The new translation reads, ‘Father, most holy, … you are the one God living and true…’ That was an improvement. Why then replace the phrase ‘for you and for all’ in the formula of consecration with ‘for you and for many’? That lends itself to the interpretation that while Christ died for many, he did not die for all. But ‘There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer.’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n.605, citing the Council of Quiercy, of 853 AD. See 2 Corinthians 5.15 and 1 John 2.2) Why create an unnecessary difficulty?
Was anything done to incorporate a significant thanksgiving after Communion? As things stand, the Mass ends pretty abruptly. The answer is no.
Was the opportunity of revision used to create a liturgy rich in symbol, silence and song, instead of one drowning in a torrent of words? No. It is claimed that the new translation more closely follows the original Latin than does the present. Latin is a very concise language. One might expect that a closer following would exhibit something of its conciseness. But this is not so. On the contrary, the new translation of the second Eucharistic Prayer uses 9% more words than the present text; the fourth uses 15% more; the third 21%, while the first Eucharistic Prayer uses 25% more words. Did the editors forget what Jesus said, ‘When you pray, do not babble as the pagans do, for they think that by using many words they will make themselves heard’? (Matthew 6.7)
Is there place for imagination or creativity? It seems not. Was it fear that excluded them, the fear that, ‘If you give people an inch, they’ll take a mile’?
There are many small changes which re-shuffle the existing words and phrases, or make minor adjustments to them. The likely result of this fiddling will simply be to annoy people by tripping them up repeatedly.
It seems as if opportunities for improvement were not so much lost, as looked at and discarded.
Literal and faithful translation
The new approach appears to regard literalism in translation as the touchstone of fidelity. And with your spirit is indeed a more literal translation of the Latin Et cum spiritu tuo than And also with you, but is it a more faithful translation? I doubt it. Does terrible infant communicate what the French mean by enfant terrible? Or black beast bête noir? Is clear obscure an integral rendering of the Italian chiaroscuro? Is damage delight an authentic translation of Schadenfreude? If one translates the German Gleich geht es los as, It will start right away, should that be dismissed as a paraphrase, or gloss, and Equal goes it loose – the literal translation – be upheld as faithful? Is Aoine mhaith a more accurate translation into Irish of Good Friday than Aoine an Chéasta?
Language is a living, dynamic human instrument; the new translation makes it a prisoner of the dictionary. Why did they opt for archaic and arcane “sacral” language, neither English nor Latin, but a sterile hybrid, such as incarnation and incarnate instead of embodiment and embodied? Was it snobbery? – we know Latin and the rest of you don’t – or was it the deliberate choice of specialist jargon as a way of keeping the layperson at a distance, like the doctor who speaks of a myocardial infarction instead of a heart attack? The use of words like ineffable, oblation, hosts, and consubstantial brings to mind Saint Paul’s saying, ‘I would rather say five words that mean something than ten thousand words in a tongue.’(See 1 Corinthians 14.6-19)
Mrs. Thatcher famously said, ‘There’s no such thing as Society, only individual men and women, and there are families.’ (2) She would love the changes from We to I in the new translation, with their implication that the congregation is not the Body of Christ but simply a group of individuals.
A more basic question
Does a new missal need to be a translation of the Roman missal in the first place? Why not have local missals that reflect the life and character of the local and universal church? What happened to subsidiarity, collegiality and incultur-ation? Were the bishops, or – perish the thought – laypeople, invited to participate? Were they listened to? Or was it a dialogue of the deaf? From what I heard I believe many English-speaking bishops tried to dissuade Rome from its course of action, but it persisted: ‘Mother knows best… the people across the mountains don’t understand.’ The new missal lacks pastoral awareness; it is hard to believe that bishops could have failed to anticipate the problems it will likely create. Or is it primarily a political exercise in Roman centralism – a reminder of who’s boss?
This new “reform of the reform” squanders the precious but diminishing good-will of those who still hold on to the church. I am reminded of what was said twenty-two centuries ago by a sensible Roman, ‘I was to learn late in life that we tend to meet any new situation by re-organizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation.’ (3) It distracts greatly from the serious work of reform that the church needs.
Among the more enthusiastic supporters of the new texts are those who also champion the use of the 1962 edition of the Latin Mass. Some of the explanatory notes accompanying that edition reveal an exquisite and fetishistic rubricism, one that would leave the most finicky Pharisee breathless with admiration, e.g. a detailed instruction on how to close the missal (!) It also stated of the rubrics, ‘A quibus non declinet sacerdos, non etiam in minimis, sine peccato.’ (The priest may not deviate from them, not even in the smallest matters, without sin.’) That kind of taurorum stercus burdened good priests with scruples. The promoters of that missal have powerful papal support and encouragement. How will this help meet the needs of people today? Cui bono?
Learning from the past and looking to the future
Also in 1962, the Holy See issued an apostolic constitution, “Concerning the Promotion of the Study of Latin.” (4) Among other things, it stated: –
‘Of its very nature Latin is most suitable for promoting every form of culture among peoples.’ n.4.
Latin… ‘is a most effective training for the pliant minds of youth.’n.11.
‘In the exercise of their paternal care they [bishops] shall be on their guard lest anyone under their jurisdiction, being eager for innovation, writes against the use of Latin in the teaching of the higher sacred studies or in the liturgy, or through prejudice makes light of the Holy See’s will in this regard or interprets it falsely.’ n.15.2.
‘No one is to be admitted to the study of philosophy or theology except he is to be thoroughly and perfectly grounded in this language and capable of using it.’ n.15.3.
‘Future ministers of the altar must be instructed in Greek in the lower and middle schools.’ n.15.7.
As regards the syllabus for the study of Latin, the document said it would be prepared by the Congregation of Seminaries and Universities, adding that, ‘Ordinaries may not take it upon themselves to put their own proposals into effect until these have been examined and approved by the Sacred Congregation.’ n.15.8.
The constitution was greeted with dutiful and docile Amens – and then ignored. Some saw it as a politically-driven pre-emptive strike against a possible adoption of the vernacular in the liturgy by the Second Vatican Council, which was due to meet later that year; others saw it as simply unrealistic, a bird that could not fly weighed down by silliness; while still others felt that, if Rome was determined to make a fool of itself, there was no good reason to try and stop it. In 1998, à propos the Asian Synod of that year, an Asian bishop said, ‘They [Rome] filter what we say, and, when we get back home, we will filter what they say.’ (5) These games of political tennis may be entertaining or disedifying, according to taste, but what pastoral good do they serve, least of all to the faithful who will be asked to pay for them?
The saying attributed to Pope Celestine I Lex orandi, lex credendi (the norm of prayer establishes the norm of belief) is a reminder that liturgy points beyond itself to larger realities. It shapes attitudes; it communicates subliminally about faith, life and church. The message comm-unicated by the new missal seems to be that we are to turn back the hands of the clock. Are the missal, and the active promotion of the 1962 Latin Mass, signals that what is ultimately intended by Rome, despite disclaimers, is the substitution of Latin for the vernacular as the language of the liturgy, and a program of Roman centralization as a substitute for Vatican II?
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1.See The Tablet, 1 November 2003, p.3.
2. Woman’s Own, October 1987.
3. Gaius Petronius Arbiter, Satyricon, written about 210 B.C.
4. Pope John XXIII, Apostolic Constitution Veterum Sapientia, 22 February 1962, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1962.
5. See The Tablet, May 1998, p.641.
Lacrimae rerum literally means the tears of things – which means nothing. But a dynamic equivalent translation might be the sadness of life – which does means something.