Source and Summit

Here, in the middle of what used to be the Octave of Pentecost, I’m finally turning my attention on these pages to one of my greatest loves in the Church: the Sacred Liturgy.

The liturgy – and here I’m thinking most especially of Holy Mass – is where we meet the Lord, where He deigns to come to us in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, where we can take God into ourselves in a real, visceral way that we as physical creatures can comprehend.

What a wonder!

At the same time, the liturgy itself lifts us up in proper worship and thanksgiving to God, subsuming our small sufferings into Christ’s great suffering on Calvary (Col. 1:24), transcending mere time so that all sacrifice becomes that moment of supreme sacrifice.

It is, as the Second Vatican Council affirmed, the source and the summit of the whole of the Church’s worship and of the Christian life:

[T]he liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows. For the aim and object of apostolic works is that all who are made sons of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of His Church, to take part in the sacrifice, and to eat the Lord’s supper.

(Vat. II Const. on Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, nn. 10)

As our supreme worship, the Church calls upon us to celebrate in a way that is both dignified and beautiful. The liturgical documents are full of references to the dignity and beauty of liturgical celebrations (see especially John Paul II Apostolic Letter Vicesimus Quintus Annus and Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments Instruction Liturgiam Authenticam).

Sadly, in many parishes today, the Mass is neither dignified nor beautiful. In most cases, I don’t think this is intentional; there was so much confusion following the implementation of the Missal of Paul VI, that a lot of old bad habits were strengthened, and a lot of new bad habits were formed. Correction is slow, despite plea after plea from the Bishops and from Rome.

Pope Benedict XVI has himself called for a “new liturgical movement” to “re-enchant” the liturgy, to restore the sense of beauty and dignity and mystery to the Mass, and the faithful all over the world have started to heed his call.

While a lot of the banality that crept into the Mass can be tackled at the local or parish level – issues of architecture, vestments, and furnishings for example – there is at least one that must be tackled on a larger scale: the English translation of the Missal.

All rites in the Roman Catholic Church are originally in Latin. As the Church moved to celebration in the vernacular languages, translations into the local languages were churned out as fast as the bishops could do them.

The English translation, for instance was basically done in less than two years. In theory, these translations were themselves supposed to be beautiful:

[T]ranslations will be documents of tested beauty; their grace, balance, elegance, and richness of style and language will endow them with the promise of lasting use; they will match the requirements of the inner richness of their content.

(Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship Instruction Liturgicæ Instaurationes, nn. 11)

However, given the speed with which they were done, there were bound to be snags. The largest one of these was undoubtably the translation methodology itself, called “dynamic equivalence“.

This basically meant that you didn’t need to translate word for word, or even sentence for sentence – just get something close.

One good example of how this works is found in the First Eucharistic Prayer. Here’s the Latin:

accipens et hunc praeclarum calicem in sanctas ac venerabiles manus suas

And here’s the English:

he took the cup

Clearly something was lost in the translation!

The Roman Missal has been revised twice since our current translation was first implemented (in 1975 and 2002), and a new instruction, Liturgiam Authenticam was issued in 2001 changing the way translations are to be done. Out with dynamic equivalence!

So here it is 2011, and we’re finally getting an updated Missal with a new, corrected English translation. Unlike the hasty translation of 1973, it’s been in the works for almost a decade, and it finally goes into effect in Advent of this year.

Next Time: Previewing the new translation!

Update:

NLM has a good article on the Octave of Pentecost.