Bishop Criticizes 'slavishly Literal' English Translation Of M

[picchick]

[quote name='Luigi' date='31 October 2009 - 01:29 AM' timestamp='1256966998' post='1994297']&lt;br /&gt;Because prayer is essentially an exercise in meaning-making. Aquinas says that we do not pray to tell God what we need, or even what we think, since the Spirit reads what's in our hearts. Rather, we pray to remind ourselves of the concepts contained in the prayers - what we believe, God's greatness, His attributes, etc. In which case, it would be nice to understand what we're trying to remind ourselves of rather than being wowed by a lot of mumbo jumbo. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It reminds me of a kind of formal discourse done in Jamaica, called &amp;quot;fancy talk.&amp;quot; Speakers compete to sound more impressive than each other - what they say is often not even understood by the listeners, but they sure sound good saying it. It's elegant but meaningless.&lt;br /&gt;[/quote]<br /><br />It is the priest's job to educate the faithful.  Why not get up to the pulpit and say what the words mean?  Why not explain the meaning because that is what you are suppose to do?  Why not get up there and say why the words were changed?<br /><br />THAT would be better than saying, &quot;They won't understand.  Use better words.&quot;

Edited October 31, 2009 by picchick

[Luigi]

[quote name='Raphael' date='30 October 2009 - 06:09 PM' timestamp='1256940579' post='1994092']
*motions a "blah blah blah" hand*

"Never in the history of the Church has any pope, council, or saint given up on teaching the faith because it required learning or made intellectual demands on the faithful." Right, but the greatest preachers in the Church's glorious history are those who went to the masses and presented the complicated theology in terms that the average believer (note the distiction between a believer and a theologian) could understand, to wit: Jerome's Vulgate translation of the Bible, Dominic, Francis, John Francis Regis, and John Vianney, to name a few.

"Christ spoke in parables unintelligible to the disciples and even to the Apostles...and then explained them." And the explanations were in terms that fishermen could understand.

[picchick]

You are not reading what I am writing or you haven't gotten there yet.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is nothing wrong with the new words being &amp;quot;graduate&amp;quot; level.  The priests have a duty to educate the faithful (yes, the faithful can look the stuff up too if they want).  The priests can explain what the words mean.  Then we learn it.  Then when it is said we know what is going on.<br /><br />Edit:  I quoted Luigi but for some reason it just quoted my response and put it there.

Edited October 31, 2009 by picchick

[Luigi]

[quote name='picchick' date='31 October 2009 - 01:36 AM' timestamp='1256967368' post='1994305']
It is the priest's job to educate the faithful. Why not get up to the pulpit and say what the words mean? Why not explain the meaning because that is what you are suppose to do? Why not get up there and say why the words were changed?
I got it - and priests do that all the time, and they can do it again and some more, but it's going to take a long to define/explain/elaborate new paraphrases of multiple Eucharistic prayers, wedding liturgies, funeral liturgies, and whatever all else gets paraphrased. And while they're explaining all that, they're not actually preaching, breaking open the Word of God. But hey, whatever.

"THAT would be better than saying, "They won't understand. Use better verbage." The word is [u]verbiage[/u].
BINGO! What exactly is 'better verbage/verbiage'? Better to whom? Better for whom? Better in what way? It sounds better? It means more? It's meaning is more exact? It's longer? It's from one's preferred language stock rather than one's natural language stock? God pays more attention to it than to the current verbage/verbiage? ... And I should think that any and all priests would want to use not just better verbage/verbiage, but the BEST verbage/verbiage available - and my definition of 'best' is that it makes the most sense to the most people in the most churches.

[Aloysius]

the simplest response is that the masses are NOT stupid. they might not know what this or that word means off hand, but I doubt any of them have any difficulty understanding what the prayers mean. at all. anyone who thinks they would have such difficulty has a very poor view of the laity.

and for goodness sake, unless you know the word "consubstantial", you don't know how the Son is related to the Father. period. there is no other way of saying it.

[Luigi]

[quote name='picchick' date='31 October 2009 - 01:41 AM' timestamp='1256967668' post='1994309']
You are not reading what I am writing or you haven't gotten there yet.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is nothing wrong with the new words being &amp;quot;graduate&amp;quot; level.  The priests have a duty to educate the faithful (yes, the faithful can look the stuff up too if they want).  The priests can explain what the words mean.  Then we learn it.  Then when it is said we know what is going on.<br /><br />Edit:  I quoted Luigi but for some reason it just quoted my response and put it there.
[/quote]

I know people can look words up - I encourage them to do it every day - in fact, I require it most days of the week. And given the repetition people would get from hearing the proposed trnaslations in weekly liturgies, it would eventually make sense to them. But what's the point? What's wrong with what we have now? Are the current translations confusing? Theologically incorrect? Or is this just the church veresion of politically correct speech?

[Luigi]

[quote name='mortify' date='31 October 2009 - 12:56 AM' timestamp='1256964990' post='1994275']
It's time to make normative the rite of our pious [u]forebearers[/u]. The word is [u]forbears[/u].

SHEESH! It seems that a [i]number[/i] of people who are concerned about English liturgical expression don't know English all that well, which does tend to undermrine their credibility on the topic.
[/quote]

[Luigi]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='31 October 2009 - 01:52 AM' timestamp='1256968358' post='1994314']
the simplest response is that the masses are NOT stupid. they might not know what this or that word means off hand, but I doubt any of them have any difficulty understanding what the prayers mean. at all. anyone who thinks they would have such difficulty has a very poor view of the laity.

and for goodness sake, unless you know the word "consubstantial", you don't know how the Son is related to the Father. period. there is no other way of saying it.
[/quote]

The simplest response to that is, "... and I believe in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son." Relationship, minus "consubstantial." Theologians may understand the denotations, connotations, and usage of the word, but the average baptized Catholic who attends Mass and lives & dies within the Church doesn't - and according to twenty centuries of practice, doesn't need to.

[picchick]

[quote name='Luigi' date='31 October 2009 - 01:49 AM' timestamp='1256968171' post='1994313']<br />[quote name='picchick' date='31 October 2009 - 01:36 AM' timestamp='1256967368' post='1994305']<br />It is the priest's job to educate the faithful.  Why not get up to the pulpit and say what the words mean?  Why not explain the meaning because that is what you are suppose to do?  Why not get up there and say why the words were changed?<br />I got it - and priests do that all the time, and they can do it again and some more, but it's going to take a long to define/explain/elaborate new paraphrases of multiple Eucharistic prayers, wedding liturgies, funeral liturgies, and whatever all else gets paraphrased. And while they're explaining all that, they're not actually preaching, breaking open the Word of God. But hey, whatever. <br /><br />&quot;THAT would be better than saying, &quot;They won't understand.  Use better verbage.&quot; The word is <u>verbiage</u>.<br />BINGO! What exactly is 'better verbage/verbiage'? Better to whom? Better for whom? Better in what way? It sounds better? It means more? It's meaning is more exact? It's longer? It's from one's preferred language stock rather than one's natural language stock? God pays more attention to it than to the current verbage/verbiage? ... And I should think that any and all priests would want to use not just better verbage/verbiage, but the BEST verbage/verbiage available - and my definition of 'best' is that it makes the most sense to the most people in the most churches.<br />[/quote]<br /><br /><br />

Yes, I know I used the word wrong and I also misspelled it. That is why I looked up and changed it.

There is nothing wrong with what we are doing now. That is not my point and as far as what I read from the article, not the bishop's point either. His point is that the words are too complicated for people. At least that is what I gathered from the article. My point is that the words maybe too hard but then the priest needs to educate.

[Nihil Obstat]

Learning what the more elevated language means brings a whole new level of understanding to the faith.

[Resurrexi]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='31 October 2009 - 12:52 AM' timestamp='1256968358' post='1994314']
and for goodness sake, unless you know the word "consubstantial", you don't know how the Son is related to the Father. period. there is no other way of saying it.
[/quote]

Well, one could just say that Christ is "homoousios" to the Father.

[Marie-Therese]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='30 October 2009 - 11:06 PM' timestamp='1256958388' post='1994196']
Here is the preface to the anaphora in the Divine Liturgy:



Thank God there is only one offending sentence in the preface.
[/quote]


That is exquisite.

[mortify]

[quote name='Luigi' date='31 October 2009 - 01:53 AM' timestamp='1256968399' post='1994315']
SHEESH! It seems that a number of people who are concerned about English liturgical expression don't know English all that well, which does tend to undermrine their credibility on the topic.
[/quote]

My spelling suks at times, but that doesn't change the fact that we need to make the rite of our ancestors normative.

God bless

Edited October 31, 2009 by mortify

[Apotheoun]

For some reason the "quote" system is not working for Luigi. It makes his posts for difficult to read.

[Apotheoun]

[url="http://www.usccb.org/romanmissal/OrdoMissaeWhiteBook.pdf"][u]The White Book - Order of the Mass (study text)[/u][/url]