I teach at our school every Thursday. So I asked our 5th and 6th graders what they thought about the corrected English translation of the Mass we celebrated with them last Friday and this past Sunday. They said they like it much more and like how the words sounded and that it seems more devotional.
The teachers in the classrooms chimed in with the same response. They said that the previous translation lost something in translation that has now been recovered.
I say yes! yes! yes! The spiritual and devotional aspect of the reformed Mass in Latin which is the template for all vernacular translations has a spirituality, devotion and majesty not because of the Latin per se but because of the spirituality, doctrinal and devotional aspects of what is rightfully ours in the Latin Rite Mass no matter what language!
Those who translated the Mass for the 1970 missal using the Vatican approved "equivalency" method didn't get it. They thought banality and everyday speak would be good for the Liturgy and English speaking Catholics. They didn't think we needed the spirituality and devotional aspects of the Post Vatican II Latin Mass. They were dead wrong and way off mark!
Thank God for divine intervention that has given us this new corrected translation. It may not always be perfect English, but it perfectly captures what was lost in translation in the previous translation and it returns it to us English speaking Catholics who have been unnecessarily deprived of the fullness of our spirituality and devotional aspects of the Latin Rite Mass for almost 45 years. It didn't have to be even with the equivalency method of translating.
14 comments:
Of course they told you that! You teach them, and they will tell you what they think you want to hear. Come on.
I don't give them tests and I encourage them under the pain of mortal sin to be honest!!!!
Excellent Father. Now do an experiment with them and ask them to all kneel for Communion and ask them how that feels :)
'Speaking' of which, a central figure of the 'equivalency method', Eugene Nida, died a couple of weeks ago. He actually called it 'dynamic equivalence' or 'functional equivalence'. He was over 90 years old. I wonder if that poor fellow is understanding anything he is hearing right now.
rcg
Kids tell you what they like and don't like. If you give them clothes, food, music, etc. that they don't like, they'll tell you. If they didn't like the new translation, they would have said so.
Templer, I could also bring guitars into Mass and ask if they like those. :)
You're being slightly disingenuous Father, I didn't ask you to ask the Children how they would "like" kneeling, I asked you to ask them how it would make them feel. So sure, bring the guitars and bongos to Mass, just make sure you ask them how that feels, not if "they like it".
with guitars, that's even more dangerous! :)
One problem with being on a mountain top is that just one more step forward and you are moving back down again. If you have an organ then you need an amplified guitar. You only need acoustic guitars for the contemplative 'Kumbayah' during communion. The kids may prefer a hymn sung to a Justin Beiber, or Jay-Z tune since they will know it by heart. If you ask them how they feel afterwards they may ask for a shower and a real mass.
OTOH, I bet St Michael plays the banjo while Gabriel wails on the horn.
ECG
Kids are more likely than adults to "just tell it like it is". Recently a 12-year old boy was brought by a relative to our TLM, only having attended the OF previously.
Asked his impression afterward, without any sort of prompting he replied "It was like taking a spiritual shower."
Here is an example of the equivalency method:
Original Byron:
"The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohort was gleaming in purple and gold,
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee."
Modern equivalent:
"Dude! You shoulda' seen all those Assyrians!"
'Nuff said...
that's dynamic equivalent!
As funny as Pin's post is, it makes you think about what people want from their language. There is always bombastic Clarence Darrow sort of oratory, yet it is surpassed by the simple, "Do with me as you will," spoken by our Saviour's Mother.
We can laugh at ourselves, but do we need to make the mass so 'accessible' it is little more than a heartfelt ceremony? People yearn for the sublime and are lifted by the Mass when they hear the words 'long written down' that came from great minds who had the extra yard that made them humble before the Lord. This stuff thunders on its own. The actual translation is not a stilted, ancient form of speaking, but a deliberate series of steps to guide the reader into a thought. It is possible to entirely miss the point with equivalency.
rcg
Nicely said, RCG.
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