Of the many abnormalities our old English translation of the various liturgies of the Church brought was the obnoxious reordering of the Gloria Patri.
The version that most Catholics say with the Rosary is:
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning is now and every shall be world without end. Amen.
However, the official English liturgical use of this, at least for America, and only in the Liturgy of the Hours is this oddity:
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; at it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever. Amen.
It seems that Rome, when translating the Gloria Patri from Latin to English prefers the devotional form that is a more accurate translation than the dumb-downed one currently in use with the Liturgy of the Hours.
I suspect this will revert to its original English translation for the Liturgy of the Hours, thus bringing it into line with what most priests and laity say for the Rosary. Most priests and religious though, say the corrupted one with the Liturgy of the Hours.
13 comments:
I say the old one because it is what I said for years as a Calvinist. The new one is just watered down verbiage.
PS Except we said Holy Ghost.
I didn't even know about the previous clunky one. But I have always said "amongst" and "thou" etc when reciting in English. I am not even a throw back, I am a vestige.
In the eastern churches...the usual translations are:
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and forever Amen
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and unto ages of ages Amen
Doing a literal translation of Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto, sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper et in saecula saeculorum Amen
Glory (be) to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning is now and always and unto ages of ages Amen would be my translation that I'd use.
I'd say world without end (thank you Henry VIII) is an equivalence of time but not the literal translation of the words IMO...
Looking at the Russian (read Slavonic) of the same
Слава Отцу и Сыну и Святому Духу, как это было в начале, теперь и всегда будет, во веки веков, аминь
The last would be forever and ever...and finally
Δόξα Πατρί, του Υιού και του Αγίου Πνεύματος, όπως ήταν στην αρχή, είναι τώρα και θα είναι πάντα, για πάντα και ποτέ, αμήν
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning is now and always will always be forever and ever Amen.
As such, it depends on who I'm praying with which translation that I use.
I'm surprised the '70's ICEL isn't just "God is always great", or something like that.
I use the world without end version. This is mainly because I was taught that saecula was translated the old English worold, which connected world as we use it now with the time-space continuum, in order to express the eternal reality which is God.
I don't know how accurate this teaching was, but for someone who was studying to be an astrophysicist at the time, it stuck.
Dear Father, while we are talking translations, Please tell me why the word "again" is in the creed; "He rose again from the dead..." 'Again' is not in the Latin, it isn't in the French translation, the Spanish translation or the Vietnamese translation either. Why is it in the English?! Just curious, and THANK YOU for all you do.
Beau, check Fr Z's blog here:
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2012/10/quaeritur-why-he-rose-again-in-the-creed-when-we-know-christ-only-rose-once/
for an explanation
I agree with Joe P. The "world without end" version is more poetic, but the "will be forever" version used in the Liturgy of the Hours is probably more accurately translated.
That said, I still prefer the "world without end" and when we pray the Liturgy of the Hours in the parsh before evening mass, that's the version everyone says even though the other is clearly printed in the breviary. "Say the black, do the red" doesn't stand much of a chance in that case, I'm afraid.
As a practitioner of the "do the red, say the black" school of liturgiopraxis, I use the "clunky" version while praying the Office (because it's there) and the traditional version when saying the Rosary.
I too expect the traditional version will be incorporated in the new translation of the LOTH.
Gaudete in Domino Semper!
Talking about translations: Msgr Marini's team have uploaded a translation of Archbishop Bregantini's Via Crucis Meditations, which will be used at the colosseum tomorrow. They've made a big impression on me.
Translation into English was much influenced by Anglican practice. Anyone who has heard Evensong will recognize the doxology 'Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost ...'. What we call the Douay-Rheims version of the bible is in fact an 18th century revision (some would say a re-writing) by Bishop Challoner to bring it more into line with the Authorized Version.
'Holy Ghost' was replaced by 'Holy Spirit' in the 1960s, not to make it closer to the Latin, but because the word 'ghost' for most people had come to have too narrow a meaning. At the same time the Catholic 'Ay-men' was replaced by he Anglican 'Ah-men'. I suspect that most of us who learned our prayers before the advent of the vernacular Mass haven't changed. I have never said 'Holy Spirit' and only say 'Ah-men' when praying in Latin (which puts the stress on the first syllable).
I don't know modern Greek, and so in a way this question is impertinent, but why is "[to the] Father" in the dative but "[to] the Son" and "[to] the Holy Spirit" in the genitive?
- Ancil Payne
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