On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, the first Sunday of Advent, I attended Mass with my family at our parish in Lake Charles, La. Since it was the first Sunday of the liturgical year, it was the first time the new Mass translation was used in a full ordinary Mass at my church.
The results, in my opinion, were somewhat surreal. From the first confused mixture of voices saying a strange combination of “and also with you” and “with your spirit,” I could tell from the outset that it was going to be one of the strangest Masses I had ever attended.
The change in translation is a result of a directive issued in 2001 by the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship that required the English-language missal to be retranslated to more closely follow the Latin text of the Mass. The former English text, produced in 1973, was meant to be temporary as the translation was improved.
After 10 years of waiting, however, I cannot say that I am pleased with the new text of the Mass, which shocks me, as I have always been a fan of the old Latin Mass. Though the text of the Mass is closer to the literal Latin, it has, in my opinion, much less meaning for the average Catholic than does the old English translation.
The “Ratio Translationis” (outlining specific rules for translating the missal) issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship holds that the new translation should have “a more noble tone,” “concreteness of images” and “parallelism and rhythm measured through…ancient standards for stressing syllables of Latin words in prose or poetry,” among other qualifications. I pose the question: is this really necessary for the English Mass, especially after having a workable and publicly acceptable translation for almost 40 years?
My opinion (which, granted, is not that of either a linguist or theologian, but rather an average educated Catholic) is no. The new translation attempts to straddle an odd middle ground between the traditional Latin Mass and the translations produced as a result of Vatican II. This, to me, is a step in the wrong direction. Were such a translation as is now being promulgated to be accepted, it should have been in 1973, not after a translation with robust meaning and comprehensibility in English was released and used for almost 40 years. This translation is too little, too late.
This is not to say that all parts of the new Mass are bad; rather some seem purely ostentatious and unnecessary, especially compared to the simplicity of the older translation to which English-speaking Catholics have grown attached. Translation to reflect doctrinal change or for clarification is acceptable, but this is not more clear.
To close, I offer a simple question. Without reference to outside sources or explanation, which is more clear and has more inherent meaning in English: “one in being with the father” or “consubstantial with the father?”
Garrett Fontenot can be reached at [email protected]
