Here’s the video of yesterday’s sermon – somewhere along the way I’ve managed to lose the text, but the video is here in full. It is about Adam and Eve and about how their story is about now not then. There’s a nod to temptation and a chocolate boutique. I had the atonement in the back of my mind when I was writing it. Oh, and I included a semicolon. See if you can spot it.
Has anyone else been following the series in ‘The Tablet’ taking the Latin Sunday Collects from the Roman Missal (Ordinary Form), printing alongside them the official English translations and then commenting on the Collects?
The effect the series has on me is not what was intended. I spend much of my time being puzzled and irritated by the looseness of the translations from the Latin – words and phrases left out, new ideas included, and sometimes translations which are at best a paraphrase.
The point of mentioning this is that what I’ve seen of the new English translation of the Roman Mass is undoubtedly more faithful to the Latin, which is, after all, the definitive form.
This will be important to some and, I expect, an irrelevance to others. However, an ecumenical gesture we could make (pause for breathtakingly unpopular suggestion!) would be to incorporate the new relevant parts of the new translation in our own Liturgy. That really *would* show ecumenical goodwill.
“…the Latin, which is, after all, the definitive form.”
That is certainly debatable. I fail to see that the purpose of the liturgical reforms of the 70s and 80s which resulted in many new liturgical books for most major denominations and prayer books for Anglicans, was to get us all back to the Latin Mass.
Rome has pretty much cut the rest of us “free” so to speak, as irredeemable for all the heresies of women’s ordination and now GLBT ordinations and same sex blessings, and I am fine with that. I would not go anywhere near the Tiber, but I share Kelvin’s sense of loss of something we pew sitters shared around the world.
Just to clarify, when I wrote “…the Latin, which is, after all, the definitive form” I meant that it was the definitive form for Roman Catholics.
Vicky wrote: “… it is unlikely new conversion areas such as China would find Latin accessible.”
A Roman friend of mine who probably would know said to me the other day that the Catholics in China use the Latin mass because they missed out on the reforms of Vatican II. Does anybody know if this is true?
I went recently to a Latin mass here in Sydney with the same friend and most of the servers and the priest were from Vietnam … and a good deal of the back-to-the-future seminarians one sees at the papist cathedral seem to be Korean … so I am not sure that the formality of the Latin mass, or a more formal English one will put off Asian converts.
It’s a pity that the ecumenical implications of this translation exercise haven’t been pondered a bit more.
Fearing that the Anglican Communion does not have enough controversy, division and dissent, I must ask you to respond to the following questions: Gaiters – yes or no? Gaiters on Provosts (or Cathedral Deans) – yes or no? Gaiters on this Provost – yes or no? The picture on Bishop David’s blog will provide you…
I meant to say last week that I had a very pleasant hour and a half with Nick Cox. He is the lay rep at St Silas, our nearest (well, geographically!) Episcopal neighbours. We had a good conversation about things that matter. Anyway, he keeps a blog which can be found here: www.learningtowalk.blogs.com/ Go check…
From time to time, one finds oneself thinking about how one would vote in the House of Commons if one were there. Now, this is idle daydreaming, to be sure, but remember that I was actually a candidate at the last General Election. I set myself up for that daydreaming in the most public way…
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
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