Here’s Cedric’s sermon for the City of Glasgow from this morning’s worship.
14 responses to “Liturgical sadness”
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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.
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“…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.
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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.
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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.
Previous Posts
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Exceptions
A long time ago, and in a land far away, I remember The Rev Rosemary Nixon saying something significant to me which I still think true today. (Just once, mind). She said, in the course of a conversation about my progress through the Scottish Episcopal Church’s exemplary education system, “The trouble is, Kelvin, everyone in…
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Tales of the City
A knock at the door. I answer it to find a young man wearing black T-shirt, black shorts (were they boxer shorts?) and no shoes or socks. Me: Hello Him: Er hello. Me: Can I help. Him: Er, I was just wondering if you had any white wine vinegar. Me: Oh, hang on a minute.…
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Sermon – 17 June 2007 – The woman with the perfume
When I was first in full time ministry, as a lay person, some fifteen years ago, I worked as a member of the chaplaincy team, in the University of London. The team that I worked in was a team of five people, four ordained, and me, a lay person. Four were men, and one a…
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Ahh, arrhh, arrrrhhhhh chooo!
I’m off work for a couple of days. I’ve picked up a sneezing lurgy. If I had company, I’m sure it would be a man-cold. However, as it is, I’m on my own, so it is merely an indisposition. Normal service will be resumed shortly.
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