Quite often, Jesus talks about things that I don’t know much about. A man may have gone out to sow – but I know precious little about agriculture. A father may have said goodbye to a prodigal son but I know nothing about having a jealous brother. A young man may have been told not to look back from the plough – but my soft hands, have clearly never touched a plough in their life.
However in the Gospel today, Jesus does stray into an area where I know a thing or two.
He is talking about (more…)
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.
The veil question which has been raised in the media this week is a strange one for me to consider as someone who often finds himself wearing a form of religious dress in Great Western Road and elsewhere. It seems to me that people should be able to wear what they like in public. Mind…
Rather at the last minute, a decision has been made to celebrate the anniversary of the consecration of St Mary’s (ie the consecration of the building), this weekend. According to the records kept at the time, the Hallelujah Chorus by Beethoven was sung at the consecration. Unfortunately, we’ve been unable to find that one, but…
To the Diocesan Council for the first time this morning. The average age was a little alarming, however, some of the debate was lively. Has Mission 21 been a success or a failure? That was one of the issues we started to talk about. Lots of local successes I think. Rather like the curate’s egg…
At the once a year gathering of the SEC Organisational Review Committee today. This is the one which makes recommendations about How the General Synod Works. You have to be a synod nerd to really enjoy this kind of thing and such people are fortunately rather thin on the ground. I tend to wave my…
Leave a Reply