Edward Foley Homily – Advent 1B 2011
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Ed Foley’s Homily for the First Sunday of Advent
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40 responses to “Ed Foley’s Homily for the First Sunday of Advent”
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What a blessing to have this reminder of what really matters on the First Sunday of Advent! I feel both consoled and challenged! Many thanks for posting this on the blog!
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Thanks for this thoughtful homily/reflection this morning. I was struck by his discussion on the liturgy of the world. I think I have some growing to do.
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Thank you, Father Ruff, for posting Edward Foley’s thoughtful and pastoral homily. Reflecting on the liturgy of the world is a helpful and positive way of making this difficult transition easier.
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Lovely homily, nice attitude of service, and focused on what I have to think Jesus would want us to focus on.
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Thank you, Fr. Ed, for reminding us of some realities and calling us to examine and refocus our priorities!
As a parish liturgist, with academic degrees in music, Liturgy and Sacred Scripture, I had hoped yesterday would go a little better than it did, and that hearing the prayers proclaimed would make a difference in my gut-level reactions to the changes: I’m still waitingโand hoping. There is much to celebrate and enjoy in the new translation, butโoverallโthe slavish adherence to Latin sentence structure and word forms (as in a BAD interlinear translation) makes some of the new texts clumsy, inelegant, un-poetic and hard to understand-perhaps as big a disservice to the Latin original as the old translation was. All this in the year we mark the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible–a unique marriage of beauty and meaning that has stood the test of time. Unfortunately I don’t believe this translation will be the “KJV” of the Roman Catholic Liturgy.
I’ll celebrate my 60th birthday tomorrow and I’ve seen “the good the bad and the ugly” in Liturgy and have at various times participated in all three … But in the end I would reluctantly even agree to a return to a Latin liturgy if that meant the Love of God, committed to the Church in and through Christ Jesus, would be released once again into the “Liturgy of the World” โthat the Church would once again commit full-time energy to the proclamation of the Gospel and doing the works of mercy, instead of arguing about what words to use in corporate prayer. “Gaudium et Spes” was a document that laid out a vision for Christian Action in the World … and the world is still waiting. If 10% of Americans are EX-Catholic its because the evangelicals have taken up THAT call to preach the Gospel and taken seriously the call to “care for the hungry, imprisoned,…
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Rahner taught that if you donโt understand the liturgy of the world,
youโll never understand the liturgy of the church.I think this is precisely why so many of us find suspect a new “sacral” translation perpetrated by professional clerics who are more concerned about precious things than precious people. Could it be they don’t understand the world and therefore can’t really understand what worship is to be?
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Could it be that when you’re at odds with the universal tradition of the Church, it’s your conception of “what worship is to be” that’s in error rather than the former? To dismissively wave your hand and say “oh, they don’t understand what worship is to be” strikes me as the height of arrogance and, frankly, more protestant. Mutatis mutandis, one can readily imagine that comment coming from Martin Luther’s reforming pen.
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“The universal tradition of the Church?” You talk as if it’s Fort Knox. It’s more like a rushing stream that keeps moving. It’s rich and diverse – always has been, always will be. And it certainly includes the four Gospels and the teachings of Our Lord – it is this part of our tradition that Fr. Foley is referencing primarily.
There are at least some similarities between the reforms of the Protestant reformers and the Second Vatican Council – vernacular, active participation, Scripture-based preaching, and so forth. There are at least some areas where the Popes and the Catholic Church have erred, and some Protestants were on the right track (religious liberty, freedom of speech, rights of conscience, slavery, usury, etc.) . We can learn from Protestants in at least some things.
You use “protestant” as if it is a negative term. Push that usage too far and it can start to sound, to borrow a term from you, “arrogant.”
awr
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The river of tradition is a great metaphor, I agree; sincerely, it’s one I’ve used before, both in ecclesial and secular contexts (see http://stubbornfacts.us/philosophy/modernism_politics for an example of the latter). And you’re absolutely right to raise it in a liturgical context, too! One of the most powerful metaphors deployed by liturgical liberals (so to speakโI mean those who have had their way for the last few decades, by whatever name one prefers) is the argument that “we can’t go back”; I’ve been saying for some time now that we’re never going to make progress as long as that metaphor sets the terms of the debate, because it’s an awesome weapon. Everyone knows that you can’t turn back the clock, even those who’d like to, so framing the debate in terms of “going back” is potent. What’s needed is an even more compelling and intuitive metaphor, and I think the river of tradition is it: A few decades ago, we grounded on a little island, and having poked around for a while now, it’s time to get the boat back in the water and move on.
I don’t disagree that there are things that we can learn from our protestant brethren; some of the best “prayer warriors” I know are protestants, and even Archbp. Sheen and Fr. Corapi put together would be hard-pressed to muster the oratorical firepower of a Billy Graham. But when it comes to liturgy, I say that there is very little that we can learn from groups that reject the fundamental purposes of the Mass (indeed, and in some cases, liturgy as a concept), and when we try, the result is usually, shall we say, unfortunate. We have a megachurch here in town, and I’ve gone along many times. They have some preachin’ and some prayin’ and some loud guitar musicโit’s a great night out, I can tell you. But it isn’t Catholic worship, and it isn’t compatible with Catholic worship. The arrangements of the Mass has to start from the fact of the holy sacrifice of the Mass. Once one acknowledges the real…
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I have big rectangular black patches in the corner of every comment.
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I found this homily desperately inappropriateโit would be inappropriate as an op/ed and a fortiori delivered as a homily. But even setting that asideโlet’s suppose that it’s appropriate for a man who is acting in persona Ecclesiae to undermine the Ecclesia, or to compare such barracking to “a hard gospel,” or to publicly ridicule the shortcomings of his nephews’ vocabularies, and let’s set aside the myriad problems in this textโI wonder if Fr. Ed’s “by their fruits you will know them” standard can be taken seriously. “[T]he quality of this reform will โฆ be judged,” he says, “by the justice and mercy this liturgy of the church calls forth from us in the liturgy of the world.” Well, if those are the criteria by which the corrected translation are to be judged (and we will stipulate that they are, arguendo), Fr. Ed must apply them without a thumb on the scale to the botched 1973 translation too. Indeed, to the extent that he is talking about “the liturgy of the church,” one might ask whether those who would apply such criteria to the corrected translation must not judge by them the entire novus ordo enterprise itself (and it is truly odd to see the novus ordo being attacked now by liberals, as if now, forced to swallow the text as it really is they suddenly see what has horrified traditionalists for years). I shall not hold my breath waiting for Fr. Ed to judge his sacred cows by the standard to which he’d hold the liturgy of the Church.
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1. It appears that you wrote “corrected translation” when you meant to say, assuming your intent is accuracy, “different translation.”
2. You’ve set up an opponent of straw here, making the assumption that Fr. Foley is the front line of a legion of defenders of the 1973 translation. Au contraire: Most everyone who has commented here and elsewhere recognizes the lack of artistry and stripping of scriptural allusions from the official Latin (note carefully that I do not say “original Latin,” as the scriptural allusions among other things had themselves to be translated into Latin from Greek) as a problem.
However, the real and current problem is the poor quality of the new translation, bad for very different reasons than the most recently defunct version. Better scholars than I have loudly proclaimed the obvious faults of the new book: absurd mistranslations obvious to a 7th grader, a tangled and unproclaimable mass including many arcane English words pasted into Latin syntax, a profound lack of understanding of English rhetoric, et alia. Fr. Ed is right on, and he might even agree with you on the matter of being judged for the old translation in the same way.
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1. No, I meant to say corrected translation, for that is what it is. It is also different, perforce, but “corrected” is more precise and thus more accurate.
2. You’re certainly correct if you mean that I assume that Fr. Foley (and that most of those who agree with him) wouldn’t apply the same test to the 1973 translation. One might observe that those who “recognize[] the lack of artistry and stripping of scriptural allusions from the [authoritative] Latin” have a simple solution available to them: Celebrate the Mass in latin. Vatican II, after all, called only for the use of the vernacular in suitable places (a duty discharged by the lectors and propers) and insisted that the faithful should be able to participate fully in the latin parts proper to them, so there can be no sound appeal to the council or supposed “pastoral” needs in this case.
There’s no profit in arguing over the translation being of “poor quality,” but your claim that it is “a tangled and unproclaimable [M]ass,” so often repeated by so many critics over the last year, finally hit the buffers yesterday. Throughout the United States, Catholics heard the supposedly unproclaimable Mass proclaimed; in my parishes, it would seem, they saw it proclaimed well. Our priest proclaimed it very well. So can we now, at long last, now that it is in your interest to do so, dispense with the demonstrably false “unproclaimable” canard?
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Simon, on the point of correction I am positive that the translation is different but not corrected, as even a graduate of the Boston Latin School, presented with the Latin, would get no more than a C- for the texts now in the missal.
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Watching and hearing about experienced priests stumble over the tangled prose of the collect, Eucharistic Prayer, and other texts leave me with a different set of facts than you have, apparently. You might want to read some of the other discussions on this weblog, as it would offer you a necessary corrective.
Well, I agree there’s no profit in arguing with you since your mind appears to made up. We’ll see what happens in several months, and examine the evidence from all over the church, not just “in my parishes.” So far, empirically, my ear has been bent by friends and acquaintances aghast at what is claimed to be an improvement.
Oh yes, one last thing. It was in fact intended to be a lower case “m” at the beginning of the word “mass”.
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“Simon, on the point of correction I am positive that the translation is different but not corrected”
You can be as positive as you like, but that doesn’t change the facts. Let me give you a simple example that a graduate of eighth grade latin (let alone the Boston Latin School) would have been able to spot. You know the very first thing one learns in Latin, right? Present active first and second conjugation verbsโverbs like credare. Credo, credes, credet, credemus, credetis, credent. After one class, a beginner would not mistake credo for credemus as the ICEL apparently did (unless one wants to supposeโforfend!โthat they instead took it upon themselves to change the words rather than translate them; in either event my point).
“Watching and hearing about experienced priests stumble over the tangled prose of the collect, Eucharistic Prayer, and other texts leave me with a different set of facts than you have, apparently.”
Not reallyโI didn’t claim that the corrected translation won’t be proclaimed with mistakes; I disputed the untenable assertion that it is โunproclaimable.โ Reality is the corrective to theory, and all the anecdotes in the world about priests failing to get it right are outweighed by the experience of seeing one priest proclaim it properly. I know that our priest worked hard to get it right; he put in some real time, care, and effort. And he didn’t get a single word wrong in the EPโI think he got one pronoun jumbled in the collect and that’s it, which is actually quite astonishing (one would expect at least a few flubs on any given Sunday). Does that exclude the possibility that other priests didn’t proclaim it? No. But its correct proclamation by any priest completely excludes the possibility that the fault lies in the supposedly “unproclaimable” missal. It’s amazing what can be accomplished with time, care, and effort. Like I said, not a single word wrong in the EP. “Unproclaimable” indeed!
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OK, let’s get this straight (for the thousandth time, but I’m really not losing my patience… really…).
Simon, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of purpose and goal of the 1973/74 text, so your critique is badly wide of the mark. You write as if the goal was to translate the Latin literally, so you cite true but irrelevant information from basic Latin grammar. Go read the official document from the magisterium, Comme le prevoit, and then we can talk about whether the translators reached the goal put out by Rome. (I’m tempted to add, go read 25 good books on inculturation in all its complexity…)
I’m no defender of the 73/74 text. But it’s only fair to point out that their goal – a laudable one – was to create a living, meaningful vernacular langauge inspired by the Latin, based on it, but not tied to it absolutely.
It’s getting rather tiresome having to defend a text I don’t care for in the face of those who can’t figure out why a 1973 document doesn’t follow 2001 rules.
awr
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That’s not actually correct. I don’t believe that the goal of the 1973 translators was to translate the Latin literallyโor at all. To the contrary, I wholeheartedly agree with you that the evidence supports no conclusion other than that the “translators” abandoned their charge and instead adopted the goal of “creat[ing] a living, meaningful vernacular langauge inspired by the Latin, based on it, but not tied to it absolutely.”
Rather, my error (if it is such) would lie in believing that translation is the act of rendering the meaning of a text in another languageโas opposed to creating a new text that is roughly like the original but with what the “translator” deems to be “improvements.” (“We” is no more coterminous with “I” in English than it is in Latin.)
Comme le prevoit doesn’t get ICEL off the hook; it presupposes that “translation” means what we would expect, and if anything, its statements about the purpose of liturgical translations serve more to indict than excuse the ICEL’s substitutions and creations. By contrast, the grammatical person of the verb is, from any reasonable perspective, not only relevant but dispositive. You would not accept “she believes in one God” as a valid translation, would you? Why not, if grammatical person is not relevant to translation? Would one translate Charles Aznavour’s lyric as “They may be the face I can’t forget”? Why not, if grammatical person is not relevant to translation?
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Simon, the problem of “credo” v. “credimus” is that the Latin version of the Nicene Creed is itself a translation of a Greek text that, I am told, actually reads “we believe” and not “I believe.” Looking at the amazing gold-bound book the diocese sent to our parish — far more substantial than the book of the gospels we received from them a few years ago — makes me wonder if the Latin text in its new transliterated form is itself an object of worship.
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RP, the Greek original issue has been brought up before. The conciliar Creed begins with the plural, but even the Greek liturgical Creed uses the first person. (example)
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RP, two responses.
First, a good test for an argument’s validity is to see whether it produces absurd results when applied to a different but comparable situation. If your argument is right, you must also maintain that we should translate the domine non sum dignus to pray for our servant rather than our soul, because everyone knows that “sanabitur anima mea” is a modification of a translation of a Greek text that actually reads “my servant shall be healed.” Still sure of the argument’s validity?Second, and in addition to Jeff’s point, I must add (at risk of being thought brusque) “so what”? The words of institution weren’t originally spoken in Latin, either, and one assumes that the oldest parts of the Massโthe sursum corda and so onโwere originally composed in Greek. But the Roman Missal (with a very few exceptions) isn’t written in Greek or Aramaic, it’s written in Latin. We translate what the editio typica Missal says, not because it’s in Latin, but because it’s the Missal; that would be so whether the editio typica was written in Latin, Greek, Italian, or even Swahiliโif the authoritative text is in a given language, that’s the language to be translated, because the translator betrays her task if she tries to revise the underlying text rather than translating it.
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Simon, โcredereโ (not โcredareโ) is third conjugation. The present indicative active is โcredo, credis, credit, credimus, creditis, creduntโ (not โcredo, credes, credet, credemus, credetis, credentโ). Examples: โCredisne in Deum, Patrem omnipotentem?โ (baptism); โQui vivit et credit in me non morietur in aeternumโ (John 11:26); โCredimus quia simul etiam vivemus cum Christoโ (Romans 6:8); โNisi signa et prodigia videritis, non creditisโ (John 4:48); โDedit eis potestatem filios Dei fieri, his qui credunt in nomine eiusโ (John 1:12).
Iโm not sure why we should credit (that word again) what you say about the new translationโs superior fidelity to the Latin, or even about its โcorrectness.โ You seem to lack the knowledge base needed for making such judgments. Or were you pulling our collective leg? -
Simon, I think thereโs also a difficulty with your insistence that โWe translate . . . the Missal. . . . if the authoritative text is in a given language, thatโs the language to be translated, because the translator betrays her task if she tries to revise the underlying text rather than translating it.โ It seems to run afoul of section 24 of โLiturgiam authenticam,โ which requires, as I read it, that parts of the missal that relay scripture be translated from the languages of scripture. Thatโs a problem for โon earth peace to people of good willโ and also for โhe took the chalice,โ since, to my knowledge, no present-day Catholic-approved New Testament uses either phrasing. I donโt understand why in the composition of this English missal existing translations of scripture carried so little weight, or were even outright defied.
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Paul, thanks for the correction on credere; as a student I appreciate it, but for present purposes, as you point out, the difference is nil: In both conjugations, credo is first person singular, and distinct from “we believe” (credemus/credimus). No one could, in good faith, translate “credo” as “we believe,” even if they placed it in the wrong conjugation, which leaves the ineluctable conclusion that the IEL had no intention of translating the text, but instead set out, as Anthony well-put it above, “to create a living, meaningful vernacular language inspired by the Latin, based on it, but not tied to it absolutely.”
LA24 doesn’t help you either. Indeed, I could have cited LA23 it for my position: “In the translation of texts of ecclesiastical composition, while it is useful with the assistance of historical and other scientific tools to consult a source that may have been discovered for the same text, nevertheless it is always the text of the Latin editio typica itself that is to be translated.” And thus, 24 continues: “[T]ranslations must be made directly from the original texts, namely the Latin, as regards the texts of ecclesiastical composition, or the Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, as the case may be, as regards the texts of Sacred Scripture.” (A footnote is then dropped referencing Inter Oecumenici no. 40: “The basis of the translations is the Latin liturgical text. The version of the biblical passages should conform to the same Latin liturgical text. This does not, however, take away the right to revise that version, should it seem advisable, on the basis of the original text or of some clearer version.”) No matter how we divide up the Ordo into ecclesiastically-composed versus biblical texts, however, and we can talk about that if you like, your example suggests that you’re not reading no. 24 to require translation from scripture rather than missal, but rather the quite different proposition that translation match other translations in the…
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I suppose people of good will could differ over which parts of the missal are biblical and which are ecclesiastically composed, especially regarding hybrids like โsanabitur anima mea.โ But I see no room for denial that the Words of Institution in the canon and the opening of the Gloria are biblical. So if these parts, in accordance with LA 24, are to be translated from the original languages of scripture, existing approved translations of the New Testament would seem to be an indispensable guide to keeping the words of the Mass faithful to revelation. If you, as a missal translator, have rendered words of scripture in a way that virtually all translations of the last half century avoid (as in โon earth peace to people of good willโ or โhe took the chaliceโ), youโre open to the charge of distorting Holy Writ.
The stakes are higher for people twice your age, Simon. I will probably not live long enough to see a revision to โon earth peace to people of good will.โ I had assumed I could take part in the Churchโs worship without having an outright misrendering of Luke 2:14 put into my mouth. Plainly I expected too much. -
that the Words of Institution in the canon and the opening of the Gloria are biblical
The words of institution are a union of the four scriptural accounts, as well as a few other words or phrases from other passages of Scripture; they are a hybrid of sorts. And as has been pointed out before, if we want to argue for the use of a standard English translation of Scripture for the words of institution, we will have “cup”, but we will be stuck with “for many”, not “for the many” or “for the multitude” or “for all”.
If you have rendered words of scripture in a way that virtually all translations of the last half century avoid, youโre open to the charge of distorting Holy Writ.
Has ANY English translation of Matthew 26 used “for you and for all”? (I am not asking this so as to justify the decisions made in the new translation.)
โon earth peace to people of good will.โ I had assumed I could take part in the Churchโs worship without having an outright misrendering of Luke 2:14 put into my mouth.
I admit that “on earth peace to people of good will” is awkwardly worded. “Peace on earth” sounds better than “on earth peace”, for starters. But despite no common English translation of Luke 2:14 using the wording of the new Missal (unless perhaps the RSV 2nd Catholic Edition, but I doubt that), “people of good will” is a reasonable translation of one of the two strains of the Greek text here; the other strain of Greek text is “[peace and] goodwill toward people” rather than “peace to people of goodwill”. It depends which textual tradition is used. It comes down to a sigma or no sigma (ฮตแฝฮดฮฟฮบฮฏฮฑฯ vs ฮตแฝฮดฮฟฮบฮฏฮฑ).
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Paul,
What I started to say above, but looking at it this morning it seems that PT cut it off in media res, still seems relevant. Even stipulating that LA24 obliges us to translate those parts of the ordo that are biblical “directly from the original texts” rather than the latin of the Missal, and even if we stipulate an extremely broad understanding of what counts as a biblical text rather than “ecclesiastically-composed” (and for the record, I join Jeff’s comment on that point), that’s not what you’re actually arguing for. Having stated that as a proposition, you pivot to something quite different: You’re not saying that biblical texts in the Ordo should be translated from scripture rather than missal, but rather the quite different proposition that the English translation of this should match other scriptural translations in English (or, presumably, any other target language). You’re not arguing source but destination. That means that you can’t cite LA for support, and standing by itself, it’s not a very attractive proposition when one considers the impossibility of a synthesized liturgical text that complies with numerous English translations.As to the stakes being higherโwith all respect, if you believe that Holy Mother Church would lead you into error by giving you an actually heretical liturgical text, you have bigger and more immediate problems than the words of the Mass. I hope that that’s not what you’re saying, but I don’t know what other stakes you could have in mind. If the stakes are merely having to live in the discomfort of a translation that you think is awkward and superficially incorrect, well, I hate to say it, but a lot of people said that for nearly forty years, and the sympathy from those who are now upset by the corrected translation was, well, let’s be generous and say limited. What goes around…
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Jeff: โFor manyโ is a sticky problem, and Iโm open to the argument that we should use it if it prevails in current translations of the New Testament. But โpeace to people of good willโ is not sticky, in my opinion, and thatโs my issue here. The problem isnโt โpeace on earth and ฮตแฝฮดฮฟฮบฮฏฮฑ to peopleโ versus โpeace on earth to people of ฮตแฝฮดฮฟฮบฮฏฮฑโ; in the Western Church, thatโs settled, I believe. The problem is whether โฮตแฝฮดฮฟฮบฮฏฮฑโ means Godโs good will or ours. New Testament translations of the last half century virtually unanimously say itโs Godโs, but the new missalโs word-for-word translation from โpax hominibus bonae voluntatis,โ โpeace to people of good will,โ implies that itโs ours, because of the normal associations of the phrase โpeople of good will.โ
Simon: Iโm arguing (I think) that destination should reflect source faithfully, which is (I think again) what LA 24 is calling for. Iโm not saying that words in the missal should always exactly match words in New Testament translations, since, as you point out, the latter so often differ among themselves; Iโm saying that the missal should not go in a direction that all apposite New Testament translations seem to have deliberately avoided (see the above reply to Jeff). I think the lack of recent Catholic translations of Luke that say โpeace to people of good willโ should be dispositive. (I work for a law school.)
My anger at being expected to say or sing โpeople of good willโ for the rest of my days is not a feeling that Iโm being required to contradict an essential truth of the Faith, but itโs more than mere discomfort, since I consider the incorrectness more than superficial. The situation does have its karmic aspects, but two wrongs donโt make a right.
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What a lot to think about. This brought tears to my eyes. This homily really cut to the chase. I hope that others in the non-noise levels of our church see this.
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โYour incense is loathsome to me. New moon and sabbath, calling of assemblies. When you spread out your hands, I close my eyes to you; Though you pray the more, I will not listen. Hear the orphanโs plea, defend the widow. (Office of Readings)โ From my high school years, Isaiah shaped my vision of liturgy.
There are many Christian spiritualities. Three have shaped mine:. The desert solitaries who spent months, even years and decades away from community in prayer. The Benedictine life of liturgy, study and community. The Jesuit life of contemplation in action. A shifting balance among them has been beneficial
Parishes usually model Benedictine more than Jesuit life; they are centers of liturgy, faith formation, and community. But the Vibrant Parish Life study shows people often find their liturgies and communal life are mediocre. While my time as a voluntary pastor staff member was one of my deepest spiritual experiences, many years would have been deserts without other centers of liturgical life.
A solitary life of praying the Divine Office is now within the reach of everyone with a computer and other devices through DivineOffice.org and others. You can even be the โimpresarioโ (h/t Kim Bowes) of your own personal, family, or group Divine Office. The time at the end of each psalm has traditionally been reserved for personal prayer. I pause the computer and play something from my large collection of liturgical music. You can have both the โofficialโ liturgy and your own customized liturgy without hassling or being hassled by the curia, bishops, your pastor, or the music director. Heaven on earth!
You can find your liturgy in the world just by being open to letting the Spirit be the impresario. I never thought I had much to offer the mentally ill, nor that I would play a leadership role in their consumer movement, nor that they would particularly value my intellectual gifts. The liturgy of the world turned out to be better than the liturgies of home and parish.
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Jack, please don’t tell me that you have labored for long under the impression that what God was faulting was the /incense/…
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โYour incense is loathsome to me.โ
Simon, as one who suffers from sinus allergies, I find โincenseโ as a label for worship that some find impressive but others find loathsome as a particularly apt way to introduce the summary of Isaiahโs critique. It captures the essence of many debates about liturgy on this blog as much ado about โincense.โ There has been little on this blog about how we might serve our equivalents of widows and orphans.
โNew moon and sabbath, calling of assembliesโ captures the widely held view that liturgy is really about Sunday and Feast day church going. Even sociologists use church attendance as a measure of religiosity because it predicts a positive life style of happiness, good health, giving of time and treasure to community and church. However, true to Isaiahโs critique, the recent research has demonstrated these positive effects occur only for people with religious networks of family, close friends and small groups. Going to church alone does not provide them.
โWhen you spread out your hands, I close my eyes to you; Though you pray the more, I will not listen.โ This major part of Isaiah was meant to anticipate my paragraph on the Divine Office. The Protestant reading of Isaiah has often been a critique of external worship; but I think Isaiah is saying that even interior worship is inadequate if the least among us are neglected.
Ultimately my comment was less an exegesis of Isaiah or even a negative critique of parish liturgy for those who seek to live a โBenedictineโ spirituality of communal worship, religious education, and mutual love in our parishes. I intended a positive invitation to find liturgy in our own personal lives through the Divine Office whether alone, with families, or friends, but most of all to find liturgy in our service to others wherever the Spirit may prompt us. Many of those who loath the New Missal and many who love the New Missal often seem to have limited notions of liturgy.
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Thanks to Simon Dodd who sent me a PDF with live links – it’s up now. Thanks to Christian Cosas for also offering to help. [I’m now deleting all the comments about problems opening the Word doc etc.]
awr-
Many thanks for this, Anthony! Vintage Foley!
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This is a beautiful and brilliant homiletic offering. It certainly doesn’t ignore the bull in the china shop. It challenges us to ride the bull beyond the walls of the precious china shop and live the gospel as Jesus did!
Bravo!!-
We don’t need to ride the new bull at all, if we follow this: http://www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie/2011/11/liturgical-resource-for-celebrants/
I think bishops will soon be thanking us for doing so. Being giggled at by Steve Colbert is surely a great trial for vain prelates.
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Anthony Ruff, OSB :
Itโs getting rather tiresome having to defend a text I donโt care for in the face of those who canโt figure out why a 1973 document doesnโt follow 2001 rules.
awrAnd now we’re saddled with a text many (which may, as we’ve recently learnt, mean all) don’t care for, a 2011 document that also doesn’t follow 2001 rules: the Pell-Moroney-Ward Missal!
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I am not as learned in these matters as most of those posting here; I am just a humble part-time musician. But this discussion is strengthening a question I have been thinking about, but don’t hear discussed: I grew up thinking that the approved versions of the Mass in all vernacular languages were considered equally valid and strong. I fear that this new translation is based on the idea that the Roman Missal text in Latin is the “real” text, which to me undermines the value of Mass in the vernacular. Am I just way behind in this? I mean this sincerely. PS — I really think Mass in the vernacular is important, so we had better have an English-language Mass that is “real”. To me that means actual English that the average 8th-grader can understand.
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“Poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins,” in Matthew 26, is a non-exclusive “many”, and can be translated “for the many”. To make is an excluding “many”, as it will inevitably be heard in the locusion “for you and for many” in current English, is against Scripture and Catholic doctrine.
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Joe, this has been rehashed endlessly, but “for many” is both a more accurate translation, and more theologically accurate. Here’s the way to think about it: Salvation is OFFERED to all, but will only be ACCEPTED by someโhence, poured out for many.
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