Today’s Orations in the New English Missal

by Alan Griffiths

Two of the orations for Wednesday of the Fourth week of Lent offer  a little further evidence of poor workmanship on the part of translators and editors of the received English translation of the Missal.

The Collect in the received text reads:

O God, who reward the merits of the just
and offer pardon to sinners who do penance,
have mercy, we pray, on those who call upon you,
that the admission of our guilt
may serve to obtain your pardon for our sins.
Through our Lord …

The expression ‘we pray’ in line 3 is not in the Latin text which reads simply tuis supplicibus miserere.

The last two lines, more or less literally, read: ‘… that the confession of our guilt may serve to receive pardon of sins’ – ut reatus nostri confessio indulgentiam valeat percipere delictorum. The extant text inserts ‘your pardon for our sins,’ thus narrowing the scope of the prayer.

A corrected version might read:

O God, who reward the merits of the just
and offer pardon to sinners through penance,
have mercy on those who call upon you,
that the confession of our guilt
may serve to obtain the forgiveness of sins.
Through our Lord.

The Prayer after Communion in the received text reads:

May your heavenly gifts, O Lord, we pray,
which you bestow as a heavenly remedy on your people,
not bring judgement to those who receive them.
Through.

This translation reverses the Latin order, so that the prayer concludes on a negative note –judgement – rather than the Latin ending of ‘healing.’ Also, the repetition of ‘heavenly’ in line 2 is not found in the Latin. So why is it in the English?

A corrected version could read:

We pray, O Lord, let not your heavenly gifts
bring judgment on those who receive them,
since you have provided them as healing for your faithful.
Through Christ our Lord.

Both these translation errors in themselves might be construed as trivial, but they do interfere with the meaning of the text. More important, it seems from studies of the Missal that such small errors are by no means infrequent.

Fr. Alan Griffiths is a priest of of Portsmouth Diocese, UK.