Mark Johnson, a PhD student in the Department of Studies in Religion at the University of Sydney, has an essay in Cathblog entitled, “Liturgy no place for dead language.” In it he argues that the debate about liturgical reform and language is being carried on in the wrong terms. “The background to the crisis is this: at the heart of the debate about liturgy is an absence of concern about the Eucharist, what it is, what it means, and its necessary harmony with the broader and enlivening message of Good News.”
He goes on to say that “The Good News is about the turn to the world, listening deeply to the Spirit speaking in languages beyond our control, drawing us outward, embracing the other, welcoming the stranger, and being transformed in that embrace. The Kingdom of God has come and we are charged with pointing towards its further fulfillment—beyond our interests, beyond our cowardice, despite our frailty.”
And this: “It is important to appreciate that language is not divorced from life. Rather, it is expressive of it, organically so. A dead language is such because the culture it was once expressive of is no longer. Merely translating such a language, out of place and time, is to adhere to arcane interests and cling to a corpse.”
Read it all here.
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