Stupid ICEL-Lovers

Apparently old fogies are all sad that the present bad paraphrase of the Mass is to be soon done away with. They make all manner of dumb complaints about the upcoming new, accurate translation.  Well, I have before me a handy little booklet giving the Ordinary of the Mass in both the original Latin, and in the present French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, English, German and Polish versions.  While some of these languages I cannot honestly understand, others are fairly clear.  Consider, then, how the English compares to the Latin and to other modern tongues, using three examples.

First, consider what the Anglicans since 1549, and all Catholic prayer-books prior to the liturgical reforms, rendered as "And with thy spirit":

Et cum spiritu tuo.  (Latin original)

Et avec votre esprit.  (French)

E con il tuo spirito.  (Italian)

Y con tu espíritu.  (Spanish)

Und mit deinem Geiste.  (German)

It would appear, then, that for the new English to say no longer "And also with you" but "And with your spirit" would accord with the majority of the main modern language versions.  (Weirdly enough, the Portuguese is even worse than the English: Ele está no meio de nós means something like "He's amongst us", which misses the whole point.  I don't know enough Polish to be sure, but it appears that the Polish I z duchem twoim is the same as the present English version.)

A second case, in the Confiteor, the famous, proverbial threefold cry:

mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa (Latin original)

per mia colpa, mia colpa, mia grandissima colpa (Italian - gotta love that grandissima!)

por mi culpa, por mi culpa, por mi gran culpa (Spanish)

por minha culpa, minha tão grande culpa (Portuguese - twofold only)

durch meine Schuld, durch meine Schuld, durch meine große Schuld (German)

moja wina, moja wina, moja bardzo wielka wina (Polish)

Surprise, surprise, most of these other common languages faithfully render this - so  away with ICEL's once only "through my fault".  The French (which here and in other places almost outdoes the English) renders this simply as oui, j'ai vraiment péché (yes, I really have sinned!)

Thirdly and finally for now, the Gloria in excelsis: notoriously, the English at present is a mere paraphrase (the more than four centuries' old Anglican version is a perfectly simple and correct one, why on earth didn't we just copy it?), while a quick glance at the other languages' versions shews that they parallel the Latin far more closely, rendering all the phrases, not eliding and simplifying as ICEL did so rudely.  (To save space and time, I won't give the eight versions here, but be assured what I say is true...)

Profound Postcommunion

My ears pricked up while Fr Allan read the prayer after Communion at Mass to-day for the 22nd of December: unusually for the ICEL translation, it included the word "merit" - and in toto was a most noteworthy collect:

Lord,

strengthen us by the sacrament we have received. [Probably we are to understand this as a subordinate clause causally linked to the next, so read it as "Lord, strengthen us by the sacrament we have received, that thereby you may..."]

Help us to go out to meet our Saviour

[This clause gives an Advent flavour by alluding to the parable of the wise and foolish virgins waiting for the Bridegroom to arrive for the wedding feast: which is an image of our Christian life of expectation and keeping watch for Christ's Coming]

and to merit eternal life [gulp! that's a rather scary thought - but of course we do this "in Christ", Whose members we are by baptism, and Whose grace makes our actions supernaturally meritorious for the sake of His Passion]

with lives that witness to our faith.

We ask this in the name of Jesus the Lord. [Or, rather, "Through Christ our Lord," the proper short ending, much more truly significant, since all this we ask, and all this we know can only be granted, through Him our Mediator and Redeemer.]

So much for the ICEL version; in default of having the upcoming new and faithful translation to hand (it's due for implementation in 2011 I now understand), here is the Latin:

Roboret nos, Domine, tui sacramenti perceptio, ut venienti Salvatori mereamur cum dignis operibus obviare, et beatitudinis praemia promereri. Per Christum Dominum nostrum.

May the reception of thy sacrament strengthen us, Lord, that [yes, the first clause was a subordinate one of causation] with worthy works [not "lives that witness to our faith" as ICEL Protestantizes it] we may be deserving to meet the coming Saviour, and to merit the reward of beatitude. Through Christ our Lord.

Two separate verbs for deserving and meriting are used: mereamur and promereri. The concept is clearly crucial in this prayer; happily for once ICEL broke its usual rule and actually translated the word "merit".

Note how crappy and patronizing the ICEL paraphrase is: not only is Our Saviour not referred to as "coming" - a pretty stupid omission - but "the reward of blessedness", a beautiful and theologically significant phrase, is replaced with the easier-for-simpletons paraphrase, "eternal life". The causal link between the sacrament and our ensuing actions is removed, and "worthy works" is replaced most misleadingly with "lives that witness to our faith". Bleh!

But to give that body its due, here it actually did manage to convey something of the prayer.

What a great pity that English-speaking Catholics have been given an anemic and positively misleading translation of the Mass for so long. Arguably this is a greater wrong than ever was inflicted: for in the past when Mass was only in Latin, the translations in the hand missals that the laity took to Mass were scrupulously literal. Look at how people nowadays have no idea of the doctrines of merit and of grace - the latter word, so vital in theology, hardly appears at all in the English Mass, and yet it's there in the Latin. O, I forgot, ICEL renders it as "love" - a treacly mess in which we drown.

Book of Divine Worship, Rite One

As all men know, there now exists an Anglican Use of the Roman Rite, whose liturgical texts are collected in The Book of Divine Worship (Newman House Press, 2003). This volume contains the Holy Eucharist, Rites One and Two, the second being a modern-English version and the first being in Cramnerian English, more or less. Rite One is noteworthy for having the Roman Canon in what is called an "Old English Translation" (sometimes attributed to Coverdale, but apparently not actually by him).

What is more noteworthy is that it contains several very obvious omissions: it leaves out entirely the "Through the same Christ our Lord" at the end of the Communicantes (while still including this phrase after the Hanc igitur, the Supplices te and the Memento etiam, and the Nobis quoque, where it adds "Jesus"). More annoyingly and most inconsistently, it omits the Amen after each - except after the Supplices te! - but these were only included in the Missal in 1475 anyway.

It also omits any translation of the two opening words Te igitur (Thee, therefore) of the Roman Canon; and renders et beati Joseph ejusdem Virginis sponsi (inserted by Bl John XXIII) as "of Joseph her spouse" (following the old ICEL paraphrase); similarly, it omits tuorum (thy) in relation to the Apostles and Martyrs (although "the" is possibly a misprint for "thy" here); and curiously, perhaps for better effect, slightly reorders the great concluding doxology Per ipsum, putting "in the unity of the Holy Ghost" and "all hono[u]r and glory be unto thee" before "O Father Almighty" - and rendering est as "be" (subjunctive), not the indicative "is".

Because of the more tyrranical hold of the Novus Ordo mindset in the eighties and nineties, when the B.D.W. was prepared, the words of consecration are those of the modern Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, rather than a direct translation from the traditional Canon:

Take this, all of you and eat it: this is my body which will be given up for you.

(In the Traditional Rite, I mean, the Extraordinary Form, the words before the colon are not part of the formula, and the words after "body" are not present, being inserted - arguably to emphasise the sacrifice of the Mass! - in 1969; similarly, the particle enim ought really be translated "for" and inserted before "this".)

Take this, all of you, and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of men.

(Here we have the notorious "for all", which makes Traddies have a fit of scruples and doubts - famously, the Vatican has now decreed, some years ago already, that this must be changed to "for many" in all translations, in continuity with all tradtion. Similarly, enim is omitted, mysterium fidei is moved to later, "Take this... drink from it" is included as part of the consecratory words, and the original Hæc quotiescumque feceritis in mei memoria facietis is replaced by the Novus Ordo Hoc facite in meam commemorationem. - a change that was allegedly made, leaving aside conspiracy theories, in order to give a more literal quotation from Scripture, though research has shewn that the older and more venerable a text, the less likely, perversely enough, it is to be literal in quoting Holy Writ.)

"Therefore we proclaim the mystery of faith" (at least adjusting the weak "Let us" of old ICEL) and those annoying Memorial acclamations are next inserted, again because the B.D.W. was put together in times less enlightened than the pontificate of Benedict XVI! Of course, mysterium fidei was moved here, and some made-up responses inserted, by some liturgical do-gooder in the course of the liturgical reform. I can't wait to see it all dumped; and as liturgists have said, these acclamations would - if kept - fit far better after the anamnesis anyway...

I understand that were this Book compiled now, it wouldn't have thus bowed to the Novus Ordo; perhaps we can expect a second revised edition sometime?

Overall, though, it is a good translation, and may be interestingly compared with the new ICEL version of the Roman Canon (and indeed of the whole Mass) soon to be put into place throughout the Anglosphere. For a start, here are the new ICEL words of consecration:

TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND EAT OF IT: FOR THIS IS MY BODY WHICH WILL BE GIVEN UP FOR YOU.

TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND DRINK FROM IT: FOR THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD, THE BLOOD OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL COVENANT; WHICH WILL BE POURED OUT FOR YOU AND FOR MANY FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME.

Note the use of "for" to express enim, and of "many" to translate multis (you wouldn't think it would take forty years to get these two right, would you?).