While in a very interesting bookshop off Cuba Street in Wellington, I found a useful book: Lauds, Vespers and Compline in English (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1965). It advertises itself as being reprinted from (in conformity with Sacrosanctum concilium) "an officially approved edition of the Roman Breviary".
Therefore, I have this week (recovering from my holiday) been using this book for Lauds, Vespers and Compline: it's curious to pray in English again. I find the translation of the psalms used - the Confraternity version adapted to the Breviary - strangely reminiscent of the Grail Version. It is most useful as regards the Office Hymns, which it wisely translates as prose.
Some of the phrases used are a little odd: this morning, for the feast of St Agnes, the Sunday psalms being appointed, I was amazed to read in the Benedicite, "You dolphins and all water creatures, bless the Lord"! I thought cetus meant whale; but perhaps the translators understood it to signify cetaceans in general.
You never cease to amaze me with what you come up with, Josh. Way to much time on your hands, I reckon...
ReplyDeleteBTW, we still don't know what version of the Psalms will be used in the new Revised Roman Missal in English.
"Way too much time on your hands, I reckon..."
ReplyDeleteThe term is "sacred leisure", as the Dominicans say.