The liturgical wars continue over the new proposed new translation.  

I have noticed that the current translation is marked by a preference for general language which obscures the biblical references. The Roman liturgy is a tissue of quotations and allusions to the Bible, and biblical language tends to be concrete rather than abstract: how beautiful are the feet of them that bring the Gospel of peace. 

In an attempt to eliminate the hated word “man” from the Scripture readings, the translators have substituted “one.” But this is at best a Briticism; Americans do not use “one” to refer to a person in general. They might say someone or anyone, or possibly man, but “one” leads the American mind to wonder “one what?” 

The current translation tends to the general: “And also with you” really grates on me, because it eliminates the reference to the spirit, a word so important in Paul’s trilogy of body, soul, and spirit. “I am not worthy to receive you” obscures the reference to the centurion, who said to Jesus “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof.” “Dominus Deus Sabaoth” becomes “Lord God of power and might,” rather than the more literal and concrete “Lord God of angelic hosts.” The reference to Malachi’s “and from the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun a clean offering shall be offered to your name” is muddled in the translation “from east to west,” which changes a reference to the arc of time to a spatial reference, an important change, since the temporal reference implies that the sacramental sacrifice will endure as long as time endures – but  with the end of time, sacraments will cease. 

The translators seem either to have missed the biblical references (which I find hard to believe) or assumed that biblical references would be lost on Catholics – possibly true, but we are supposed to be encouraging biblical literacy, not adopting the liturgy to the biblically illiterate. A more literal translation would preserve the biblical references.

 

 

 

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