Many pages of new English translation of the full Roman Missal, in the near-final form as adapted by Rome, has appeared on Wikileaks, as noted by PrayTell.
You are welcome to look through it all, and it would be great if people would post samples and compare them to the current Missal, but here is just one sample of the coming changes that you can look forward to.
In the current Missal at the Easter Vigil, following the Gloria, the priest says in a cadence and language now all-too-familiar to Catholics:
Lord God,
you have brightened this night
with the radiance of the risen Christ.
Quicken the spirit of sonship in your Church;
renew us in mind and body
to give you whole-hearted service.
The received text is very different: liturgical, grand, intelligent, respectful, solemn:
O God, who make this most sacred night radiant
with the glory of the Lord’s Resurrection,
stir up in your Church a spirit of adoption,
so that, renewed in body and mind,
we may render you undivided service.
Or consider the differences in the prayer after communion for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, starting with the current (lame-duck) version:
Lord, you have nourished us with bread from heaven.
Fill us with your Spirit,
and make us one in peace and love.
Groovy. Now consider the forthcoming version:
Pour on us, O Lord, the Spirit of your love,
and in your kindness make those you have nourished
by this one heavenly bread,
one in mind and heart.
Love these examples–it's about time we heard subordinate clauses in our liturgical prayers again!
Grammatical subordination is not just a dispensible thing, a trick we might or might not choose to do with words–it is a way of thinking, one that has deep imnplications for the way we think about God and the faith.
The subordinate clause Collect is an essential part of the genius of the Roman Rite, and it sounds as if the new translations will restore it…nay, will INTRODUCE it to our English-language worship.
(Of course, how good these sound in English without reference to the normative Latin is the weakest argument for the rightness of the new translations. The soundest argument is grounded in the Latin…)
Keep in mind that the leaked Received Text is not the final text. Rome is still revising the final text. It's reasonable to expect that the final version will be more like the Received Text than the current one. But remember that we're only get the general flavor of it here, not necessarily the exact final wording.
awr
Also remember that the 1970-75 Missal followed a set of rules in existence at the time. As did the 1998. Hard to say that about a translation that includes a winner like:
"Nor let not my enemies exult over me."
You're hollering at the wrong barn, Jeffrey. Almost all of us liberals we waiting for MR2 when Fr Z was playing Mass with Necco wafers. Let's get the MR2 texts and do a real comparison.
I'm not really following you Todd and I'm not hollering for this tribe or that. I'm just saying that the coming up trans is leagues above what we use now.
None of what you say makes any sense to me, Todd. Of course, 1998 is not on the table, and I wonder what you think Father Z had with either it or any of the new corrected versions.
Todd, brother….was the juxtaposition of your sarcasm over "Nor let my enemies exult over me" with "…when Fr. Z was playing Mass with Necco wafers." written with intent?
That was a tad, Todd, over the top. I loves ya, man, but REALLY?
I think over on the Trad side we're trying to come to grips with the legislation/gospels axiom, finally! Zinger snark from any one side is just still snark, and not consistent with the proportionate pre-eminence of the gospel side of the axiom. Peace, out.
DFTT
Ian, I'm a four year old mind in a fat, 60 year old body. Could you expiate the Fourier Transform thingy for me?
Sincerely yours,
Rumpole
Todd, you really could not have written this about Father Z. This is beneath you. Besides, I wouldn't want to put my translation prowess up against Father Z's.
Look: the relentless criticism of MR1 in English is unwarranted. It was always and only a transitional document to get us to the real work once the second Latin Missal was completed. So my snark is just a poke at Jeffrey's groovy commentary.
The only reasonable comparison of MR3 is MR2–what we were all waiting for since the early 80's. And that was a time when, if my correspondence with Fr Z is remembered right, he was just a kid. I just assume he pretended to say Mass like my siblings and I and countless other Catholic kids did.
For the record, I think both the translation and the MR3 original have lots of problems. Some people are cheering the new Missal despite the leaks, tinkering and double negatives. Forty-five years after Vatican II, I would have hoped for something of even higher quality.
So is it snark? No. Just artistic and spiritual disappointment.
First Collect (of two choices) after First Reading, Easter Vigil
Omnípotens sempitérne Deus,
qui es in ómnium óperum tuórum dispensatióne mirábilis,
intéllegant redémpti tui,
non fuísse excelléntius, quod inítio factus est mundus,
quam quod in fine saeculórum Pascha nostrum immolátus est Christus. Qui vivit et regnat in saecula saeculórum.
Current Missal:
Almighty and eternal God,
you created all things in wonderful beauty and order.
Help us now to perceive
how still more wonderful is the new creation
by which in the fullness of time
you redeemed your people
through the sacrifice of our passover, Jesus Christ,
who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
2008: (what we ALMOST had)
Almighty everlasting God,
who are marvelous in ordering all your works,
let those you have redeemed
understand that still more wonderful
than the world’s creation in the beginning
is that, at the end of the ages,
Christ our Paschal Lamb* has been sacrificed.
Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
2010 (what we THINK we're getting)
Almighty ever-living God,
who are wonderful in the ordering of all your works,
may those you have redeemed understand
that there exists nothing more marvelous
than the world’s creation in the beginning
except that at the end of the ages,
Christ our Passover has been sacrificed.
Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
Look at that third from last line: "EXCEPT THAT . . . "? Huh? No! They can't be serious.
[*"Passover" was changed to "Paschal Lamb" in January 2009 by the Commission in light of comments on the Gray Book received from the Congregation and from the Conferences and for the sake of consistency.]
1. Necco wafers aren't exactly common outside New England. I've seen them maybe once or twice in life.
2. Father Z was raised Lutheran and converted to Catholicism as an adult. (Thanks to the choir and orchestra over at St. Agnes in Minnesota, and by long talks with the late Msgr. Schuler.) Thus the playing Mass thing sounded a bit weird (though I suppose that if they have Necco in Minnesota, a Lutheran might play Mass also).
3. What's wrong with "except that"? It's not a grammatical error; it expresses the thought being translated. I suppose one might say "except for", but that's a rather colloquial sort of glue-phrase. You can't get away with just "except", not with the phrases that follow. "Besides" wouldn't work, either, because you need to be clear that Christ coming into the world is more amazing than even Creation itself, and not the same level of amazing. "But that" would have people complaining about archaicism, and also might make the amazingness levels sound too equivalent. Indeed, now that I think about it, so does "except for".
Of course, it could be argued that "except that" is too colloquial. Is that what you're arguing? People do use it all the time in conversation, usually schwa-ing or swallowing most of it, which I suppose might make you feel it's too informal.
Both "except for" and "except that" are much more common than the bare "except", and that's not surprising in a Germanic language like English. It's kind of a shame that "which that" and other Old English and Middle English combos have dropped out of the language. Chances are they'll come back someday….
Why, yes, I can't sleep and have time on my hands. Why do you ask? 🙂
You're exactly what they're counting on suburbanbanshee! Would it be too much of a pun to say that you're an answer to prayer!
But I'm afraid even some of the super-loyalists are bailing on 2010: cf What Does the Prayer Really Say, and Fr. Z's article now posted in the online edition of The Wanderer.
If I didn't know better, I'd say he's been reading that OTHER Minnesota blog!:-)