Doubts

queries
Father Richard Barrett answers readers' questions At the consecration the priest says "This is my Body which will be given up for you,/The cup of my blood which will he shed for you." Christ's words are placed in the future tense in the Mass but in the New Catechism they are placed in the present tense: "This is my body which is given for you,IThis cup is poured out for you" (CCC 1365). Why do the words given in the Catechism differ from those we hear at Mass? And is there any hope that the revision of the Liturgy might adopt the version of the Catechism as the one we hear on a Sunday?
0 N HOLIDAY one summer with a virtuoso in the foothills of the Alps, I decided to attend Mass, as you do, and watched the curate arrive at the church in a pair of flared jeans, sneakers and a striped T-shirt bearing the logo "Hey I'm going to a Party" across his back. As I looked down at my breviary I thought "Oh dear, this really is not a good omen."
I was astonished that Fr Trendy stuck to the readings set forth in the French Lectionary and was about to let my religious sense breathe a sigh of relief when I heard the unmistakeable sound of tinkering with the words of Consecration. The curate changed the printed words and popped in a reference to "Jesu qui est venu a livrer les peches du monde et le douleur des pauvres", which, roughly translated, is "Jesus who came to deliver the peaches of the world and the sorrow of' the poor." Afterwards I went into the sacristy and asked the curate which Party he was going to that day, was it the Communist Party by any chance? Not the right note to start on but in for a penny in for a pound. He looked somewhat unamused and then I asked him if he had a special indult from Rome to play around with the words of Consecration. He simply responded "Vous etes trop Roman pour quelqu'un si jeune." I wondered whether his response meant "you are too Roman for one so young" or "you are too novel for one so young".
The reader has touched on a rather simple issue that becomes sensitive in its resolution. The formula which the Catechism reports at no.I 365 is lifted directly from the account of the Last Supper in Luke's Gospel at Lk 22:19-20. The Greek verb used for the first part is didomenon which though rendered in Latin as datur and in English as "given", resonates with the Greek word for "delivered up" or paradidonai; for here the idea is one of sacrifice, of being "given up for offering".
It is, as the reader has pointed out, in the present tense. Some scholars suggest that as Aramaic had no future tense then the present tense was used. This assumes Christ
conducted the Last Supper in Aramaic, but it seems just as likely that it was conducted in Hebrew. We should recall that the Last Supper was not the Jewish equivalent of a jaunt to MacDonalds it was a ritual Passover meal conducted according to the prescriptions of the law. Other details betray this as when we are told that Jesus and his disciples drank red wine that night. According to the rabbinical authorities at the time, most rabbis held red wine to be mandatory at the Passover, i.e. this was a binding prescription or miswah (Prov 23:31; Jub 49.6,9). Hence the easy allusion Jesus makes when he identifies the wine with his blood. The word for body is soma, the word for blood is haimati, which can also mean death. The liturgical formula we find presented by St. Paul in the First Letter to the Corinthians is a very early text but it too is phrased in the present not future tense (I Cor 11:23).
So whence the future tense of the Consecration as we have it in the English Liturgy today? Well, I don't wish to sound like a broken record, but yes you guessed it, the prize for innovating against Scripture, Tradition and the Roman Rite once again goes to our dear friends at ICEL, Gosh! Such courage. Imagine feeling that one is authorised by I don't know who to depart from the most important authorities in the Christian Faith. One might have thought, tinkering with the Scriptures could have been acceptable if it were legitimated by Tradition, but it isn't; and one might have thought correcting Tradition by referring back to the Scriptures was also acceptable. But in this instance it isn't. Both these sources, reliably reported by the Catechism, expressing the faith of the College of Bishops, go for the present tense. The words used in the official Latin text of the Roman Rite are tradetur, for the body, in the present tense meaning "given or is delivered up", and effundetur, for the blood, again in the present tense and meaning "poured out". Must one always traduce when one translates? I can think of no other explanation for the extraordinary challenge of 10EL to Scripture, Tradition, sacred liturgy and received Wisdom.
Of course maybe it is just a mistranslation pure and simple? The mistranslation of the words of Consecration really is quite baffling and we can be pleased that the reader drew our attention to one of the less permissible gaffs of ICEL.
Even from an ecumenical point of view giving us an accurate rendering of the Latin and putting the Consecration in the present tense would have chimed in nicely with our brothers and sisters in the Church of England. Who knows, perhaps it could have been a lack of ecumenical foresight a case of Ut Unum Squint perhaps? It would also have made much more theological sense to render the present tense given the rather nice teaching of the Catechism on the Mass as the re-presentation here and now of the sacrifice of Calvary.
This is the latest in a series of errors this newspaper has had the misfortune to report.