Why the English of the liturgy is simply not yet good enough

Our current English texts contain too many errors and infelicities,
says Fr Bruce Harbert — but a
new Vatican Instruction could put things right
Will it
change 0 u r liturgy?" is the question most Catholics will ask regarding the recent Vatican Instruction Liturgicun Authenticam. It treats many issues, but what concerns most of us is the end product. The answer is that, yes, provided those responsible for our liturgy follow these valuable guidelines, there will be changes. To understand why, it helps to know a little history.
Before Vatican 11, English translations of Latin Church documents stayed very close to the original. The Catholic ecclesiastical style. was full of expressions otherwise unknown in English like "indult" and "rescript" and "other things to the contrary whatsoever notwithstanding". After the Council, liturgists were afraid that this style might be used for liturgical texts, making them unintelligible to the common faithful and frustrating the Council's aim of opening the treasures of the liturgy to all. So guidelines for liturgical translators were issued from Rome in 1969, often known by their opening words in French. Comme le ." privoit. They warned against / slavish transla
tion and recom
mended ,-,
flexi
bility. Some features of Latin texts, they said, could not be transferred into modern vernaculars. Translators were urged to isolate the kernel of meaning in a text and to seek to convey to the people of our age what the original conveyed to the people of its own age. The guidelines' concentration on what cannot be translated gave translators great freedom, which they exploited. The resulting texts were sometimes a pale shadow of their originals, as we find in the liturgical texts that we use today.
In many language-groups throughout the wr,‘rld, dissatisfaction with current liturgical texts has grown, and the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship has
been working for some time on new guide
lines for translators. This document is the result. It stresses the need for faithfulness to the original Latin texts of the liturgy. Let me illustrate what this could mean in practice. 1 shall take all my examples from the Third Eucharistic Prayer, beginning with some instances where it echoes Scripture.
The familiar words near the beginning of the Prayer, ". . so that from East to West a perfect offering made be made to the glory of your name" recall scripture, but only faintly. The verse on which they are based (Malachi 1: 11) begins: For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations". "From East to West' means the same as "from the rising of the sun to its setting', but lacks its pictorial vividness, and so is less memorable. The Latin original is closer to the text of Scripture than our English version. A more faithful translation might run "so that from the rising of the sun
to its setting a pure sacrifice may be offered to your name".
Will it
not be beautifill. as the Canon of the
Mass begins, to gaze with mind's eye on the rising and setting of the sun? There are many such treasures in the Latin liturgy, concealed from us at present by poor translations.
Later in Eucharistic Prayer 3 we pray "grant that we . . may become one body, one spirit in Christ". The original is a little more subtle, echoing St Paul's prayer "that I may gain Christ and be found in him" (Phil 3:8-9). It may be translated "grant that we . . . may be found in Christ. one body and one spirit". Here we have a profound image of the divine Father gazing on His Son, developed in William Bright's hymn: "Look, Father. look on thy anointed Son / and only look on us as found in him". Its full depth does not reveal itself on a first reading, but repays constant reflection. And that is what the liturgy is for.
As well as resonating with Scripture, a revised liturgy will incorporate the established vocabulary of Catholic theology. "Strengthen in faith and love your pilgrim church on earth" will become "Strengthen in faith and charity ...", because charity. with faith and hope is one of the theological virtues enumer ated by Saint Paul (1 Corinthians 13:13) and viewed by theologians from Augustine onwards as central to the developing life of a Christian. "Charity" is a word we must not lose, despite negative connotations it has acquired, for instance in the phrase "cold as charity".
Liturgiarn Authenticam requires that in rendering theological terminology translators take note of approved translations of the Catechism °fare Catholic Church so that the vocabulary of liturgy matches that of catechesis.
In the Latin original, Our Lady is referred to as "most , blessed", the apostles as \ "blessed" and the martyrs as "glorious". Translators in the early l970s removed these titles, but Liturgiam Authenticam requires that they be put back. Throughout the liturgy, we shall find more expressions of honour towards God and the saints. Translators have preferred terms expressing family relationships such as "Father" to those expressing social rank such as "Lord", but Scripture and the liturgy prefer to call God "Lord', and we shall hear that title more often. We shall also hear more expressions of human humility. The somewhat peremptory words "And so, Father, we bring you these gifts. We ask you to make them holy by the power of your Spirit' might become "Therefore, Lord, we humbly beseech you, deign to sanctify by the same Spirit these gifts we have brought before you to be made holy".
Notice that "therefore" connects this part of the prayer with what has preceded, and "the same" reminds us that the Holy Spirit has already been mentioned. Our current texts contain few connectives, and so give a staccato impression, each sentence standing alone. liturgiant Authenticam emphasises the need to respect the connectives in the original Latin which show how one part of a prayer leads to another. This will make our prayers more flowing.
We may take as an example the narrative of the Last Supper at the centre of the Eucharistic Prayer. Having prayed for the Holy Spirit to transform the gifts of bread and wine, the priest today continues "On the night he was betrayed", but a more faithful version would read
"For on the night he was betrayed . .", showing that the Lord's command to celebrate the Eucharist is the Church's motive for calling down the Holy Spirit. "For" comes again in the Lord's own words repeated by the priest: "Take this, all of you, and eat of it" — why should Jesus' disciples do so? The Lord gives the answer —"for this is my body". Proceeding to the consecration of the chalice, the priest currently says
"When supper was ended, he toe the cup", but the Latin makes explicit the parallel between Our Lord's words over the bread and over the cup, and can be translated "In the same way, when supper was ended . .".
Liturgical texts eeviseal with the guidance of Liturgiam Authenticam will sound less like everyday speech than those we are used to. They will contain expressions that require catechesis and repay reflection, leading us into the mysteries of the faith. Their smoother, connected syntax will sound more like carefully considered prose, less like improvised speech. The coherence of the thoughts they express will reflect the coherence of Catholic doctrine. Such a liturgical language will not only be shaped by our everyday speech but will shape it, enriching the English language from the sources of Catholic tradition.
The value of these changes is not merely stylistic. The most important point at issue is the Church's unity in faith. When Latin was the one official language of the Roman Rite, unity was easier to preserve. Now that the liturgy is celebrated in a multiplicity of vernaculars, the danger arises that each languagegroup will develop its own version of Catholic teaching.
Our current English texts, for instance, repeatedly overestimate the value of human effort and undervalue the role of divine grace in human life, that is, they tend towards the Pelagian heresy. This is widely acknowledged. even by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), which produced the texts. Respect for the liturgy that has been handed down in Latin, and for the Scripture that often lies behind it, helps to guard against such dangers. Careful custody of the Roman Rite is one of the means by which the Roman pontiffs over the centuries have fulfilled their ministry of preserving Catholic doctrine.
The work of revising our English liturgy has already begun, and some of the results of ICEL's work in this field have been published. Much remains to be done, however. Of 38 discrepancies that I have identified, using the criteria of Liturgiam Authenticam, between the Latin and current English texts of the third Eucharistic Prayer, only 10 have been remedied so far in 10EL's revision. A new English Missal has been awaited for several years already, and Liturgium Authenticam urges that the revision of existing transla