Ok, I was going to write this another day but the Mass earlier on has been playing over and over in my head all day and I have to get some things off my chest.
The French translation of the Mass isn't great. Let's have a look at the poorest translation:
Prions ensemble, au moment d'offrir le sacrifice de toute d'Église.
Pour la gloire de Dieu et le salut du monde.
Now, this is a translation of:
Orate, fratres: ut meum ac vestrum sacrificium acceptabile fiat apud Deum Patrem omnipotentem.
Suscipiat Dominus sacrificium de manibus tuis ad laudem et gloriam nominis sui, ad utilitatem quoque nostram totiusque Ecclesiæ suæ sanctæ.
Eh? I hear you say. Exactly. This I wouldn't even call dynamic translation, but rather "let's make up stuff - naebody kens Latin anyways, but?"
Other examples include the Confiteor, which, like the English translation, only has one strike of the breast (I'd always been led to believe that it was only the English translation that had just one). Also, the "mea maxima culpa" is rendered by "oui, j'ai vraiment péché". Yeah, I really sinned, ken?
Like in the English, the "intres sub tectum meam" has been replaced by "recevoir". There is the flimsy argument that in days of yore one would have said "No, I cannot receive him at the moment for I am attending to my toilette". But those days are gone and no one thinks really of receiving to mean letting someone enter "under your roof".
One thing I do like is that they've kept the "Et cum spiritu tuo." form. At least something was translated.
Now I've got that out of the way, let me examine the Mass of this morning. I have the sheet here to remind me what was done away with throughout the Mass. But first let me set the scene. The church is square and boxy with a high roof. I can only think of one statue, being one of Mary and the Child Jesus, but so modern as to render it useless in aiding prayer. There were colourful banners on the brick walls displaying nothing discernible other than a vague stained glass pattern. The altar was plain and behind the altar was the... wait, where is it? Where is the tabernacle? And what is that potted plant doing there where the tabernacle should be? There are steps to it. It is raised up slightly. Surely that's where the tabernacle should be, rather than a potted plant. Ah yes, that's it over to the side behind all those pews facing away from it so it is impossible to sit facing it. Ah yes I see now.
Got the picture?
Now, as this was the Rentrée mass, there was a 10 minute blurb by the priests (none of whom were wearing chasubles) and then Mass started. The penitential rite consisted of one line, which in English reads "Lord, I welcome your forgiveness, give me the strength to live in [your] love."
Then a vague Gloria. The first reading was read, then a sort of psalm-like hymn was sung and then straight to the Gospel, where the gospel book was waved about. No second reading. And only half of the Gospel was read (the half that may be omitted - the obligatory part was ignored).
Then the creed was replaced with another hymn which says that you're saved if only you say out loud that:
Jesus is Lord, God resurrected Him, God is creator, He made man in His image, the Spirit is Love, He gave birth to the Church.
How does that compare with the Niceo-Constantinopolitan Creed?
The Liturgy of the Eucharist went by in a similar fashion, with the odd person here and there bothering to kneel at all. The concelebrating priests mulled about and the deacons were clearly just there for show. There was never a moment of silence - there was always some guitar or tambourine plonking in the background.
Then it ended with applause.
Oh and like I said in the previous post, we all HAD to hold hands at the Our Father.
God bless.
No comments:
Post a Comment