UK Launches New English Translation

Via Our Lady and the English Martyrs Church and the BBC, we can listen to the liturgy here.

“The Lord be with you.”

“And with your spirit.”

It seems to go off without a hitch. I was interested in hearing the confiteor. I do love hearing a (blessedly brief) homily — and this one explains the importance of the changes, particularly that exchange highlighted above — in such a lovely, clipped accent.

Listening to the new translations has had a more powerful effect upon me than reading them has had. I feel extremely comfortable with it; most of it is very much like the mass as I first learned it, in the early sixties.

I especially like the small but important changes to the consecration prayers. I’ve read a few complaints about, “this is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you, and for many, for the forgiveness of sins…”

The complaints center on “and for many, ” which some find distastefully exclusionary. I don’t find it so. To me, it is an acknowledgment that this salvific act is, finally, up to all of us to accept or reject. It is blood poured out for all, yes, but not accepted by all, and therefore — in practical terms — it is Blood; poured out, but neither forced upon anyone nor made automatic, but embraced and consumed as freely as it is given up, or just as freely rejected. And so it is Blood, poured out for “many” who will be freed by it. This is in fact, more immediate, more urgent and more powerful, much less passive language. It is language that challenges us to remember that there is choice involved here, and that it costs something.

By comparison, the previous language made it sound like His Saving Blood, having been poured, required nothing of us. It confused this act of cleansing and salvation with the movement of grace.

William Oddie calls the UK launch a huge success although he despairs of the Agnus Dei.

But why not “Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world”? That is accurate and I would have thought quite mellifluous. It would take some getting used to: but so will “and with your Spirit”. But why am I grumbling? This will be the last time, I swear: for, in the immortal words of John Greenleaf Whittier, “For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, ‘It might have been’.” It’s too late now: the translation we now have will be the last, certainly in our lifetimes.

Pat Gohn will be going over the new translations on the first Thursday of each month, from now until Advent, when we will begin using the new translations. Part I of that series — the view from the pews — can be found here.

At the end of her piece, Pat has a few resources and recommendations. May I say the Magnificat Roman Missal Companion is my choice for personal use; it is typically lovely, pocket-sized and it provides useful meditations and instructive essays in addition to the translations.

I love their pew cards, too, and am showing them to my pastor!