"Serene and Kindly... Um... Oh, No..."
More from the ICEL stuff. The bishop-members of the commission met in Leeds three weeks ago and no work has been done on these texts since. So, to this point, it is what stands.
Here's a snippet from Eucharistic Prayer I, the Roman Canon.
It currently reads:
And as one source put it, "the last thing anyone needs these days is for the words 'serene and kindly gaze' to be uttered with a bunch of American seminarians gathered around. Just picture it."
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Here's a snippet from Eucharistic Prayer I, the Roman Canon.
It currently reads:
Look with favor on these offeringsThe revised text says:
and accept them
as once you accepted the gifts of your servant Abel,
the sacrifice of Abraham, our father in faith,
and the bread and wine offered by your priest Melchizedek.
Be pleased to look upon themEr, that's a mouthful.
with a serene and kindly gaze
and to accept them,
as you were pleased to accept
the gifts of your just servant Abel,
the sacrifice of Abraham, our father in faith,
and the offering of your high priest Melchizedek,
a holy sacrifice, a spotless victim.
And as one source put it, "the last thing anyone needs these days is for the words 'serene and kindly gaze' to be uttered with a bunch of American seminarians gathered around. Just picture it."
-30-
posted by Rocco Palmo at 15:24
5 Comments:
I don't think "serene and kindly gaze" is so bad. Compare with the Anglican Use:
"Vouchsafe to look upon them with a merciful and pleasant countenance: and to accept them, even as thou didst vouchsafe to accept the gifts of thy servant Abel the Righteous, and the sacrifice of our Patriarch Abraham: and the holy sacrifice, the immaculate victim, which thy high priest Melchisedech offered unto thee."
gotpraecht,
Yes, I see your point, I think that the Anglican Use translation does make the sacrifice of Melchizedek to be an offering of the immaculate victim, and that can't be right.
Interesting trivia question. Do you know where that translation came from? It first appeared, of all places, in Foxe's Book of the Martyrs in which Foxe provides for the Protestant reader a translation of the Latin mass written by the English reformer Miles Coverdale, who also drafted (I think) the Book of Common Prayer Psalter.
That translation, as far as I know, was never used in worship in Anglicanism until the advent of the Anglo-Catholic (and arguably uncanonical) "Anglican Missal" or "English Missal" which used the Coverdale translation as an alternative to the Prayer Book canon. The use of this translation was almost certainly illegal in both the Church of England and the Episcopal Church, yet at one time it was commonly used in "advanced" Anglo-Catholic parishes in the C of E. But, it was rarely ever used in the Episcopal Church in the United States, yet it, and not the Prayer Book canon that virtually all American Episcopalians used, that is authorized for use in the United States by Rome and the Bishops' Conference. Irony piled on top of irony! Yet it is happy result for most extreme Anglo-Catholics.
Indeed, Foxe used the translation for polemical purposes, but I don't know if Coverdale did. It would be interesting for someone to read the translation to see where Coverdale's translation is deliberately slanted. But, to do that, one would have to consult the translation in Foxe (the original Foxe, not the condensed version for middle class Anglo-American Protestants), rather than the Anglican Use translation because (I think) there are tweaks in the AU version to account for the changes between the old Roman Canon versus the Roman Canon as found in the Novus Ordo.
Well, there are some differences between Coverdale and Anglican Use." "Host" versus "victim" is interesting. Host would be closer to the Latin root but far more obscure to the English reader than "victim." Given Liturigam Authenticam, what is the right result?
And were there any relevant differences in the Canon between the Sarum Use and the Tridentine Rite? (I would have to look this up.)
All, in all, the translation seems to be close, but it would be interesting to trace the differences in the text. Sounds like one would have to consult Father James Parker in South Carolina or Father James Barker in the San Bernandino Diocese for the answer since they were involved in compiling the Anglican Use.
By the way, Foxe's snark really stands the theology of the Canon of the mass on its head. Not at all credible.
Pretty rare to hear EP I anywhere it seems to me, so the problem mentioned seems improbable at best.
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