"Christ - Paid the price" mistaken translation of the Sequence for 'Easter' - what to do?

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youtube.com/watch?v=biToVpwMWgw

English text of official USCCB lectionary and missal currently in use in 2010/early 2011.

Christians praise the Paschal Victim
Offer thankful sacrifice.
Christ the Lamb has saved the sheep;
Christ the Just One paid the price,
Reconciling sinners to the Father.

LATIN:
Victimae paschali laudes
immolent Christiani.
Agnus redemit oves:
Christus innocens Patri
reconciliavit peccatores.

ANGLICAN TRANSLATION I USE:

Praises to the paschal victim
for christians sacrificed
A lamb the sheep redeemeth:
Christ as innocent offering,
reconcileth sinners to the Father.

I am concerned that translating this as “Christ the Just One paid the price” may be, besides being inaccurate meaning of the original latin - also a calvinistic interpretation at odds with our official theological position.

Does this warrant that one ought to sing the anglican translation in a regular “paul vi” “Ordinary form” mass instead of the official ICEL translation, or perhaps at the bare minimum alter those words alone, but leave the rest in tact?

Any thoughts here?

How strict is the Church in which words the sequence must be sung?
May we follow the spirit of the law and sing that which we know to be the most accurate metrical translation, even if it remains “unofficial” ?? Will the local bishop hear complaints? (supposedly many parishes do not sing the sequence to begin with)
 
Poetic translations of the Church’s poetic works are given a lot more leeway. (Poetic license, if you will.) As long as the translation doesn’t actually violate Catholic theology, there’s nothing wrong with reaching a bit to get a rhyme or a rhythm to work right.

In Exodus 30:12 and forward, the Douay-Rheims-Challoner Bible consistently uses the word “price” in a lot of the passages applicable to this hymn. You don’t get more Catholic than that.

If congregations are catechised according to Catholic teaching, there’s no problem. Indeed, being a lifelong Catholic, it generally takes me quite a while to understand that other people take certain points in some other way beside the Catholic one. So you’re not likely to scandalize many Catholics.

If you’ve got a lot of non-Catholics or Catholics from Calvinist backgrounds in your parish or visiting, maybe you’ve got something to mention to the priest, for him to put in his homily. That’s his part of the pastoral burden.

But the Easter sequence is a reading. Either you’ve got to sing it in the approved translation, or in Latin – unless the GIRM says you can sing another version of the lyrics. (Like you often can with the psalm.) If you can, then you can do what you want. If not, grit your teeth and make a decision.
 
Mintaka said:
In Exodus 30:12 and forward, the Douay-Rheims-Challoner Bible consistently uses the word “price” in a lot of the passages applicable to this hymn. You don’t get more Catholic than that.
Click to expand...
You know Challoner’s revision is basically the KJV revised by Challoner :D?
 
Chris_McAvoy said:
Does this warrant that one ought to sing the anglican translation in a regular “paul vi” “Ordinary form” mass instead of the official ICEL translation, or perhaps at the bare minimum alter those words alone, but leave the rest in tact?
Click to expand...
No. What you are proposing is a form of Cafeteria Catholicism, changing the words in a liturgy to suit your fancy.

Follow the Church. Period.
 
Chris_McAvoy said:
youtube.com/watch?v=biToVpwMWgw

English text of official USCCB lectionary and missal currently in use in 2010/early 2011.

Christians praise the Paschal Victim
Offer thankful sacrifice.
Christ the Lamb has saved the sheep;
Christ the Just One paid the price,
Reconciling sinners to the Father.

LATIN:
Victimae paschali laudes
immolent Christiani.
Agnus redemit oves:
Christus innocens Patri
reconciliavit peccatores.

ANGLICAN TRANSLATION I USE:

Praises to the paschal victim
for christians sacrificed
A lamb the sheep redeemeth:
Christ as innocent offering,
reconcileth sinners to the Father.

I am concerned that translating this as “Christ the Just One paid the price” may be, besides being inaccurate meaning of the original latin - also a calvinistic interpretation at odds with our official theological position.

Does this warrant that one ought to sing the anglican translation in a regular “paul vi” “Ordinary form” mass instead of the official ICEL translation, or perhaps at the bare minimum alter those words alone, but leave the rest in tact?

Any thoughts here?

How strict is the Church in which words the sequence must be sung?
May we follow the spirit of the law and sing that which we know to be the most accurate metrical translation, even if it remains “unofficial” ?? Will the local bishop hear complaints? (supposedly many parishes do not sing the sequence to begin with)
Click to expand...
You have no authority to change the approved wording. It is the approved wording for the approved English translation of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite of the Mass. As the oft repeated phrase in this forum goes: Do the red. Say the black.

As Catholics, we trust that our bishops knew and know what they are doing.

If you can’t be obedient, recuse yourself.

P.S. It may be a reference back to the Exsultet from the Easter Vigil (my apologies for having the old translation):
Father, how wonderful your care for us!
To ransom a slave
you gave away your son.
 
Chris_McAvoy said:
I am concerned that translating this as “Christ the Just One paid the price” may be, besides being inaccurate meaning of the original latin - also a calvinistic interpretation at odds with our official theological position.
Click to expand...
No, that’s the actual meaning of the word “redeem,” which is not a vague, mushy theological term but a concrete business term. From re(d)- and emere, it literally means “to buy back,” and thus, when done for another, “to make payment for (a thing held or claimed by another) . . . to recover (a person or thing put in pledge), by payment of the amount due, or by fulfilling some obligation” (OED). The “redemption” worked by Christ is not “Yay, we’re saved now! … somehow”; it is the payment of the price of sin on our behalf. That’s why the word is being used.
Does this warrant that one ought to sing the anglican translation in a regular “paul vi” “Ordinary form” mass instead of the official ICEL translation, or perhaps at the bare minimum alter those words alone, but leave the rest in tact?
Click to expand...
Not sure if trolling or just cleverly satirizing.
 
MarkThompson said:
No, that’s the actual meaning of the word “redeem,” which is not a vague, mushy theological term but a concrete business term. From re(d)- and emere, it literally means “to buy back,” and thus, when done for another, “to make payment for (a thing held or claimed by another) . . . to recover (a person or thing put in pledge), by payment of the amount due, or by fulfilling some obligation” (OED). The “redemption” worked by Christ is not “Yay, we’re saved now! … somehow”; it is the payment of the price of sin on our behalf. That’s why the word is being used.

Not sure if trolling or just cleverly satirizing.
Click to expand...
Would you agree with me that is similar to the ransom language in the Exsultet that is proclaimed the night before at the Easter Vigil.
 
PacoG said:
Would you agree with me that is similar to the ransom language in the Exsultet that is proclaimed the night before at the Easter Vigil.
Click to expand...
Yes – in Latin it’s the same word: “Ut servum redimeres, Filium tradidisti.” Ransom is another way of buying something back.
 
After reviewing it more closely I agree theres nothing wrong with “Christ the Just One Paid the Price”, I was entirely wrong in suggesting that possibility.

I may be having have a tendency to imagine problems where there in fact are non whenever I read translations in contemporary simplified english when I am only familiar with them in hieratic antique english.

Despite the poor metre in the ICEL translation, for a parish that has little experience with singing in latin, I will use it. For though the metre is not as smoothly flowing as it should be, it is never the less not that bad of a translation. It will serve the purpose of inspiring the congregation in a manner that it has probably not experienced before.

I do hope however that all the other sequences of the mass are not going to also have official ICEL translations for which I will have to dispose of my good anglican ones for. That ultimately is an irreconcilable problem. One sequence is one thing, but I am not going to ever go wholesale novus ordo. In the future the priest will have to recite the official and we can sing the unofficial, as a solution. But for Easter I accept it as it is, since this is not my parish to begin with.
 
ok I’m confused if this is from the translation prior to advent 2011 has it changed with the new translation of the Missal we recieved at advent this years?
 
oneGODoneCHURCH said:
ok I’m confused if this is from the translation prior to advent 2011 has it changed with the new translation of the Missal we recieved at advent this years?
Click to expand...
The Lectionary (i.e. the book that contains the Liturgy of the Word…the readings, psalm, Gospel, alleluia/gospel verse and the sequences) didn’t change. Only the Sacramentary-- which is now called the Roman Missal–did.
 
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