"for" in the new translation

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Monica4316

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I noticed in the new translation of the Mass, the priest now says “for this is My Body”… I’ve attended Latin Mass so I know this is what it says in the Latin. My question is, does anyone know the reasoning of this change in the English translation? Does it actually change the meaning of anything or did they just try to bring it closer to the Latin?

Just wondering 🙂

I like the new translation generally. And I love the Latin Mass. Not here to criticize it, but just interested.

thanks!
 
Monica4316 said:
I noticed in the new translation of the Mass, the priest now says “for this is My Body”… I’ve attended Latin Mass so I know this is what it says in the Latin. My question is, does anyone know the reasoning of this change in the English translation? Does it actually change the meaning of anything or did they just try to bring it closer to the Latin?

Just wondering 🙂

I like the new translation generally. And I love the Latin Mass. Not here to criticize it, but just interested.

thanks!
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that
 
It makes the words of consecration grammatically correct. “For” as in “because”. It’s why we should take this and eat it. In the previous translation the “for” was assumed. English was lazy in 1970 - hey love and peace man.
 
jimrob said:
In the previous translation the “for” was assumed. English was lazy in 1970 - hey love and peace man.
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That’s one way of looking at it. In the Latin the “enim” is seldom if ever used as the first word of a sentence. So “Hoc est enim Corpus Meum” becomes, in effect, “This (not the bread anymore because that would be “Hic”) IS {from here on, therefore} My Body.”
 
The Latin word enim could mean “for” and it could also mean “indeed, in fact”. So the Latin can mean both “Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is my body” or “Take this, all of you, and eat of it: this is indeed my body.”

They would both be accurate translations (I think), and true statements theologically and liturgically speaking, but they mean different immediate things, although their final end is really the same idea.

“Eat of it, for this is my body” is like saying “Eat of it, because this is my body”; that is, “the reason I want you to eat of it is because this is my body.”

“Eat of it: this is indeed my body” is like saying “Eat of it, which is truly my body.”

The “thing” being eaten is “my body”, either way you translate it.
 
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