I know it's just a comma, but

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Ricardus said:
I hope this doesn’t seem trivial or nit-picky, but I have a question concerning the placement of the third comma in the current English translation of the Sanctus:Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of power and might
You see, I am old enough to remember not only the early days of the Novus Ordo, but also the post-Vatican II but pre-Novus Ordo vernacular Masses in English, and from what I remember, the first line of the Sanctus was as follows:Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts (post-Vatican II, pre-Novus Ordo)

Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of power and might (original English of Novus Ordo)
I would also note that in Polish Masses, both the pre-Novus Ordo and Novus Ordo vernacular has always been and still is translated as follows:Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts
In the Tridentine Mass, the first line began:Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus,
**And so, I guess my question is, in current English vernacular Masses, when and why did the placement of the third comma shift the way it did, and does it matter?
**
  • Doesn’t the comma shift lessen the superlative of holy (Holy, Holy, Holy,…) ?
  • Doesn’t it create an unfortunate punctuation break between Lord and God, when we are supposed to be addressing the Lord God?
  • When we address the “Lord God” in the second person (grammatically speaking), isn’t this more fitting than merely addressing the “Lord (second person), God (third person) of power and might”?
p.s.

I notice that the upcoming new translation of the Mass (which I am looking forward to) seems to omit the third comma altogether, thusly:Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts
Now I’m really scratching my head. Can anybody shed some light on this issue for me?

Thanks.
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You want the real answer? Because the ICEL did a bad job translating the Mass.
 
TheMc said:
You want the real answer? Because the ICEL did a bad job translating the Mass.
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Is this just a knee-jerk response, or did you bother to think about it at all? Assuming that Ricardus is correct (which I haven’t checked) that the “post-Vatican II, pre-Novus Ordo” English did have the comma after the third Sanctus, and that the 1973 English, as well as the 2011, do not, wouldn’t the correct judgment be that ICEL got it right in both 1973 and 2011? The transitional missals used in the late '60s were not, to my knowledge, ICEL work.
 
MarkThompson said:
My real guess is that for some people it seems more natural to have a comma there, and for others it doesn’t. It sometimes surprises people to learn that the Sanctus is not addressed to God directly; if it were, the vocative form Domine would have to be used instead of Dominus. So what exactly is it saying? To whom is it speaking? I think most people aren’t sure, and hence the confusion about whether to punctuate it more like an exclamation, or a description, or what. At any rate, the original had no punctuation at all and the Pian Latin text had no comma after the third Sanctus anyway.
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Wait. So who else would the “holy” be addressed to?

Was this text originally in Greek or Aramaic and how is the meaning different?
 
TrueLight said:
Wait. So who else would the “holy” be addressed to?

Was this text originally in Greek or Aramaic and how is the meaning different?
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With a quick check, I can tell you that, Biblically speaking, it is about God addressed to other angels:

[BIBLEDRB]Isaiah 6:3[/BIBLEDRB]

(Note the comma.) What is odd is that in Isaiah it is all third-person, while in the liturgy “eius” (his) has been changed to “tua” (your), but Dominus has been left in the nominative. I couldn’t say why. Much more additional history is here.
 
Either the 1920 and the 1962 missals are equivalent

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dóminus, Deus Sábaoth.

without comma after the third Sanctus.

Otherwise very interesting observation, I always imagined that the three Sanctus is homage to the trinity, followed by a homage to the Incarnated Son. Apparently I was wrong.
 
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