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Marie5890
Guest
But…It WAS broken…It was inaccurate…So it had to be fixed…Words matter.
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JRRTFAN
Guest
It was broken. When 25% of Catholics attend mass on Sunday (in the US) it’s about as broke as it can be. The real translation is in Latin, the vernacular should strive to convey the REAL mass. We are a Bible Church, our worship now better reflects that fact.
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ProVobis
Guest
I attended a Maronite liturgy last Friday night. It was mostly in Syriac and Arabic with beautiful chant. Interesting, though, the only English remaining was the “And also with you” response and the “one in being with the Father” Creed.
I also hear that many of the Protestant liturgies still use the old ICEL translations, which is ironic in some respects.
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Luna_Lovecraft
Guest
Hi Miaow
,This new translation certainly is an adjustment. Don’t beat yourself up over not immediately falling in love it with. Remember that everyone is entitled to their own opinions and feelings about it, despite what you might have read on CAF. Some people loved it right away. That’s great, but so what? That doesn’t change your experience.
Give yourself a break as you stumble and fumble your way through the new responses in the missal. You’re going to make mistakes; we all do. It’s not the end of the world. At my parish I’d say about 1/3 of the regulars are still saying, “And also with you.” I know that I did it once just this morning.
You need to give yourself time, the gift of patience, and more time. It will come to you. And once the prayers and responses come naturally - and they will, you’ll find beauty in it.
Remember: time and patience.
Luna
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Digitonomy
Guest
Either you’re off-topic, or your metric for assessing the translation is misguided. By “broken”, I assume GoldenLight was referring to the accuracy of the translation.
If you are equating the accuracy of the translation with the level of attendance, there are a couple key problems. First, it suggests that parts of the anglophone world where the attendance has been much higher had a better English translation. Second, if attendance in a couple years has gone down to say 23%, we will have to conclude that the new translation was even worse than the former one.
Here is the new translation of the Creed:
I believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.
I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
he suffered death and was buried,
and rose again on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins
and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come. Amen.
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Digitonomy
Guest
I would argue that the Nicene Creed never did flow well, and wasn’t meant to. It’s just a verbose recitation of our main beliefs, and was mainly run-on sentences. They have mostly fixed the run-on sentences, but that along with the change in vocabulary has made it even longer and slightly clunkier.
The new word congregants were tripping over was probably either consubstantial or incarnate. Don’t worry, people will eventually get used to mumbling through it without knowing what it means, just as they do with many parts of the Creed that use simpler words but express deep theological concepts. On the other side, I think “accordance” is easier to say than “fulfillment”, and “confess” is cleaner than “acknowledge”.
By the way, the old and new versions are found pretty easily at the USCCB site.
I just ran both translations through the MS Word spelling and grammar check, and here are the results:
Readability Statistic (Old) New
Words (226) 224
Characters (963) 970
Paragraphs (1) 1
Sentences (14) 11
Sentences per Paragraph (14.0) 11.0
Words per Sentence (16.1) 20.3
Characters per Word (4.0) 4.1
Passive Sentences (7%) 9%
Flesch Reading Ease (78.6) 71.1
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (5.7) 7.9
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ProVobis
Guest
This is interesting. Thanks for the research. They used to determine the fog index including those factors. They would also use syllables per word as well.
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JGMendes4049
Guest
The Latin is not a translation. It is the original.
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Massinbminor
Guest
I agree the Tridentine Mass should never have been replaced just translated into the vernacular. That Mass w good enough since St Gregory the Great codified it in 600. And then was further cemented by St Pius V. Why did we need a new one to begin with?
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YoungTradCath
Guest
There are about as many answers to that question as there are people on earth. While I mostly agree with your sentiments, I have learned that it is useless to discuss these things, especially on the internet. I would be elated if the EF would just have been translated into English, because my biggest beef isn’t the language, it’s the rubrics. Rubrics, rubrics, rubrics. But this really isn’t the topic of this thread, so I don’t think we should take it any further.
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Miriam1947
Guest
sojo, don’t you have pew cards? They are great. No fumbling necessary. If you don’t have them, ask for them or go to your local Catholic Book store and buy one.
You can also find all the new responses on the internet and they can be downloaded and printed so you have it with you.
I was actually surprised at how few changes there were for the laity.
There are tons of changes for the priest and we are all learning as we go. Really when I think about it these changes are good for us. It is too easy to fall into the response habit with absolutely no actual thinking or worship going on.
Oops forgot to add: Remove the word always from your vocabulary at Mass. That always is so attached to with you that it will always come out with you instead of with your spirit.
You can also find all the new responses on the internet and they can be downloaded and printed so you have it with you.
I was actually surprised at how few changes there were for the laity.
There are tons of changes for the priest and we are all learning as we go. Really when I think about it these changes are good for us. It is too easy to fall into the response habit with absolutely no actual thinking or worship going on.
Oops forgot to add: Remove the word always from your vocabulary at Mass. That always is so attached to with you that it will always come out with you instead of with your spirit.
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ProVobis
Guest
You would have the same problems with additional problems trying to translate Psalm 42, the Offertory, etc. The translations in the handmissals were not official and just a guide. And would have probably needed retranslations besides. Probably one of the reasons the 1962 Missal is restricted to Latin only.
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Miriam1947
Guest
I used to go to the Latin Mass at my parish when it was available. (It isn’t anymore for all manner of reasons none of which have anything to do with the worship of God) but we had the little red books and the Latin was on one side and English on the other. I never understood why the OF was so different from the English translation in the Latin Mass.
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Digitonomy
Guest
I’m not really familiar with these measures, so I don’t know how the fog index relates to the Flesch score. Nonetheless, I discovered a website that calculates the Gunning Fog Index:
Statistic (Old) New
Major Punctuation Marks: (17) 12
Words: (226) 224
Three-syllable Words: (15) 17
Gunning Fog Index: (7.973) 10.50
The site isn’t very good at identifying three-syllable words, but it allows you to correct the count and recalculate the index. For instance, in the new Creed it counted “believe” and “buried” as three syllables, and skipped “visible” and “ascended”. So while the original count was 20, I corrected it to 17. I think a case can be made either way as to whether people actually pronounce “Pontius”, “baptism”, and “Catholic” with one or two syllables, so I didn’t tamper with the original count of the, uhh… fog engine.
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NewEnglandPriest
Guest
So what does it say about the countries where the translation was supposedly better but they have even worse Mass attendance?
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Digitonomy
Guest
Perhaps it would be good to retranslate every five years or so. And we certainly wouldn’t want to restrict the benefits to those attending the English mass, so perhaps the Latin could be overhauled for our good as well.
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Genovefa
Guest
I sympathize with the OP. In the Episcopal church, we still use the old liturgy which is almost word for word the same as before the recent change.
Even though I am not Catholic, I do enjoy attending mass when I am unable to make the Sunday morning service at my church. I find the changes disorienting and I imagine that many are sad to not hear the familiar phrases. (I do not partake of course)
I will say, however, that there must be a very good reason that the Vatican changed it. I wonder if the Anglicans will follow suit as well.
Even though I am not Catholic, I do enjoy attending mass when I am unable to make the Sunday morning service at my church. I find the changes disorienting and I imagine that many are sad to not hear the familiar phrases. (I do not partake of course)
I will say, however, that there must be a very good reason that the Vatican changed it. I wonder if the Anglicans will follow suit as well.
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Newbie2
Guest
I used to be…“hooked” on “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed”. In fact, up until this very morning, although I said the new words out loud, getting in line, I thought, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you…”.
But just this morning in mass, I “got it”: " Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof … but only say the word and my soul shall be healed"
I actually forgot for a minute or so the “old” words. Not sure what happened, but I was struck by “my soul shall be healed”.
But just this morning in mass, I “got it”: " Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof … but only say the word and my soul shall be healed"
I actually forgot for a minute or so the “old” words. Not sure what happened, but I was struck by “my soul shall be healed”.
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ProVobis
Guest
Technically the bishops’ conferences change it and the Vatican approves. The Vatican wanted stricter adherence to the Latin and English was regarded as the most out of step. Other vernaculars are expected to follow with modifications.
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