Gerald at Closed Cafeteria has put them up. Just as a reminder, what we're talking about here is the list of 62 amendments (to the new ICEL English translation of the Mass) that the U. S. Bishops proposed for use in the dioceses of the United States.
One thing surprised me: many of the amendments aren't changes to the "text" per se at all. Some are literally about punctuation and spelling. It didn't even occur to me that some of the amendments would be to, well, headers and footnotes, but there you are:
In several rubrics, the word chant was modified with the addition of a bracketed reference [or song], as in:
· Entrance Chant [or song] (OM, no. 1)
· another chant [or song] (Gospel Acclamation at OM, no. 13)
· Offertory Chant [or song] (OM, nos 21 and 23)
· Communion Chant [or song] (OM, no. 136)
While the General Instruction of the Roman Missal translates the Latin cantus as chant, the slight emendation was proposed in order to clarify what may be properly sung...
Seems pretty reasonable. Why confuse people into thinking they are chanting when they are actually singing?
I have to say that of all the amendments, the one that has provoked me to think most is the bishops' rejection of consubstantial as a translation of consubstantialem in the Nicene Creed. Here's the context:
Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipoténtem, factórem cæli et terræ, visibílium ómnium et invisibílium. Et in unum Dóminum Iesum Christum, Fílium Dei unigénitum. Et ex Patre natum ante ómnia sæcula. Deum de Deo, lumen de lúmine, Deum verum de Deo vero. Génitum, non factum, consubstantiálem Patri: per quem ómnia facta sunt.
Here's what we usually say:
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made.
Supposedly the new ICEL translation had the more accurate, but somewhat clunkier and more jargony-sounding in my opinion, consubstantial with the father for the underlined words. I can't think of another translation for "consubstantial" though: "having the same substance as?" "Sharing substance with?" In Greek, this is "homoousion" ("made of the same stuff" if I recall correctly). The "con" implies a "with" is called for.
But is anybody else, like me, reminded by "consubstantial" of another word: consubstantiation? The reason it's important is that it isn't really in our theology, but rather, is placed in contrast with one that is: transsubstantiation. The words refer to two different ways of understanding how Christ's body and blood exist in the Eucharist. We say transsubstantiation: the substance of the bread and wine are changed into the substance of the body and the blood. Others, notably Lutheran, have a different understanding that we call consubstantiation: the substance of the bread and wine co-exist with the substance of the body and the blood. (Although I confess having a hard time telling the difference in meaning, because whenever I've heard an apparently knowledgeable Lutheran explain what they believe, it sounds suspiciously like our idea that the "accidents" of the bread and wine remain. Somebody, maybe, can clear me up on this one.) Still others don't accept any kind of transformation or change at all, believing that the denotation of bread and wine as body and blood is symbolic. (Nonsubstantiation?)
Anyway, I keep wondering if the idea of "consubstantiation" contains some clue to the meaning of "consubstantialem". It almost seems opposite, though. The Father and the Son are not two substances co-existing, commingling, in the same appearance, but rather the same substance in different "appearances" or manifestations or what-have-you. So I don't know. Maybe the words have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
There's other things that are interesting.
[In the Creed] the rendering of he suffered death and was buried, was changed to He suffered, died, and was buried.
Well, that's not quite the same, is it? The original uses suffered as a (better) synonym for underwent, really. The proposed change (which is what we say now, incidentally) uses suffered to mean experienced pain, I assume. Not that He didn't do that, but should we put it in the Credo if it's not in there?
Another change is only in the spelling of Laurence to Lawrence. I assume that the former is the British rendering of the saint's name; the latter is the only way I've ever seen it spelled in the States. That makes sense.
Here's another one that changes the meaning a tiny bit:
In the following paragraph (OM, no. 87), two words were deleted for the sake of easier proclaimability:
ICEL: counted among the flock of those you have chosen.
USCCB: counted among the flock you have chosen.
Don't you think that the ICEL version makes it sound as if the "flock" is assembled from carefully selected individuals, while the USCCB version makes it sound as if a whole and entire flock was selected from among many flocks? I think those two words made a difference!
Here's another one I don't understand:
ICEL: We proclaim your death… and profess your resurrection
USCCB: We proclaim your death… and announce your resurrection
"Profess" and "announce" are hardly synonyms. Maybe they don't think we understand "profess."
(I'm not even going to touch the controversy over "dew"/"outpouring," otherwise known as the Poster Child Of What's Wrong With The USCCB's Command Of Liturgical English.)
Oh well --- interesting. Overall, most of the amendments don't seem to me to be a big deal.
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