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New Zealand Roman Missal

NZ Roman Missal arrives

New Zealand Roman MissalLate last week the new New Zealand Roman Missal (with its new translation from the Latin) arrived. It had previously been delayed because the first ones printed couldn’t be ensured to lie open, and so could affect a priest’s gestures. The irony was that New Zealand was the first to begin introducing the new translation – it is now probably one of the last to complete that. I wonder if affecting a priest’s gestures will be a new irony of this publication, as will be explained below.

Grammar

I unwrapped it and flicked it open enthusiastically, in the presence of some well-educated adults, to the Sunday collect:

“O God, who have commanded us to listen to your beloved Son,…”

“It hasn’t been proof read”, was the immediate response of one person. So I turned over the page to the next collect:

“O God, who have taught us to chasten our bodies…”

“Maybe they are referring to God as Trinity,” said another person. I forget how many degrees he has. We are, of course, not tri-theists.

Since then, I have run this past three senior staff in our English Department who all see this construction as incorrect, an awkward construction. The question was asked, “How do Roman Catholic priests understand this, deal with this?”

But enough on that – there’s plenty of other places that discuss the translation from Latin into English as it is not used, the loss of ecumenically-agreed texts, and our shared musical tradition.

The missal has a strong red cover, good page thickness, and a clear font. Its 1475 pages is bound as 18cm x 23cm x6.5 cm (9”x7”x2.5”). It comes with a Companion to the Missal (same dimensions 518 pages, 2.5cm, 1” thick). This contains Entrance Antiphon, collect, Prayer after Communion; Introductory Rites; Concluding Rites; Blessings at the End of Mass and Prayers over the People – to be used by the priest at the chair.

Te Reo (Maori)

The missal is in both English and Maori – a very positive development. The Maori is always visible alongside the English. But not every part appears to be available in Maori. Is the intention, then, in a Mass in Maori to have those parts in English? I am not clear if one might switch between languages for available parts? (I don’t like this particular prayer in English we will use the Maori equivalent…) I know priests and bishops in a Mass in English bless in Maori – but I haven’t yet found the blessing in Maori. Will that cease to be permissible when this book becomes mandatory (25 March 2012)?

Only Eucharistic Prayers 2, 3, Eucharistic Prayer for Reconciliation 2, and “Jesus, the Way to the Father” are available in Maori and English. The Roman Canon is not available in Maori?! With the Vatican having altered about 10,000 places in the English, I wonder how many Maori-language experts there are in Vatican corridors and how many alterations they made to the Maori text provided?

Of interest: “Father” has consistently been translated as “Matua” (“parent”) rather than “pāpara”.

Page turns

A friend pointed out an issue with page-turning. With a quick flick, the most astonishing one I spotted is in Eucharistic Prayer 1:

The priest says: “On the day before he was to suffer,”
Turn the page, take the bread
“he took bread into his holy and venerable hands…”

Eucharistic Prayers 2 and 3 are diglot (English left hand side, Maori right hand side – I presume there is no suggestion of changing languages in the middle of the prayer? So this layout decision means there are twice as many page turns than necessary. The brief Eucharistic Prayer 2 is 12 pages, Prayer 3 is 14).

In Eucharistic Prayer 3:
The priest takes the chalice and holds it above the altar
“… and gave the chalice to his disciples, saying:”
page turn!!!
“Take this, all of you,…”

There are several page turns breaking the priest praying with hands extended (orans). I do not like the using-a-recipe-book look of a priest at the altar and prefer a laminated version of the full prayer flat on the altar. But I suspect that is not allowed.

I do not understand why the six Eucharistic Prayers (for Reconciliation, unity, etc) are in an “appendix” rather than simply with the other four prayers.

Posture

There is much stress that the new rules for postures become mandatory 25 March. Halfway through the Eucharistic Prayer the laity are now required to kneel. In a monastery, with all the monks standing around the altar, is there to be a sudden division between monks as those not ordained kneel while those ordained continue standing? Forming Christians into understanding standing as the posture for prayer and honouring, suddenly this formation is abandoned solely halfway through the Eucharistic Prayer. Roman Catholics often avoid clericalism, applying the same rules to laity as to clergy – here is an exception. Priests stand while laity kneel. The Eucharistic Prayer is a single, united prayer – changing posture halfway through loses that insight. I think this is a mistake.

Conclusion

I conclude by highlighting the new dismissals which have positive images:

Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.

Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.

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49 thoughts on “NZ Roman Missal arrives”

  1. “God, who have” is correct grammar when speaking to God in the second person as opposed to speaking about God in the third person (no puns intended).

    Speaking about John in the third person you would use “who has”: “John, who has three cats, was sick at home today.”

    But speaking to John in the second person requires “who have”, because “who” is the same part of speech as “you”: “John, you have three cats: lend me a cat toy.” –> “John, who have three cats, lend me a cat toy.”

    1. I had thought this was the case also, Jeffrey – but I note English grammar is descriptive, not prescriptive, and so I respect those who are more competent in this field than I am. Blessings.

    2. After more discussion over coffee, there is agreement that

      this is in line with “God, you who have…” with the “you” being implied. However, it is still awkward!

      And further

      it is phrased awkwardly, and they should have put in the “you”.

      I suspect that option was not followed by the Vatican (see the rejected 1998 translation) because the original Latin does not have the “you”. But this then goes back to being a discussion about principles of translation. Translation is about putting thoughts from one language into another as best as possible. If it is not the way people use language in the translation then it does not fulfil the requirements of translation…

      1. It may also have been rejected because “God, you who…” sounds like “God, yoo-hoo”. Just like “dew of your Spirit” was rejected because it sounds like “doo(doo) of your Spirit”.

          1. In fact, though, the Latin DOES read “you who” … “Deus, qui….docuísti” .. “you” is contained in the verb “docuísti” (second person singular), “qui” of course, is the “who”. A literal translation of “qui docuísti” would seem to be “you who taught” (the example comes from Sept. 28).

  2. I think “O God, who have…” is technically correct. The “O God, who” bit stands in for “You”. So the verb has to work as though “You…” were used. “Have” is used instead of “has” not because there’s a plural involved, but because the second person is involved. Not the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, necessarily, but…oh, here I go into a quagmire. 🙂

    1. We’ve just had more discussions over coffee, Scott. The English “you” is a plural (cf. French “vous”) and hence takes the plural “have”. We use it for the singular since we have lost the singular “thou”. Are you saying that we also use the plural verb for the singular “who”? Blessings.

  3. The problem is probably archaism (if that’s a word) more than ungrammaticality (if that’s one, too). It all works more naturally in Tudor-era English: “O Lord, who hast taught us that all our doings without charity are nothing worth…” (Hast, not hath.)

    1. Yes, Scott – and “translating” “who hast” would end up with “who has” just as “translating” Tudor “who have” (plural) would end up with a contemporary plural. Following that, it appears that the translation is incorrect… Blessings.

  4. If it is a second person construction, implying direct address to God, surely simpler, clearer and more natural to put “O God, you have … ”

    The presence of the relative pronoun, and the general form of the collect, suggests that the relative clause is not addressed to God, but is an attribution of God relevant to the petition being made. The relative clause does not have to be in the same person as the subject of the sentence, and is more of an aside about that person. So the normal form would be along the lines of … O God, who has [reminding ourselves why we are bothering, so addressed to us, rather than reminding God and addressed to God] … , we ask you [the prayer] …

    Trust this helps, or is at least interesting …

    1. Thanks, Mark. Another alternative, proposed by the world’s English-speaking bishops in 1998, and rejected by the Vatican, was to drop the “have/has” leaving “O God, who commanded us to listen to your beloved Son,…” That, IMO, is a fine translation, and does not “insert” a “you” word where the Latin has none. But… Blessings.

    2. Mark brings up a good point. The relative clause essentially acts as an adjective describing God for our benefit, since God already knows who and what he is. One might think of it this way: “God, the one who has…” “The one who have…” obviously isn’t grammatical English. As a result, “who has” flows, while “who have” doesn’t. Of course, that “has/have” doesn’t even have to be there: “God, who commanded…”

      1. Yes, Gregory, I think leaving out the “have/has” (as in the rejected 1998 translation) should have been the obvious way forward. It is very interesting that the liturgically-conservative, anti-ICEL1973-version, new-translation-loving priest, Fr John Zuhlsdorf, has the literal translation without “have” or “has”:

        O God, who commanded us to listen to Your beloved Son,
        deign to nourish us interiorly with Your word,
        so that, once (our) spiritual view has been purified,
        we may rejoice in the sight of Your glory.

  5. Interestingly, on the (parallel) discussion on Liturgy’s facebook page there is the comment:

    “the translation is just wrong. Its like putting text in google translate and then using the translation which is sometimes literal.”

    So I took the Latin original,

    “Deus, qui nobis dilectum Filium tuum audire praecepisti,
    verbo tuo interius nos pascere digneris,
    ut, spiritali purificato intuitu,
    gloriae tuae laetemur aspectu.”

    and put it into Google translate. The translation it gives is

    “God, who commanded us to listen to your beloved Son,…”

    which IMO is better than the Vatican’s version.

  6. On a less technical matter, the decision stemming from Vatican II to have Mass celebrated in the vernacular implied that the language should be that which is spoken and understood by the people, not just a literal translation from the Latin. Sadly I believe that this has been lost in the latest Missale Romanum.

  7. I very nearly succeeded in following my Lenten discipline of keeping my mouth shut about things that are manifestly none of my business 🙂

    Tudor “who hast” does not go to “who has”. A great many people seem to labour under the false impression that “who” can only function as a third-person pronoun. The following is from Fowler’s Modern English Usage (as usual he opens the article with an example of incorrect usage):

    “To me, who *has* also a copy of it, it seems a somewhat trivial fragment.” Read *have*; the relatives take the person of their antecedents; the Lord’s Prayer and the Collects, with “which art”, “who shewest”, and scores of other examples, are overwhelming evidence that “who” is not a third-person word, but a word of whichever person is appropriate.

    The relatives take the number of their antecedent — a rule broken in: “The death of Dr. Clifford removes one of the few Free Churchmen whose work had given *him* a national reputation.” The antecedent of “whose” is not “one” but “Churchmen”, whereas the use of “him” instead of “them” shows that the writer assigned “whose” to “one”; read either “removes a Churchman whose work had given him”, or “removes one of the few Churchmen whose work has given them”.

    Thus Fowler. The antecedent person in these prayers is the second, the antecedent number is singular. English nowadays tends to limit itself to the polite form of the second person singular (you), which takes “have”. It’s a rare construction today, I’ll grant. But now there are going to be a hundred million English-speaking Catholics using it, so I’d say it’s going to find a foothold in “liturgical English” pretty darn quick!

    I agree, Bosco, that “O God, who commanded…”, etc., is more idiomatic modern English. But if, as seems to be the case with the “new translation”, the overriding concern is to communicate theological content even at the expense of natural idiom, then the sense conveyed of the ongoing character of the command (“you commanded, and we are still bound by that command”) requires the present perfect simple tense instead of the simple past tense. (We are all familiar, of course, of places where they seem to have botched the theological sense too… I’m not defending every word of this missal.)

    Some other points of interest. Odd that they didn’t do a Maori Roman Canon. But is there a *Latin* Roman Canon in this book? Is there any Latin at all?

    The page-turns look like a complete balls-up. Altar cards are de rigueur in the Extraordinary Form, so perhaps this will be an occasion for the much touted “mutual enrichment” of the two forms. But I’ll settle for the priest not directing his eyes as if the Eucharistic Prayer were addressed to the congregation rather than the “Parent” 🙂

    On posture, I think this is just one of those occasions when we must concede that Catholics are allowed to be Catholics. As most readers of this blog will know, the official line in the Roman rite is that consecration occurs at the words of institution (which is why, in Prayers II, III and IV, they put the epiclesis before them). The elements are deemed transubstantiated from that moment. Kneeling is not a posture of prayer here, but of adoration of the present Christ (that’s why we Anglicans got the “Black Rubric”). Persons too infirm to kneel are directed to bow deeply at this point. The presiding priest genuflects twice at the consecration and once more at the conclusion of the prayer, gestures of adoration. As I trust we would all agree, our posture says something about our praying. The postures required in the Catholic Mass bring out one aspect of its theology, an aspect largely lost on Catholic laity in the past few decades, so perhaps this is timely and appropriate (for Catholics).

    As for a division between priests and laity, this will apply when the priests present are concelebrating, for which there are special rules in the GIRM (and in concelebrations I’ve seen, the concelebrating priests genuflect or bow with the presiding priest; they need to be standing at other times to perform various manual acts). In your hypothetical monastery, Bosco, if the priest-monks are concelebrating (as they are encouraged to do in the GIRM), they are required to stand in such a way that their role in the celebration is visibly distinct from that of the assisting faithful. It would seem that a monk in priest’s orders who was not concelebrating (for one of the legitimate reasons listed) would adopt the posture of the other faithful present.

    It’s not how we Anglicans tend to do things (well… do we have any standard practice?), and it goes without saying that we’re right (and God agrees with us)! And it’s not the sound advice of your “Celebrating Eucharist”, either, Bosco. But when in Rome…

    1. I’m pleased, Jesse, that you broke your Lenten discipline – I’m sure you can receive absolution and penance locally, as I’m one of those people who doesn’t think we should be doing sacramental actions digitally…

      Grateful for them, I’ll leave your English grammar point, however, to others who have a better handle on all that than I do. Suffice to say that I already pointed to Fr John Zuhlsdorf’s literal translation as, “O God, who commanded us…” He is usually very careful both with his translations and his theology.

      I’m sorry I’m not convinced by your suggestion that kneeling is not a posture of prayer here but of adoration. If that were the case the kneeling (consistent with the theology you explain) should occur later – and an argument could be made for following the priest’s genuflecting. I’m trying to find the instruction number – but I think people stand to receive communion.

      Although the instructions say the people should know the creed in Latin, I cannot yet find it in the book. The only Latin I have spotted so far is the Lord’s Prayer.

      Blessings.

      1. Indeed the 1662 BCP collects have “O God, who hast caused all holy Scriptures …” as I recalled as soon as I posted my last – and which is definitely singular. But the construction has become ‘who has’ rather than ‘who have’ in modern English – if you want ‘have’ you have to have ‘Gods’.

        Thinking of penance and forgiveness, It would be interesting to know what has happened to the absolution. I once had an ordained parishioner who asserted that beginning “Almighty God, who forgives all who truly repent, …” asserted conditional forgiveness, rather than giving assurance of the character of God.

          1. Unfortunately the grammar of an organic language like English does not translate across so easily. Nor does supposedly obvious agreement on numher of persons with verb always work as most clearly advertised – take the subjunctive construction “If I were … ” (correct, not “I was …”). The instinctive and idiomatic (and therefore I would suggest correct, but feel free to differ) construction with “O God, who has … ” tells us that God is singular for this purpose, and that the relative clause is about God, rather than directly addressed to God.

          2. Thanks, Mark. I think this goes back to a point I made earlier. English is not a language run from a central authority. English grammar is descriptive, not prescriptive. I see it in the disappearance of “whom”. I see it, as you point out, in the disappearance of the subjunctive. If you translate into a style that no one uses – are you actually translating accurately/appropriately? Blessings.

        1. I’m afraid I can’t agree with Mark’s analysis. The old-to-new transformations are as follows (this is surely not controversial):

          I have –> I have
          thou hast –> you have
          he hath –> he has
          ye have –> you have
          we have –> we have
          they have –> they have

          [And let us not forget that in the 16th century “You have” was emerging as a polite singular (which, interestingly, is never used in address to God). “Ye have” was the plural form. In this we are between the German “Sie haben” (a polite 2nd-person singular that takes the form of the 3rd-person plural) and the French “Vous avez” (polite 2nd-person singular address indistinguishable from normal 2nd-person-plural address). And as always, there was a certain fluidity.]

          If Fowler is right (and he is right), then “who” will take any of these persons and numbers. “Who has” can only mean the third person singular.

          Try it in the first person and see how weird it sounds if we limit “who” to the third person: “I, who has been plaguing this combox for a couple of years now, have decided that this is my hill to die on.”

          Dat gramma’ get no respeck unless you is Ali G.

          Perhaps this quotation from Boswell’s Life of Johnson gets us nearer the mark:

          “You are an old Judge, who have often pronounced sentence of death. You are a practiced surgeon, who have often amputated limbs; and though this may have been for the good of your patients, they cannot like you.”

          It’s no stretch from there to: “O practiced surgeon, who have often amputated limbs…” It’s just that we don’t tend to address human persons in this way!

          1. Jesse you write, “Try it in the first person and see how weird it sounds”. That’s the point: try it in the second person and see how weird it sounds. “O practiced surgeon, who have often amputated limbs…” It’s just that we don’t tend to address human persons in this way!. Blessings.

          2. I know you weren’t wanting this to turn into a squabble about grammar, Bosco! Nevertheless, I can’t resist a follow-up.

            Having thought about this matter repeatedly over the past few days, I now believe that new missal’s “O God, who have…” is not only technically correct (which it is), but also that it is genuinely good English style. Amazing how quickly one can get used to something unfamiliar. 🙂

            How about this week’s collect, Bosco (Lent IV)?

            “O God, who through your Word
            reconcile the human race to yourself in a wonderful way,
            grant, …”

            Same person and number here (“who…reconcile” = “who have”, not “who…reconciles” = “who has”, as would seem to be the preference of those commenters who think that “who” can only take the third person — “who … reconciles … to himself”?). Or should “to reconcile” and “to have” be treated differently? And if so, why?

            The translators seem to have been consistent on this point — and it’s just as well, given how often the construction “Deus, qui…” has to be dealt with in collects. Fowler would approve, and so do I!

            On a vaguely related note, a Catholic priest friend who was over to our house for dinner a couple of weeks ago brought his new copy of the (Canadian) Roman Missal for me to inspect. I had a read through the new Exultet, and I must say that I’m somewhat sad that on the Easter Vigil I will not get to sing the new Roman version, but will instead declaim the ICEL version printed in the Canadian Book of Alternative Services. Are we really to timid to sing that Adam’s was a “felix culpa”?

          3. Jesse, I do not regard myself an expert in English grammar, and (as I mention above) had thought the Missal translation correct but cumbersome, and so was fascinated by the reaction of those who have studied English at a post-graduate level (which was the essence of that part of my post) – I wonder if this Sunday’s appears less cumbersome because of the inclusion of “your/yourself”? I also wonder if the rejected 1998 version does not do a better job:

            In a wonderful manner, Lord God, you reconcile humankind to yourself through your only Son, the eternal Word. Grant that your Christian people may press on toward the Easter sacraments with lively faith and ready hearts.

            Blessings.

      2. We’re close enough to refreshment Sunday, I guess!

        The adoration explanation is, I believe, the official line on this question. The Canadian edition of the GIRM (no. 43) has the following, which connects kneeling directly with the consecration, but allows for kneeling immediately after the Sanctus where this is the existing tradition:

        “In the dioceses of Canada, the faithful should kneel at the Consecration, except when prevented on occasion by ill health, or for reasons of lack of space, of the large number of people present, or for another reasonable cause. However, those who do not kneel ought to make a profound bow when the Priest genuflects after the Consecration. Where it is the practice for the people to remain kneeling after the Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy) until the end of the Eucharistic Prayer and before Communion when the Priest says Ecce Agnus Dei (This is the Lamb of God), it is laudable for this practice to be retained.”

        Yes, Fr. Z. is careful with his theology — and we may be grateful that his is not the final word on controversial questions! Perhaps I am wrong on this particular point, but surely we wouldn’t wish to exclude the possibility of ever using the present perfect simple tense in our prayers to God. After all, God is an Englishman, and he expects us to be precise in our beseeching!

        1. Here, Jesse, that text reads, “In the dioceses of New Zealand, they should kneel from the completion of the Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy) until after the Amen of the Eucharistic Prayer, except when prevented on occasion by ill health, or for reasons of lack of space, of the large number of people present, or for another reasonable cause…” Blessings.

  8. What I find most interesting about this New Zealand edition of the Roman Missal are some of the features that I believe were expressly denied in the United States. Namely, the publication of a “Book of the Chair” and the printing of two different languages in the same book.

    I believe that the Vatican denied both of these requests in the United States on the grounds that such features are not present in the 2002 Latin ‘Editio Typica Tertia.’

  9. G’day all :0)

    A couple of thoughts. Not paying attention to where the priest’s hands are full and putting a page turn in is just silly. Let’s hope person one (“it hasn’t been proof-read”) is correct – otherwise they need to add “awkwardly balance large chalice” just before the page turn :0)

    Secondly, it is my understanding that the first Christians prayed standing up, in a position very much like the priest does at the beginning and end of the Thanksgiving Prayer (someone feel free to correct me if I am wrong). Is this book telling us that only priests can pray and everyone else must act subserviently? Is this a power-trip dreamed up by a high-powered member of the clergy several centuries ago and now canon?

    I’ll stay out of the language discussion as I am no expert – except to say that I prefer a service written in the common language of the day and where the language makes sense to the average worshipper present – there is a reason why Paul wrote his letters in the common Greek that the average early Christian could understand.

    Dave :0)

    PS – Bosco, the reason why I use a ‘0’ for the nose in my smilies is that it is different, and I naturally have a big nose :0)

    1. Dave, yes: the bishops were horrified, when they met at the Council of Nicaea, to discover that there were Christians kneeling on Sundays and during the great 50 Days of the Easter Season and made a rule that everyone was to pray to God standing. Blessings.

  10. This site has had issues, including that it was down for a number of hours. If you have not had a comment put up, that is the likely reason. I received the following comment from Ralph Knowles by email:

    Some of the new translations of the Roman Missal are closer to the Latin and may well be grammatically correct but they are not standard English – New Zealand English or otherwise – and sound awkward, stilted, and alien.

    There are also places where the closer translation results in the loss of a beautiful image. For example, in Eucharistic Prayer III “from east to west” (= across the whole world) becomes “from the rising of the sun to its setting” (= throughout the whole day). Accurate and nice enough but not quite the same.

    We have become used to the new translations of the People’s parts but it will take quite some time for me to feel comfortable with the Collects and Eucharistic Prayers.

    My underlying concern is that this move from dynamic to literal translation of the Missal is part of a general tendency to look backwards which will involve changes to many more words, practices, gestures, postures etc which have served us well for the past forty odd years.

    1. Hello Father,

      I don not think that “from the rising of the sun to its setting” degrades the beautiful image of the prayer; it even enriches more the beauty of it.

      From the rising of the sun (rises from East, in the morning) to its setting (sets at West, in the evening/night).

      While the previous text only covers the whole world, the new text cover the whole day AND the whole world. That is how the pure sacrifice should be offered: everyday and everywhere.

      Regards,

      Christian

  11. Gosh, what a lot of hoohah with grammar! I would have thought that, as God is One as well as Three, instead of the more formal “God who have..”, we might settle for the more colloquial “God who has.”The missal has a strong red cover, good page thickness, and a clear font. Its 1475 pages is bound as

    Think of your posting, Dear Bosco, how do you reconcile this statement:”The missal has a strong red cover, good page thickness, and a clear font. Its 1475 pages ‘is’ bound as..”. I would have though: ‘Its pages ‘are’ bound… No?

    1. Thanks, Fr Ron. My blog posts are generally typed up over breakfast after Morning Prayer, with my laptop on one side, the newspaper on the other, and my breakfast in between. And well before any coffee has kicked in. As you know, I have one of the fullest ministries in our diocese. It’s probably amazing I don’t make more mistakes! [You will see I have corrected the text! Thank you] One would hope that a bit more care is taken with liturgical texts… 😉 Blessings.

  12. I recently went for a week’s retreat to a Cistercian Monastery (even though I’m now Orthodox, but I like the Liturgy of the Hours and the silence and solitude in that place).

    What put me off, however, was the experience at Mass. Priest and monks alike having to hold/use written texts for the new translations. Somehow, for me, it was such an excruciating experience that I simply could not attend Mass the last two mornings of my 4 morning there. I determined, for my own spiritual peace of mind, that it was better to avoid frustration as it certainly was not a grace-filled experience.

    There are other reasons why I may not return to this place for a time of retreat, including the fact that the Monastery Bookstore now seems more filled with pious tracts from the 50’s rather than meaty tomes of the Fathers.

    This is very sad….

  13. I used this new translation in a private semi-setting over the weekend. I wanted to try it out before unleashing my effort publicly.

    A couple of reactions:

    Some people, those who are having to defend the translation, are saying it’s poetic. Well that may be their definition of poetry, but let’s just say it’s a long way from William Blake. So I’m with Bosco on this one, it’s just not English, even formal English as we might use it today.

    Secondly, the issue with formatting the book. How this slipped through those who approved it, for a second time, I just don’t know.

    There are just so many page turns in silly places, the words of consecration are all in capital letters, and therefore make them almost impossible to read, and for example the 4th Sunday of Lent, I had to bend slightly to left to be able to read the prayer over the gifts.

    Negotiating the new text is one thing, negotiating poor formatting is another.

    I’d be grateful if the NZCBC would reintroduce the small portable editions of the Missal.

    Failing that, I’ll either copy and paste from one of the several sources on the Internet and print my own, or start using an iPad.

  14. Forget the Missal: Use an iPad instead.

    If you ever needed an excuse to buy an iPad, and in particular the 3rd Generation one with it’s high resolution screen, the advent of the new missal is probably it!

    After my Sunday experience, I chatted with other priests who reinforced my view above, one going as far as saying his experience was “dreadful”, and “forget the words, the layout is all over the place.”

    I’ve had an iPad App, Universalis for some time, found it good, but in parts a bit clunky. However that’s gone with the most recent update.

    It costs NZ$26.

    Some of the excellent features include the ability to:

    select the New Zealand liturgical calendar

    change the size of the font

    select “Mass Today” and you get the whole Mass from the Sign of the Cross through to the Dismissal, including readings and a choice of Eucharistic Prayer.

    take it with you in portable form

    It’s not without fault. Some of the pagination interrupts the flow a little, but because you don’t have to turn the page as often, this inconvenience is minimised.

    Another significant issue, is it’s only in English; there’s no Maori translation.

    There’s also the cost factor, the need to make sure the iPad has enough battery-life to get you through Mass. A full-charge lasts for 10 hours. HInt: Turn the screen off during your sermon 🙂

    The iPad version may also pose a problem to those who are technologically challenged, but in fairness the iPad experience is probably the least complicated computing experience around.

    Using the iPad as a replacement missal may not be everyone’s “cup of tea”, but I’d pose it’s at least worthy of consideration.

    1. Tony, thanks. I have an iPad – I will look at getting the app. I am in favour of a card on the altar with the prayer on it – no page turning whatsoever. My fear about the iPad: that the app will suddenly crash. It happens with some apps. Blessings.

    1. Thanks for your visit and comment, Jon.

      It depends, doesn’t it, on what you are meaning by “correct” in your sentence? If you have followed the discussion above we could agree that Singular Vocative without “you” + “who art” is correct according to some older theoretical grammar book. But that is not the way English works (other languages are different). No one, in contemporary English, uses Singular Vocative without “you” + “who art”, just as no one can find me a single non-liturgical example of contemporary English Singular Vocative without “you” + “who have”. I’d be delighted if you could.

      As to why the Vatican has insisted on the forbidding of our shared English-language texts for the Gloria etc. because the translation does not fit a particular approach, but at the same time not allowed for the following of that approach in the Lord’s Prayer – you would need to explain that to me.

      The NZ Catholic bishops had both the contemporary and traditional Lord’s Prayer in this contemporary-language Mass. But the contemporary Lord’s Prayer is forbidden by the Vatican. It is allowed in the Liturgy of the Hours and every other occasion.

      I followed the Vatican’s translation approach and have produced an alternative. You will be pleased to know it begins, “Our Father, who are in the heavens,…”

      Blessings.

  15. I know this is a very old post but as for the issue of English and Maori being beside each other is what made our one so big. In other countries where mass is celebrated in different languages the bishops usually produce 2 separate missals, one in English and the other in local language of that are. For example the Philippines has masses in both English and depending where you live the local dialect. So for the English it is published for the whole country. The local dialect is up to the bishops of the areas where that dialect will be used to publish something. Exception is Tagalog where no matter where you are Tagalog is a possible language outside Tagalog areas.

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