Monday, December 5, 2011

FW: And with... uh.... you.. uh... your... uh.... spirit....

 

Et cum spiritu tuo…

 

Feed: Pastoral Meanderings
Posted on: Sunday, December 04, 2011 8:02 AM
Author: noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Peters)
Subject: And with... uh.... you.. uh... your... uh.... spirit....

 

Perhaps the biggest change in the Roman Mass translation begun on November 27 was the response to the words "The Lord be with you..."  It changed from "you, too, padre" uh... I mean it changed from "and also with you" to "And with your spirit."  We Lutherans might take note here because if it catches on we might change, too.  It was already under discussion before LSB was published in 2006 (the Roman Catholic Church took nearly a decade to finish this new translation and our Lutheran folks had a clue to this change).

What I thought was funny was the media coverage of how dramatic these changes were/are and how the whole future of Rome rested on four short words.  Well, it might interest you to know that the old mass translation was out of step with all the other languages into which the Latin was translated.  Yes, the Latin came first in the Roman Church and still does -- all other languages are translations of the uniform Latin text.

The Latin always had "et cum spiritu tuo" -- the question was how best to translate this phrase. The other languages were always more literal than the English translation that followed Vatican II.  So the French (et avec votre esprit), Polish (i z duchem twoim), Italian (e con il tuo spirito), Spanish (y con tu espíritu), German (und mit deinem Geiste), Slovak (s duchom tvojim), Danish (Og med din ånd), and doubtless all other national translalions ALWAYS had it this way -- and with your spirit.

Now I have no horse in this race.  LSB has chosen 'and also with you' and this is what will stand until or if the next book changes things.  But I am amazed at how radical this "new" translation has become for folks on both sides of the Vatican II divide.  You want radical?  Take a look at the shift from the Common Service of 1888 (in TLH and SBH variations) and the form of LBW or LW.  Now that was a shift.  And, we survived.  Now to be sure, there are still cranky voices complaining about LBW/LW and insisting this was the demise of the church as we knew it.  But there are some fruits born of this liturgical change...

  1. The removal of page 5 -- the Order of Morning Worship without Communion -- has led to more frequent Eucharists across the Lutheran board and no longer is the dry mass the norm for Lutherans on Sunday morning.  It was not the only cause for this change, but it did help big time...
  2. The awakening to a whole new body of hymnody and some pretty darn good hymn writers that has dramatically enhanced the connection between what we sing in the liturgy and what we hear in the lectionary.  We lost a few I wish we had not  but we gained a whole lot more.  To be sure, some of the new will not last but LSB has the strongest hymn section of any Lutheran hymnal today (including TLH).
  3. The vast majority of parishes have the new book.  No longer are we fractured between TLH and LW (with a few LBWs thrown in).  What could not have been done in 1982 was accomplished in 2006 and LW was one of the things that paved the way for a book that nearly all LCMS parishes call their hymnal (even if some of them don't use it all that often).

It took me six months to introduce LW to my first parish.  We learned not only the words but the music.  It became the church's book there, encouraged the shift to a weekly Eucharist, solidified the chanting of the liturgy by both Pastor and people, and we learned a ton of new hymns.  We moved from TLH through a period of a gospel hymnal (before my time) to the restored TLH and then LW.  It was a lot of change.  But that congregation rediscovered their Lutheran identity -- in good measure through that liturgical change.

It took one Sunday for the people to learn "and with your spirit" in the Roman Catholic corner of Christendom (perhaps because they said it 4-5 times in one mass).  Come on, you media types.  Where were you when real change hit the pews!  Why we Lutherans could have gotten this down pat by second inning of the Divine Service.  And it wasn't even new!  (But then, some of those changes introduced by LW were not so new, either.)  So Advent II is coming and you have another shot at the changes.  I expect there may be some fruits of this "new" more like the "old" mass in Rome... if you wait long enough, give it time, and use it as a teaching moment!  In this aspect of liturgical change, we are all in it together.


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