The Reform of the Reform

Here's a nice article in US Catholic about the upcoming changes in the English translation of the Roman Missal.

Nixon also addresses some of the larger questions surrounding the recovery of reverence in the Roman Rite, including liturgical music.

Progress!

All Four Pending Liturgical Items Pass; Work On The Translation Of The New Roman Missal Continues

WASHINGTON—All four liturgical item actions whose votes were inconclusive at the June general assembly of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops are now approved. Support for the action items continues the work for the English translation of the new Roman Missal for use in the United States.

The deadline for the submission of ballots was July 16. These items require two-thirds (163) votes of Latin Church members for to pass, and subsequent recognition by the Holy See.

The translation of the Order of Mass II (of the Roman Missal) received 191 votes in favor, 25 against and five abstentions.

The translation of the Masses and Prayers for Various Needs and Intentions passed by 163 votes, while 53 bishops voted against it and five abstained.

The translation of the rituals for Votive Masses and Masses for the Dead passed 181 to 32 with two abstentions.

And the translation of the text for Ritual Masses received 186 votes in favor, 32 nays and two abstentions...

http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2009/09-159.shtml

A couple of summers ago I took a summer course on teaching hymnology. The instructor, a very knowledgeable Calvinist, said that there is very little paradox in hymnody. He thinks that the reason for this lack is the brevity of the form. Lines of hymns are ordinarily short; more crucially, by convention hymn writers are conservative about dividing phrases among multiple lines.

My sense is that my teacher did not go back far enough in time to the older Latin hymns, in which paradox is very common.
Right now I’m translating a 10th c. hymn for the Ascension called Aeterne rex altissime. The Latin of vere 4 is sublime in its treatment of the word “flesh.” The Pauline flesh is here, as is its opposite, the Johannine, and then the actual fact of Jesus’ current situation caps everything:

Tremunt videntes angeli
versam vivem mortalium
culpat caro, purgat caro,
regnat caro Verbum Dei.

my initial translation:

The angels tremble at the sight.
How altered is the human plight!
For flesh has sinned, but flesh atoned,
And God in flesh is God enthroned.

An older translation:

Yes, Angels tremble when they see
How changed is our humanity;
That Flesh hath purged what flesh had stained,
And God, the flesh of God, hath reigned.

When I see one of these abundant instances of paradox in the old hymns, I feel as though we are nowadays a very prosaic people. Current hymns, for example, are usually very straight-messaged. They don’t stop and wonder; hymns never gaze. They often preach. We make no puns…

Wellbutrin

Tired? Grumpy? Feeling run-down?

Try this simple pick-me-up. Find some adorable children. Pray with them in the church. Then teach them how to sing the Sanctus from the Missa Orbis Factor.

You'll be joyful in no time. Try it!

Until then, this ought to help.

Liturgical Sensibility: The Restoration Begins

A Pledge of Future Glory

Every once in a while you hear a homily that takes its inspiration from a hymn. Here is one given a couple of weeks ago by a grad school professor of mine, Fr. Joseph Komonchak of the Archdiocese of New York, at the parish where he helps out on Sundays, Blessed Sacrament, in NW Washington DC.

..St. Augustine said that every eucharist is a celebration of the marriage between Christ and his Church, that is, between Christ and us. In any case, the Mass is not something that anyone of us is doing alone. We are here with others, enjoying what they enjoy, with the joy greater, not lesser, for being shared with others, receiving what they received...