Lost In Translation

Oh Lord. American Catholics are getting set for the roll-out of a new translation of the Roman Missal. And it's probably going to make me crazy! They changed the translation a few years back and it made me nuts, especially on Good Friday. In the reading of the Passion, where Jesus is confronted in the Garden, he responded with: 'I am he.'

In the new translation, it was boiled down to a stupendous: 'I AM' Which, I guess still makes sense, but seemed a bit jarring to me- I've never liked it. And now that is going to be joined with these awesome changes:

At The Opening Prayer-- the Priest opens with 'The Lord Be With You' to which the congregation responds 'And also with you.'

That's going to be changed too: 'And with your spirit.' (I can't resist: The Lord's got spirit yes he do, the Lord's got spirit, how about you?)

The section on Funeral Rites has been changed to the 'Fraternal Offices of Burial' (Which sounds like the local Moose Lodge, am I right? There's the KCs, the Eagles, the VWF and the FOBs...!)

Because The Vatican hasn't heard of New Coke yet (give it another century or so) they've decided to mess with the Nicene Creed as well, changing 'one in being with the Father' to 'consubstantial with the Father.' (Brother. Give me a break! I'm not saying 'consubstantial.' I absolutely refuse- it's the same reason I skip over that part about 'for us men and for our salvation...')

This one's my favorite though:

When a priest prays over the Holy Communion bread and wine, he will ask God for blessings "by sending down your spirit upon them like the dewfall."

Bwahahahahahahahahahaha! 'And let magical rainbows shoot laser beams from your eyes, Oh Lord and bless these gifts of bread and wine...' Wow oh wow oh wow... unbelieveably ridiculous! And the dewfall? So we want the spirit to develop overnight with the cold and dark? What? I'm totally confused.

Of course, the Vatican's goal with all this idiocy is to bring the translation as close to Latin as they can manage. Unfortunately, in doing so, they confuse the lay people, make the language of the mass sound stilted, confused and if it was done on Babelfish.com (now with Latin and Aramaic, just for the Pope!) And generally show just how out of touch they are with the needs of ordinary Catholics...

One of these days, I might settle on a Church. I'd like it to be Catholic, but that's looking increasingly unlikely these days....