Saturday, November 19, 2011

Scissors+ Paste+ New Missal Collects=

An improved  breviary!

A while back I posted  on my joy over the upcoming new Roman Missal, and tempered my joy with some longing for a more accurately translated breviary as well. All my inquiries to Those Who Know About Such Things indicate that yes! a new  English translation of the breviary is going to be done, but no, sorry! we have no idea when that will happen and it probably won't  for quite a while.

God, give me patience.

Then, I was looking at the December issue of The Word Among Us, a monthly devotional/daily missal.





Looking ahead to the mass of the First Sunday of Advent, my eye fell on the opening prayer, now titled the "Collect":  Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God,
the resolve to run to meet your Christ with righteous deeds at his coming,
so that, gathered at his right hand, 
they may be worthy to possess your heavenly Kingdom,
Through our Lord Jesus Christ,etc...Amen.


Nice, huh? Compare it to what we still have in our breviary (the concluding prayer of each hour is the same as the opening prayer at the day's mass.):
  All powerful God, increase our strength of will for doing good that Christ may find an eager welcome at his coming and call us to his side in the kingdom of heaven, where he lives and reigns with you, etc....Amen.


So there's an object lesson in the difference between literal and "dynamic"(paraphrased) translation.
I know which one I prefer.



As I pondered, I got an  



I grabbed a pair of scissors and started snipping.


Then grabbed my breviary and a glue stick and started pasting.


 Now I've got the newly translated prayers in my breviary!
So I'm doing the liturgy geek happy dance,
Which is NOT to be confused with liturgical dancing!