New Translation of Mass Reflection #3: Gloria

Regarding the Gloria, there are 4 key translation updates in the Third Roman Missal for our purposes here.  New versions are in bold and underlined below.

1.) The new translation will say: "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to people of good will."

The previous translation: "Glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth."

Reflection: The biblical foundations for this line are from Lk. 2.  This is the birth of Jesus.  Angels appeared to shepherds tending their flock glorifying God.

First point: peace.  There seems to be more of a more spiritual sense of the word "peace" as an interior quality in the new translation use of Lk. 2.  While indeed we should seek world peace on earth (particularly through the period of peace through the Immaculate Heart of Mary as spoken of by Our Lady of Fatima), a general peace to his people on earth can connote an external socio-political peace as it is used in the old translation.  The peace of God is not the same as the peace of men. 

Second point: the term "people of good will" receives the emphasis more than God's "people on earth".  God's People -- or People of God -- has a unique sense and meaning in the Old Testament.  For the old covenant, it means the Chosen Race of Israel; for the new covenant, as Vatican II mentioned in Lumen Gentium, it is the baptized New People of God in the Church, the New Israel.  Thus, the People of God are not the same as "people of good will".  There are people of good will who are not necessarily part of the Church or the old Israel.  People of good will typically are those who have not yet heard of Christ yet seek the truth in the dictates of their consciences.

2.) The new translation uses a litany of praises instead of just the following:

"Lord God,
heavenly King,
almighty God and Father,
we worship you,
we give you thanks,
we praise you for your glory."

The old translation above had  3 acts of the Church glorifying God followed by 3 (maybe 4) titles for God.

The new translation has 5 acts of the Church glorifying God followed by 4 titles for God.  It says:

"We praise you,
we bless you,
we adore you,
we glorify you,
we give you thanks for your great glory,
Lord God, 
heavenly King,
O God,
almighty Father."

Reflection: This new translation shows the litany of praises and glory for God the Father that is intended to have a sense of being long.  We adore you!  We glorify you!  Et cetera.

When earthly kings are given titles and names, their titles and names are so long....on purpose.  For example, they aren't just a regular "Joe Smith" that you grab a beer with on the weekend, but rather they are "your honorable, excellent, magistrate of the great palace Joseph Smith of some grand land or powerful order of this or that."  You get the idea.

When we are in love with someone for the first time, we rave constantly about them and give them so many honorific titles and honors and just speak the world of them, don't we?  For example, we say something like she is beautiful, wonderful, intelligent, talented, etc.  We just don't leave it at one summarizing word.  We use tons of statements to describe this person's beauty.

One doesn't stop honoring that person over and over and over.  And over and over.  And over.

The idea is kind of the same in the Gloria.

We glorify God since we are a Church in love with the Father.  We give Him glory.


3.) The third update is "Lord Jesus Christ, Only Begotten Son, Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father...," instead of  "Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father, Lord God, Lamb of God..."


Reflection:

First, "Only Begotten Son" expresses the ancient description of the Son's relationship with the Father.  The Son is the Only Begotten Son.  Even though there is a Pauline sense of us being a "son of God" or even a "daughter of God," we are God's son or daughter by adoption.  Jesus is the "Only Begotten Son," not by adoption like us, but because of who He is as the Father's unique Son.

This describes Jesus's divinity.

Notice how "Only" and "Begotten" are capitalized instead of lower-cased.  This capitalization gives added meaning to the Person of Jesus Christ in relation to His Father.  For us men and women of the world, we have a lower-cased status.  Jesus is the Only Begotten Son of the Father.

No other human being can ever say this.  The new translation highlights Him -- Jesus -- more than us adopted sons and daughters of the Father.  We are not "Only Begotten" because this is reserved for Jesus Christ.

Jesus is Son of the Father the way no one else is a Son of the Father.

4.) The 4th reflection pertains to the following:

"you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us;
you take away the sins of the world, receive our prayer;
you are seated at the right hand of the Father,
have mercy on us."

Compare the new Third Roman Missal with the translation from the previous Roman Missal which was:

"you take away the sin of the world, have mercy on us;
you are seated at the right hand of the Father,
receive our prayer."

Other than the new lines which are obvious, what is not so obvious to a cursory reading is that the new translation is the plural "sins of the world"  instead of the singular "sin of the world".

Reflection: There are two meanings between "sins" of the world vs. "sin" of the world.

The sins of the world are the individual sins of each person, whereas the singular sin of the world is the collective united sin of the world.  Yes, Jesus takes away the sin of the world, but in this translation the reflection is on Jesus taking away the individual sins of each human person in the world.


CLOSING THOUGHT

I recently heard the Gloria sung using the Third Roman Missal.  For the majority of us who attend Mass in the Ordinary Form (Novus Ordo), it will sound odd at first singing/chanting it.  But in time, we will acclimate to it.

Glory to God!

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam!

For the Greater Glory of God!

HW: Study the new translations.  Love the Holy Mass!

FULL TEXT OF NEW TRANSLATION OF GLORIA:

Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to people of good will. We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you, we give you thanks for your great glory, Lord God, heavenly King, O God, almighty Father.

Lord Jesus Christ, Only Begotten Son,
Lord God, Lamb of God,
Son of the Father,
you take away the sins of the world,
have mercy on us;
you take away the sins of the world, receive our prayer;
you are seated at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us.
For you alone are the Holy One,
you alone are the Lord,
you alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit,
in the glory of God the Father. Amen.

Class dismissed.

A.M.D.G.

Church Father: St. Cyprian (Africa)

St. Cyprian is of my fave Church Fathers!

He converted to Christianity at age 35 and was ordained a bishop a couple of years later.

Here's an Orthodox-Christian icon of him with the source found HERE.  I selected an icon created by a Orthodox artist so as to contribute, in my own little way, to full communion between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches.  

Ut omnes unum sint!

First African Martyr

He wrote a book called On the Unity of the Catholic Church.  In it, he said:

1.) "no one can have God as Father who does not have the Church as mother" (De unit., 6).

2.) "if a man deserts the Chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, does he think that he is in the Church?" (cf. De unit. [On the unity of the Catholic Church], 4).

Pope Benedict XVI also noted that Cyprian knew well that "outside the Church there is no salvation", and said so in strong words (Epistles 4, 4 and 73, 21).

Benedict also said, that for St. Cyprian, an indispensable characteristic of the Church is unity, symbolized by Christ's seamless garment (ibid., 7).

Cyprian said this unity is founded on Peter (ibid., 4), and finds its perfect fulfillment in the Eucharist (Epistle 63, 13).


He was later beheaded in 268 A.D.


HW: Study the life, writings and martyrdom of St. Cyprian here.

Class dismissed.

Recent Study: Top 10 Happiest Jobs

Forbes & the Univ. of Chicago reported on the top 10 happiest jobs.  In this order, they are: 

(#1) clergy 

(#2) firefighters

(#3) physical therapists

(#4) authors

(#5) special ed. teachers

(#6) teachers

(#7) artists

(#8) psychologists

(#9) financial services sales agents

(#10) operating engineers

It seems that the least materialistic is the most happy.

I was SO grateful to read this, after feeling a little down today.
 

Happiness is a key point of departure for renewing Catholic moral theology.  Fr. Servais Pinckaers, O.P., was a great proponent of this.

What makes us humans truly happy?

The morality section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church begins with the question of human happiness.

The ancient Greek thinkers claimed that the happy life is the virtuous life.

And most importantly, Jesus Christ our Master and Friend Himself talked about happiness or beatitude or blessedness in Matthew 5.

Life in Christ is happiness. 

It fulfills the deepest desire down in the human heart.  Try it!  During those moments of quiet solitude, really ask yourself what makes YOU happy.  Go deep -- I mean really deep -- in to your conscience.

In the end, only God makes one happy.  Human beings are naturally constituted for God.  Try it!

I dare you.


HW: Don't worry; be happy!


Class dismissed.

State of the Blog Address (After One Month in Operation)

A month after launching this blog, where the world is my classroom and Jesus is the Master Teacher, we're still around.

Here's a snapshot:

There were about 30 blogs logged in the past month which was an average of a blog a day.

There were about 425 page views which was an average of several to a dozen page views per day. I tell the site meter not to record my own times I've viewed the page.

I have no idea who's accessing the site.

There have been visitors from a dozen countries to date.  The top 5 visiting countries were (1) USA (2) France (3) United Kingdom (4) Canada and (5) Germany. 

I am surprised by this b/c I thought I'd get more readership from the Philippines and Asia for the first month.

It took about a month before someone from the Philippines logged in.  The LiveFeed Meter doesn't seem to consistently catch all the visits from outside North America.

The next Top Ten come from Far East and countries in the East with traditional Muslim influence/presence like (6) the Philippines (7) Indonesia (8) Malaysia (9) India and (10) Albania.

So, that means the top five visiting countries were from the West, and the next top visitors were from countries with an Islamic presence.

But I'm not complaining about the West topping my list 'cause the New Evangelization means going back to re-evangelize Europe, where the headquarters of the Catholic Church is located.

During the last papal conclave that elected Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as the 266th Successor of St. Peter, I really thought the next Pope wasn't going to be European.

As they say, if you go in a Pope you leave as a cardinal.  So I "went in to the conclave" thinking we would have a non-European Pope.

And voila!  merci!  I mean danke! dort es ist!  We have a European Pope....

...which means God is making Europe a priority.

Why He wants Europe is something that we can speculate til the missionaries come home.  But like I said above I'm sure it has to do with where Europe in particular and the West in general is going. 

Providence's selection of a European Pope suggests that the universal Church's energies should be directed at the Re-Evangelization of Europe.  Yes, there are many priorities, but considering that commentators say only 1 out of 10 Catholics attend Mass regularly in Europe (compared to 25% in the U.S.), and given the political-economic situation of the rise of the European Union which has deliberately left God out of its constitution without reference to its religious past, let's return to Europe and send missionaries back there from whence the first missionaries to the New World came.

So, to date, love live the "eldest daughter of the Church" (France) and pray God raise up saintly doctors to defend her from her intellectually enlightened suicide; God save the great English people especially with this new Ordinariate that is a gift from heaven; may the once-Catholic bastion of Catholicism in French-speaking America arise once again like a bird bursting from a burnt heap of maple leaves; and may God heal the breaks within the Christian West that started in Germany.

We send missionaries back to Europe to rescue her from her post-modern self.

For my part, prayer and this laptop will have to serve as my ship to cross the Atlantic.

Won't you join in the New Evangelization, too?!


Class dismissed

Pausing to Pray for Christian Unity Between East & West

Okay, class, for today's memorial of St. John Chrysostom, we take the same words of Our Master from Scripture for today's prayer so that both lungs of the Church may breathe together.

"I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me" (Jn. 17:20).

Amen.

Class dismissed.

Pope's Meeting w/Young Couples: On Dating, Living Together Before Marriage Vows & Couples' Fears/Concerns in Making Commitments; Pastoral Letter on Cohabitation

AMDG

Pope Benedict spoke on behalf of 2,000 years of Christian wisdom to a crowd of hundreds of young couples, many of whom had young children with them.

Here were some brief thoughts:

Pope on dating: should “lead to a path of maturity”

Pope on living together before marriage (cohabitation): “Do not believe that living together before marriage guarantees the future. By burning certain stages, you risk burning love itself. Time needs to be respected gradually, just like the expressions of love.”

Pope on fears and concerns of couples: “Educate yourself on the freedom of fidelity. It leads to a life where you can care for one another, until the point where you live for one another. Get ready to choose 'forever' with conviction, because that is the true expression of love.”

Pope to priests: Help couples that are in crisis.

Pope to all: When faced with a problem, prayer and the Eucharist are "source of strength".


The Holy Father's recent comments on cohabitation reminded me of a recent pastoral letter issued by Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan of Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, reprinted below on the pastoral care of those living together before marriage.

 

While the pastoral letter seems to be intended for pastoral agents for marriage preparation, the letter can still be read by all young couples discerning vocation to marriage.

_____________________________________________________________________

April 3, 2011

Pastoral Care of Couples Who are Cohabitating

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

We are all painfully aware that there are many Catholics today who are living in cohabitation. The Church must make it clear to the faithful that these unions are not in accord with the Gospel, and to help Catholics who find themselves in these situations to do whatever they must do to make their lives pleasing to God.

First of all, we ourselves must be firmly rooted in the Gospel teaching that, when it comes to sexual union, there are only two lifestyles acceptable to Jesus Christ for His disciples: a single life of chastity, or the union of man and woman in the Sacrament of Matrimony. There is no “third way” possible for a Christian. The Bible and the Church teaches that marriage is between one man and one woman and opposes same sex unions.

We have three groups of people who are living contrary to the Gospel teaching on marriage: those who cohabit; those who have a merely civil union with no previous marriage; and those who have a civil union who were married before. These people are objectively living in a state of mortal sin and may not receive Holy Communion. They are in great spiritual danger. At the best - and this is, sadly, often the case - they are ignorant of God’s plan for man and woman. At the worst, they are contemptuous of God’s commandments and His sacraments.

Of these three groups, the first two have no real excuse. They should marry in the Church or separate. Often their plea is that they “cannot afford a church wedding” i.e. the external trappings, or that “what difference does a piece of paper make?” - as if a sacramental covenant is nothing more than a piece of paper! Such statements show religious ignorance, or a lack of faith and awareness of the evil of sin.

The third group, those who were married before and married again outside the Church, can seek a marriage annulment and have their marriage blest in the Church. Please remember that divorce still is no reason to refrain from Holy Communion as long as they have not entered into another marriage or sinful relationship. Many Catholics are confused on this point.

Christ our Lord loves all these people and wishes to save them - not by ignoring their sin, or calling evil good, but by repentance and helping them to change their lives in accordance with His teaching. We, as His Church, must do the same. In accord with this, I would remind you of the following:

1. People in the above three situations cannot receive the Sacraments, with the important exception of those who agree to live chastely (“as brother and sister”) until their situation is regularized. Of course, those in danger of death are presumed to be repentant.

2. These people may not be commissioned as Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, not only because of scandal, but even more because one commits the sin of sacrilege by administering a Sacrament in the state of mortal sin.

3. Nor are such people to be admitted to the role of sponsor for Baptism or Confirmation, as is clearly stated on the Archdiocesan Affidavit for a Sponsor. It is critical for the sponsor to be a practicing Catholic - and can anyone be seriously called a practicing Catholic who is not able to receive the sacraments because they are living in sin?

4. When it comes to other parish ministries and organizations, I feel it best to leave these situations to the judgment of the pastor. Prudence is needed, avoiding all occasions of scandal. We must see their involvement in the parish as an opportunity to work urgently to bring such people to repentance and the regularization of their lifestyle.

5. Many of these sins are committed out of ignorance. I ask that our pastors preach on the gravity of sin and its evil consequences, the 6th and 9th Commandments of God, and the sacramental nature and meaning of Christian marriage. Our catechetical programs in our parishes - children, youth, and adult – must clearly and repeatedly teach these truths.

A Church wedding does not require some lavish spectacle and entertainment costing vast sums of money (Indeed, how often we have seen the most costly weddings end in divorce in but a few months or years!). While beauty and joy should surround a Christian wedding, we must remind everyone that it is a sacrament, not a show.

6. Those who are married outside the Church because of a previous union are urged to seek an annulment through our Marriage Tribunal. If it can be found that the first marriage lacked some essential quality for a valid marriage, the Tribunal can grant an annulment. Your pastor can help someone start a marriage case for this purpose. It is important for such couples to continue to pray and get to Mass even though they may not receive Communion, until their marriage can be blest in the Church.

Our popular American culture is often in conflict with the teachings of Jesus and His Church. I urge especially young people to not cohabitate which is sinful, but to marry in the Church and prepare well for it.

I congratulate and thank those thousands of Catholic married couples who role model the Sacrament of Marriage according to the teachings of Jesus and his Church.

Sincerely yours in the Risen Lord,

Most Rev. Michael J. Sheehan

Archbishop of Santa Fe

________________________________________________________________________

HW: Find out why cohabitation does not lead to happiness according to the Christian understanding.

Class dismissed.

Where I Was During the 9/11 Attack

That unforgettable morning, Sept. 11, 2001, I remember waking up to my alarm in my apartment.

I didn't have the buzz on that morning (which I normally do now), but I had the alarm set to a local radio music station. 

Expecting to hear my usual routine of a morning song, I instead heard a panic-stricken D.J. talk about weaponized planes going in to buildings and people dying.  I'm sure I must have heard that U.S. official confirmed that it was a terrorist attack on America.

Because I remember my first words.  I whispered, "Oh God, it started."

What I meant by this is that the world was going to change at biblical proportions.  As I didn't have TV in my apartment, I just listened to the radio.

I drove in to work to be with my classes that morning.  I wanted to be of comfort to any way possible.

We prayed -- which is what we normally did every day -- but this time with greater fervor.  The students were quiet.  They asked me about God and Islam's role.  I tried to comfort them with words of peace.  We listened to the radio.

That was my 9/11 day: comforting students as needed and praying with them.

It's what I remember 10 years later.  It's the same of what I hope to do now. 

Comfort.  Prayer.


Class dismissed.