The 2008 Gray Book – leaked

A friend writes to notify me that someone has leaked the Gray Book of the Proper of Seasons and the Proper of Saints at WikiSpooks.

I know, it gets complicated – you might want to check out Pray Tell’s Translation Directory. Briefly: The “Gray Book” is the final version prepared by ICEL, after having received feedback from all the national bishops’ conferences, which ICEL gives to the conferences for their approval. Sometimes conferences make a few amendments before they approve the Gray Book and send it to Rome for approval.

The value of this leak is that it allows us to compare more closely the relationship between the 2008 text as approved by conferences (perhaps with a few amendments not in this leak) and the 2010 Received Text approved by the Congregation for Divine Worship [CDW] in the Roman Curia. Now the whole world can see how drastically the CDW changed what it got from the national conferences.

Is there anyone out there who still doubts the infamous 10,000 number? Is there anyone out there who thinks (or dares to claim) that these changes made by Rome were in response to the amendments of the national conferences?

The truth is oozing out. There will be more.

awr

Anthony Ruff, OSB

Fr. Anthony Ruff, OSB, is a monk of St. John's Abbey. He teaches liturgy, liturgical music, and Gregorian chant at St. John's University School of Theology-Seminary. He is widely published and frequently presents across the country on liturgy and music. He is the author of Sacred Music and Liturgical Reform: Treasures and Transformations, and of Responsorial Psalms for Weekday Mass: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter. He does priestly ministry at the neighboring community of Benedictine sisters in St. Joseph.

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11 responses to “The 2008 Gray Book – leaked”

  1. Xavier Rindfleisch

    Paging Father Anthony, O.S.B!

    Rule of Saint Benedict
    Christo omnino nihil praeponant (72:11)
    Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ (Dom Justin McCann)

    dilatato corde inenarrabili dilectionis dulcedine curritur via manatorum Dei (Prol: 49)
    our hearts shall be enlarged and we shall run in the way of God’s commandments (JMcC)

    11 July Saint Benedict

    Missale Romanum
    Deus, qui beátum Benedíctum abbátem
    in schola divíni servítii
    praeclárum constituísti magístrum,
    tríbue, quaesumus, ut, amóri tuo nihil praeponéntes,
    viam mandatórum tuórum dilatáto corde currámus.

    1998
    O God,
    you made the blessed abbot Benedict
    an outstanding master in the school of divine service.
    Give us the grace to prefer nothing to your love
    and so run with overflowing hearts
    in the way of your commandments.

    2008
    O God, who established the Abbot Saint Benedict
    as a renowned master in the school of divine service,
    grant, we pray, that we may prefer nothing to your love
    and run with open hearts
    in the way of your commandments.

    2010
    O God, who made the Abbot Saint Benedict
    an outstanding master in the school of divine service,
    grant, we pray, that putting nothing before love of you,
    we may hasten with a loving heart
    in the way of your commands.

    Isn’t the expression “to prefer nothing to” Christ, the Work of God, etc. almost a Benedictine motto? The revisers really don’t like that fancy word “establish” (consituisti); into “made” (fecisti) it must be made. “Running in the way of God’s commandments” is another common Benedictine phrase, no? At any rate, currimus means run, not hasten. Have the revisers mistaken dilatatus for dilectus? Or (more likely) did they not even look at the Latin – let alone at the Holy Rule!

    A Benedictine opinion?

    Reply
  2. Rita Ferrone

    This is really helpful. I am so glad finally to have these texts next to one another. And the 1998 version as well! It’s quite a study of the complex problem presented by texts, their liturgical use, and the politics of their production. If we get 2010, we are definitely losing the best of 2008.

    Reply
  3. Jeffrey Tucker

    Here is another example of what I keep seeing in this CDW draft: a strange mix of common language, sometimes approaching regional slang, with affected and highfalutin phrases that are not really in our vocabulary anymore. It’s like the voice keeps changing.

    Reply
    1. F C Bauerschmidt

      My impression exactly. At least 1974, 1998 and 2008 all more or less kept to a consistent linguistic register.

      Reply
    2. Lynn Thomas

      It _was_ done by a committee….lots and lots of voices there.

      Reply
  4. Ray MacDonald

    In this particular example, the 2010 version looks like that ice cream favorite “Heavenly Hash.”
    Take two different flavors (1998 and 2008), mix them together, add a few ingredients of your own choosing and there you go.

    http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080106155314AAYmiaV

    Reply
  5. Paul Inwood

    How very interesting. My PDF of the 2008 Proper of Seasons, which is the document that was presented to the US Bishops for the purposes of voting, includes the Latin text on facing pages. It carries the date January 2007. I know this is the document they voted on because my copy originates from one of the bishops.

    The new leaked Proper of Seasons does not include the Latin, which implies to me that it actually is the 2008 text sent to Rome after the US Bishops had voted on it, including whatever minor modifications they introduced.

    On a superficial glance, it appears that the English texts are identical in both PDFs. Alas I have no time at the moment to check one against the other to see if this indeed the case, or what modifications appear in the text without the Latin. If anyone would like the PDF with the Latin for the purposes of doing this checking, let me know.

    Reply
  6. Anthony Ruff, OSB Avatar
    Anthony Ruff, OSB

    A PT reader notices this difference in the English text:

    WikiSpooks:
    Grant we pray, O Lord, that we may be nourished,
    as we celebrate anew the birth of your Only-Begotten Son,
    by means of heavenly mystery
    we are given food and drink.
    Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

    Bishop’s Gray Book from ICEL:
    Grant, we pray, O Lord, that we may be nourished
    as we celebrate anew the birth of your Only-Begotten Son,
    by means of whose heavenly mystery
    we are given food and drink.
    Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

    This reader also notices a double space after a couple typos.

    I think this makes Paul’s theory more plausible. I don’t know for sure who leaked 2008 to WikiSpooks, but I have a hunch, and this person would likely have worked from the text as approved by the conference of his country. It seems likely that a conference would eliminate the complicated (but accurate) “whose” in the example above.

    And – surprise, surprise! – we see that this conference made very tiny changes to the ICEL gray book. Which supports all of PT’s reporting so far, that the missal got hijacked when Vox Clara changed everything all over the place, not based on anything they got from conferences.

    awr

    Reply
    1. Paul Inwood

      But without “whose” the sentence now makes no sense — or at the very least requires a semicolon after “Only-Begotten Son” so that the next two lines can stand as an independent clause.

      I am also anxious to witness the effect on listeners of, in effect, “food and drink who lives and reigns….”

      Reply
      1. Anthony Ruff, OSB Avatar
        Anthony Ruff, OSB

        Paul, I agree, and I had assumed there must be a semicolon missing.
        awr

      2. Chris Grady

        In Worcester MA, Paul, as well as every day being “Talk Like A Pirate Day” they have several sayings, not the least of which is “What you eat today lives and reigns tomorrow.”

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