How to Fry an Egg in Liturgical English

Over at Monks and Mermaids, a Benedictine blog, how to fry an egg in liturgical English:

Graciously pour thine unctuous oil into a singular and worthy vessel until the fullness of heat without smoke-filled aroma ascends to the heavens; and with thy worthy and venerable hands take one egg and gently and delicately break into the warmed fruit of the olive, being careful that the yoke and albumin do not become consubstantial; when, in the fullness of time, this product which you have already begun to make has fulfilled its purpose, ensure that this produce, this spotless produce, this delightful produce, this tasty produce, has become acceptable in God’s sight, pleasingly remove it from the pan, sprinkle condiments on it like the dewfall, that it may make manifest his goodness that is vouchsafed to it; may it be found acceptable in his sight and be borne to a place of refreshment at thy table where it may nourish thy spirit; for extra manifestations, please use prevenient oil.

For reference, here’s the 1970s recipe:

Heat oil in a pan.   Break an egg into the oil.   Fry until cooked.   Remove the egg from the pan and serve.

Fr. David also has some thoughts – you saw this coming – on the new liturgical translations. Read the rest here.

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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Comments

32 responses to “How to Fry an Egg in Liturgical English”

  1. Jonathan Sorensen

    To be honest, I’d prefer the first egg.

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

      But it’s not a choice, fortunately, between the 1970s and 2011. Think 1998.
      Or, think of what might come next, as an improvement upon 2011.
      awr

      Reply
  2. Ben Yanke

    What a joke. Frying an egg is not a liturgical action. You speak more truth than you know.

    The whole point of the Mass is to elevate us from everyday life. It’s SUPPOSED to be different.

    Reply
    1. Christian Cosas

      @Ben Yanke – comment #3:
      There’s a difference between elevated language and contrived, pretentious verbiage dressed up to look like it’s elevated. Both the recipe and the new translation of the RM are of the latter variety.

      Reply
    2. Anthony Ruff, OSB Avatar
      Anthony Ruff, OSB

      @Ben Yanke – comment #3:
      Uhmmm, that’s NOT the WHOLE point of the Mass! Better read up on your sacramental theology!
      And even if it were: “different” isn’t the problem with the new text. Ugliness and shoddy quality is the problem.
      awr

      Reply
  3. Fr. Jim Chepponis

    This recipe reminds me of a PrayTell post last year about Christmas cookies:
    https://praytell.blog/index.php/2011/12/15/formally-equivalent-christmas-cookies/

    Reply
  4. Chris Grady

    Ben Yanke : The whole point of the Mass is to elevate us from everyday life.

    Really? The WHOLE POINT? Really?

    Reply
  5. Martin Badenhorst OP

    Ad #3 – “Supposed to be different”; yes, no, both. “Why is this night different from all other nights”, the Gospel traditions tie our Eucharist with the Passover by various means (pace the NT scholars who differ widely on how far or how close that tie may be).

    Quintessentially the Passover is a household feast, aimed at passing the faith to children, while giving the adults a whole lot of wine to cope. It is a household feast, not a Temple service. So, if the children demand a repeat, you repeat, if they want to cut a song, you cut. The childlikeness of the Passover in a Jewish household (and yes it has been my privilege) is an eye-opener.

    After the children retire, the adults may meditate and discuss that most dangerous of books, the Song of Songs.

    Love, understanding, enlivening the faith of children, the warmth and accommodation of a good home with loving discipline. The great events, simply told.

    When did we move from that to something we cannot identify with; being at home, but have to call “going to church”?

    Reply
    1. Thomas Dalby

      @Martin Badenhorst OP – comment #6:
      Oddly enough, the accounts of the Last Supper that I read in the Gospels neither mention children nor locate it in the social milieu of twenty first century Judaism. Am I reading the wrong translation?

      Reply
    2. cathey s ott

      @Martin Badenhorst OP – comment #6:
      this is so interesting! I’d never thought of passover in that way – wonderful! now – what to do about “going to church?”

      Reply
  6. Ralph Bremigan

    It’s “yolk,” not “yoke.” Or is that part of the jolk?

    Reply
  7. Dwayne Bartles

    Actually, I think the 1970 version read a little more thusly:

    “FORM A: Heat oil, or a similar substance, in a pan of peace. Break something into the oil. Fry with peace until cooked. Remove thing from the pan and serve. For great justice.

    FORM B: Go to Denny’s; order eggs.”

    Reply
  8. Peter Rehwaldt

    Must one use a hen’s egg, or is it permissible to use a quail egg? What about Egg-Beaters, for those who cannot tolerate real eggs? Also, is the egg to be taken on the tongue directly, or can it be wrapped in a tortilla and eaten via the hand?

    Clearly, in addition to the prayer, we need the accompanying rubrics.

    Reply
  9. M. Jackson Osborn

    This isn’t funny.
    It’s pure adolescent sacrilege… mean, spiteful and venomous pique.
    Whatever the failings of the new translation, they are not solved by these idiotic tantrums (excuse me: tantra). Have the authors of these jolks noticed that they are the only ones laughing?

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

      Well, you may not be laughing, but on a purely factual basis I think others besides the authors are laughing. Not you, but others.

      Tone it down, MJO. Please be less mean, spiteful and venemous.

      awr

      Reply
      1. M. Jackson Osborn

        @Anthony Ruff, OSB – comment #16:
        Alright, Fr R, I’ll be less mean, spiteful and venomous. (Do you expect the same from the new translation’s detractors?) I shall join Jonathan Sorenson in comment no. 1 in prefering the first egg to the second one and thinking that following the first recipe would be a delight greater than that of the second. To continue being less mean, one notes that the authors and amusees of these jokes do seem fully to understand both the vocabulary, tone and style of the new translation and use it themselves right handily. Except that they seem, oddly, to think that it’s funny. It isn’t: this, they don’t understand.

      2. Paul Robertson

        @M. Jackson Osborn – comment #17:
        MJO, we can understand words and understand convoluted sentence constructions (after reading them a few times), but it doesn’t mean that we think such painful language is appropriate modern usage. It doesn’t mean that we think such jilted language is appropriate modern usage. It doesn’t mean that we think such most grievous language is appropriate modern usage.

        We understand the words. What we don’t understand is why those words were chosen, or those grammatical forms were used when neither are remotely natural to even native-born English speakers. When we put Japanese into Google Translate, we expect the result to read like a computer translation of a foreign language. I think we’re entitled to a better standard for the Sacred Liturgy.

        Personally I find the name “Vox Clara” to be funnier than the egg recipe. I wonder if any of its members are able to say the name with a straight face.

      3. Peter Haydon

        @Anthony Ruff, OSB – comment #16:
        Father
        I fear that you chose your words in haste. MJO seems to say that the discussion was wrong, not that the participants themselves were. You seem to have attacked him rather than his argument.
        The best liturgical spoofs are found in Private Eye magazine where the absurdities of certain Anglican practices are parodied but not the faith itself.
        Or read about Tony Blair’s foundation: Drawing All Faiths Together: DAFT.
        It seems right to be rude about Bliar, the destroyer of Catholic adoption agencies. Let us be polite within this blog.
        God bless
        Peter

      4. Anthony Ruff, OSB Avatar
        Anthony Ruff, OSB

        @Peter Haydon – comment #18:
        Peter,
        I really don’t mean to beat up on MJO, but I don’t agree with you here. MJO used “mean, spiteful and venomous” to describe “it,” the original joke. That means either the authors or the joke they wrote. Neither he nor I refer to the participants in the conversation.
        awr

      5. Peter Haydon

        @Anthony Ruff, OSB – comment #19:
        Jolly good Father
        I thought afterwards to see how Delia Smith fries an egg. She probably takes a couple of paragraphs to describe the pan before moving on to the types of egg to use. Once she has bored you into submission you open a bottle of wine and follow the Mgr Quixote approach.
        I still dislike Blair.
        What ho
        Peter

    2. Cody Maynus

      @M. Jackson Osborn – comment #13:
      With all due respect, the authors are not the only ones laughing. I am presently laughing, as are my co-workers with whom I just shared this.

      Reply
      1. M. Jackson Osborn

        @Cody Maynus – comment #27:
        With all due respect to the intentions of those responsible for the new translation, I shall admit that I do, in fact, see the humour in these little resorts to levity regarding their less-than-perfect work. Too, I can poke fun even at Cranmer and the BCP (and, now, the BDW) because I love them. It isn’t surprising that in an attempt to own something that has a few warts, some people subject it to less-than-respectful ridicule. In the same way, sophomores mimick and mock their professors, whom they love and will later come, in some manner or another, to imitate. Alas, though, I find the now-old translation to be even more deserving of ridicule. And that, not out of any love at all. With what anguish and pain I used to wonder in vain how people stood there and said ‘and also with you’ without giggling (SURELY, they knew better?!). Or, how they sang a savaged Gloria and Sanctus without any sign of disapproval (narry a shook head nor shrugged shoulder!). And, how they kept from gazing through whitened eyes as yet another excuse for a collect entered their unfortunate ears. Such insults as these are far more ridiculously absurd than the sometimes clumsy attempt at a properly elevated ritual language with which we have been (relatively) complimented (‘dewfall’ and all). Wherein the new translation fails, it is NOT owing to sentence structure, sentence length, ‘imposed’ Latin syntax, vocabulary, reinforcing repetitions, or style, but with a rather glaring lack, an obvious lack, an apparent lack, of rhythm and poetic instinct. Of one thing we may all be grateful: that it does not sound like everyday American usage… or what we had.

  10. Jeffrey Pinyan

    This thread has not yet received the obligatory “the emperor has no clothes” comment. This concerns me dearly.

    Reply
    1. Chris Grady

      @Jeffrey Pinyan – comment #14:

      It has now.

      Reply
  11. David Bird OSB

    When the first translation of the Mass was published, the abbot of Belmont at the time called it, “eggs and also chips” English. The truth is that it is bland and uninspired, but it is clear. The new translation is an attempt to correct this and sometimes succeeds, but its sentences are constructed like Latin ones, its attempt to be poetic is self-conscious and not very successful, and there are some howlers in the translation.

    An Anglican Benedictine, the late Dom Robert Petitpierre, told me that the English bishops approached J.R. Tolkien to do the job, but he refused because he was opposed to the whole idea of English in the liturgy. If that is so, then Tolkien’s purgatory must be to continually read the alternatives.

    The truth is that this work of revising the Latin liturgy will take longer than was first envisaged. Firstly, some of the criticisms of the vernacular liturgy really belonged to the old rite in Latin but remained undiscovered until translation uncovered them, exposing them to the rude and scoffing multitude; and, secondly, because not all the main points made by the conciliar Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy have found expression in the modern Mass. Both forms of the Mass, ancient and modern, concentrate too much on the role of the priest and too little on the activity of God during the whole liturgy.

    This led the old-mass priest to prance around the sanctuary in biretta and lace, and the modern-mass priest to prance around with a microphone like a disk jockey. The accent should be on the Divine Presence and our entrance into the heavenly liturgy. In the Byzantine rite, the offertory celebrates the entrance of Christ, the priest, and they sing the cherubic hymn to announce his coming. In the Latin rite, we only concentrate on the bread and wine being brought to the altar, without any reference to the fact that the Supper needs Christ to preside at it. etc etc. There is much to be done.

    Reply
    1. M. Jackson Osborn

      @David Bird OSB – comment #22:
      Lucid. Many thanks, Fr David, for your observations. And, what a great pity it is that Tolkien declined to provide us with what might well have been the near equal of Cranmer!

      Reply
    2. Paul Inwood

      @David Bird OSB – comment #22:

      Tolkien did, however, agree to assist with one Old Testament book in the English translation of the Jerusalem Bible. (I am away from my office and cannot check which one it was.)

      Reply
  12. Bill deHaas

    Paul – it was the Book of Jonah.

    Also, Cranmer….well, only if you understand that this is code for a group of 50+ translators working from Tyndale.

    Reply
  13. Clay Zambo

    After hearing the Collect for the First Sunday of Advent five times, and having to stop each time and work out the grammar, I can only say I needed this.

    Reply
  14. Jimmy Ingram

    I reproduced the joke recipe for FRYING AND EGG in the style of the new translation in our weekly church newsletter and the PP yelled at me that I was “Disloyal to the Church”
    After 22 years working on an almost daily basis (unpaid) for that church and 49 years working in liturgy and church music (not to mention many other things) I felt forced to resign. As a former PP said, “Heterodox, maybe, but DISLOYAL NEVER !!!”
    I am feeling a great loss !!!!!!

    Reply
    1. Rita Ferrone

      @Jimmy Ingram – comment #30:
      Jimmy, that’s terrible!

      Try to talk to him, maybe? You obviously hit a nerve. He may be unhappy with the translation too, but feels he can’t say so.

      Pray, reflect, and be honest. You shouldn’t have to put up with insults, but if you can reconcile with your brother (the pp) it’s worth the effort to try.

      Never lose your sense of humor. No one could work for so many years in the church without it!

      Reply
  15. Jimmy Ingram

    I’ve only just seen your reply Rita. Thankyou for your kind and wise words. After staying away from my church for almost 2 months I went back (for Mass) last weekend and this. I was surrounded by loving and caring people and on the first day it took me almost 40 minutes to get to my car after Mass because of groups of people waiting to welcome and talk to me. Very uplifting when you are feeling crushed. Will I go back to work in the parish? I don’t know, but I miss it very much. Thank you again !

    Reply

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