Poor little who

Poor little who

โ€˜Oh God who gladden usโ€ฆโ€™ current missal
Poor little โ€˜whoโ€™, victim of a translation
Pulled back and forward both at the same time
And put into a state of consternation
Hardly evocative of the sublime.
โ€˜O God who gladdenโ€™, so one prayer begins,
โ€˜Whoโ€™ finds itself between โ€˜gladdenโ€™ and โ€˜God.โ€™
Language that wants to sing, in effect sins,
Subconsciously we hear how words can plod.
This happened after twenty years of work
By English scholars was dumped overnight
For millions of Anglo-ears to irk:
The text is there for us to bring to light
While little โ€˜whoโ€™ still shivers in the cold
For millions of sheep still in the fold.

Sebastian Moore,ย November 21, 2013

Source: The Tablet.

Editor

Katharine E. Harmon, Ph.D., edits the blog, Pray Tell: Worship, Wit & Wisdom.

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Comments

7 responses to “Poor little who”

  1. Alan Hommerding

    Probably not Sebastian Moore’s intended effect, but I now have the opening of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” stuck in my head.

    Reply
  2. Vince DiPiazza

    That one just made my day.

    And I’ll remember the phrase, “Language that wants to sing, in effect sins…” as more than just an insightful illation on the new translation.

    Rest in peace, Brother.

    Reply
  3. Peter Kwasniewski

    Really, folks? I have read and enjoyed some of Moore’s work (and cited him in an article published in Nova & Vetera), but this is a bit of self-indulgent and self-pitying preciousness.

    If the prayers are read properly, with good elocution, they come across sounding noble, elevated, and sacred. The vernacular Mass has never sounded more like Catholic worship than it has since the publication of an accurate translation (I had almost said, a translation, since what we had before was by no stretch of the imagination a rendering of the Latin editio typica). Nothing’s perfect, but this is a whole lot better.

    Reply
    1. Reyanna Rice

      @Peter Kwasniewski – comment #3:
      Maybe for you it sounds all of those things but not for me. I agree with this delightful piece of poetry and don’t be dissing the dead. I would lay money out that if a good reputable poll was taken of the pew sitters you would find that they dislike this poor excuse of a translation. Many just don’t pay any attention to the words anymore. So much for active participation that was called for by Sacrosanctum Concilium. I wish those of us who dearly want a decent mass could receive a motu proprio much as that TLM mass lovers got so we could once again feel the joy of celebrating liturgy. Until then there are many people suffering exile from the source and summit of our Christian lives. Such pain….

      Reply
    2. Vince DiPiazza

      @Peter Kwasniewski – comment #3:
      ๏ปฟ๏ปฟ๏ปฟYes, really, friend. Many of us do not share your perspective.

      Actually, though, I’m somewhat reluctant to admit here that I find it rather difficult to take the issue too seriously. (And isn’t there a bit of tongue-in-cheek in the good Brother’s satirical verse, anyway?) After reading many of the intelligent and well-reasoned arguments of both sides in the debate, made most eloquently on this site the past couple of years, I still can’t get past the notion– with apologies to all the serious liturgists out there– that our individual views mainly come down to our personal “religious ideology” and subjective aesthetic preferences. Surely with respect to the latter, just as one person’s fine cognac is another’s medicinal moonshine, so one person’s noble and elevated expression is another’s imperious and pedantic proclamation.

      And so, I endeavor to accept, with grace and good humor, the karmic payback that I am receiving, knowing that those of you who feel uplifted by the current translation for many years endured worship texts you considered banal. Grant, we pray, that, despite our differences, we, united in our catholicity, may continue to partake together in the Eucharist.

      Reply
  4. Gerard Glynn

    Well said, Reyanna! 1++++

    Reply
  5. Karl Liam Saur

    Many of the collects, with Latinate syntax and schoolboy reliance on cognates (some of which are false cognates), end up sounding effete and prissy rather than possessing gravitas. Some work, but others don’t, and the method betrays a fundamental lack of a musical ear for language, and in the name of accuracy important dimensions of the prayers were lost in supposed translation. The Latin text was treated as a chemical recipe. It’s a shame.

    Just to be clear: I have less problems with the Ordo, because there are compensating contexts that don’t obtain with prayers infrequently proclaimed and heard. I am not an anti-2010 Roman Missal fundamentalist (one way or the other).

    Better work can be done. And in good time, Liturgicam Authenticam can be replaced (because the one principle it exemplified is that translation principles can be changed), and we can strive for a more euphonious translation that respects the particular genius of each vernacular.

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