- Traditional Offertory (Extraordinary Form):
Accept, O holy Father, almighty and eternal God, this unspotted host, which I, Thy unworthy servant, offer unto Thee, my living and true God, for my innumerable sins, offenses, and negligences, and for all here present: as also for all faithful Christians, both living and dead, that it may avail both me and them for salvation unto life everlasting. Amen.
- New Offertory (Ordinary Form: now called "Prayer over the Gifts"):
Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made. It will become for us the bread of life.
What sort of hermeneutic might be at work here, we leave to you our readers.
The new translation of the Roman Missal is given on the USCCB website as follows:
ReplyDelete"Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your
goodness we have received the
bread we offer you: fruit of the earth and work of human
hands, it will become for us the
bread of life.
Blessed are you, Lord God of all
creation, for through your
goodness we have received
the wine we offer you: fruit of
the vine and work of human
hands it will become our
spiritual drink.
With humble spirit and contrite
heart may we be accepted by
you, O Lord, and may our
sacrifice in your sight this day
be pleasing to you, Lord God."
I don't mean to quibble. It is definitely NOT in keeping with the Offertory of the Usus Antiquior but it is better than the older translation you are citing.
In Christ!
You are right, of course, even if this detracts nothing from the point of the comparison.
ReplyDeleteThe NO Eucharistic 'offertory' begins with familiar lines from the Haggadah, the Jewish text that sets forth the liturgical order of the Passover Seder.
It's interesting even here to note the difference between a literal translation of the Hebrew and the contemporary 'modernized' ICEL text of the N.O.
For example:
Baruch attah Adonai, eloheynu melech ha-olam, boray p'ri ha-gafen.
[Blessed are You, our God, King of the Universe, Who creates the fruit of the vine.]
In the N.O. translation, "King of the Universe" is replaced by "God of all creation."
One can also contrast the relative "majesty" of the language in the EF form and the NO form.
But the really interesting question to me, the one implicit in the post's comparison, is why anyone should have conceived the unprecedented idea of cobbling together a new offertory at all to express "ideas" (as stated by Fr. Peter Coughlan) that the Pope wished to include in the new composition -- which Cardinal Stickler explicitly called "contrived," Msgr. Gamber called a "fabrication," and Cardinal Ratzinger called "a banal on-the-spot product."
The suppression of the Offertory Prayers disturbs me as well and when I hear the words “work of human hands” I wonder why even more aren’t confused about the meaning of the Eucharist as sacrifice. The prayers from the TLM are clearly sacrificial and apparently for the “reformers” that is the problem. I have read it explained that to speak about the Host in the terms used in the old Mass is “confusing” to the people or that it is simply improper to speak in such terms about an unconsecrated Host. And of course there are the antiquarians who reject the prayers because they are “medieval accretions”. The arguments are all very weak of course, but they have been repeated over and over again and even priests who are reverent repeat them. I have encouraged my friends who are troubled when their pastors give men these justifications to read Msgr. Knox’ “The Mass in Slow Motion” because he speaks of the Mass as outside time so it is impossible not to think about the Host as the consecrated Host. It is we who are limited, not God.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your posts Dr. Blosser. I enjoy them and appreciate your concern for the TLM. I know you’re familiar with Charlotte having lived near here and thought you’d like to know things are progressing here. We are still waiting for a weekly Sunday Mass but with the new ordinations this year as well as in the next few years, we are hopeful that will change.
In Domino,
Patricia
The hermeneutic that I see at work here is a Judaizing one. Borrowing from the Passover Seder, which is younger than the ceremony of the Mass, is certainly Judaizing.
ReplyDeleteMr. Dalton,
ReplyDeleteI'm curious as to your rationale for asserting that the Passover Seder is younger than the Mass. Can you clarify?
Is it the fact that the text of the Haggadah itself did not attain its present form until some time after the first recorded forms of the Church's liturgy?
ReplyDeletePP, I read several years ago, that the current order of the Passover, as celebrated by the post 70 AD Jews, didn't come into being until many years after the temple's destruction. That is what I meant by saying the current seder the Jew's is younger than the Mass. That's why I think it's Judaizing to borrow from it. As many of the Church fathers said about the heretics, the newnest of their doctrines and practises prove they don't have the apostolic faith, so I find it sad that the authors of the mass of Vatican II had to borrow from a religion that was younger than theirs.
ReplyDeleteI have read in several places that the current passover seder was not used until many years after 70 AD. The mass however was in continual use since 33 AD. That is what I meant by the mass is older than the seder used by the Jews. I find it ironic that the creators of the Pauline mass used a Jewish prayer for a ceremony that was older than that prayer. The church fathers said the main proof of the true doctrines and practises of the faith was they were not new, they could be traced back to the apostles themselves. Well, this prayer is "new" and can't be traced back to the apostles, but to post 70 AD Judaism.
ReplyDelete