What Does Language Mean?

I'm having some good conversations on the questions raised by the forthcoming English translation the 3rd edition Roman Missal. This is from an email conversation with an old friend:

There are lots of deep theological questions, but they end up as caricatures on all sides. Latin is a norm for the Latin rite, but in what sense? Is it a norm in the sense of a historical root from which other expressions may derive, or is it a norm in the sense that everything else is an unfortunate, but sometimes necessary departure?

Do other languages, English in our case, have their own genius and value in this regard, or not? One of the most interesting quasi-magisterial things I've read on these kinds of questions was the Holy Father's infamous Regensburg address. It got all of the press because of the Muslim question, but there was another section in which he was talking about the translation of the Old Testament into Greek, and it made the claim that this translation itself had revelatory value in the procession of Hebraic truth through the categories of Hellenic thought. It's quite something to say that translation can be revelatory. Is it similar with the movement of Christian common prayer from Aramaic to Greek? From Greek to Latin in the western Church? From Latin to modern European languages, e.g. the King James Bible or the American Sacramentary of 1976?

Drilling in we get to some hard questions about the nature of language diversity itself. Is it a curse, as Genesis might seem to say? Or is it an expression of the genius of particular cultures, and therefore a diversity to be celebrated, as we are taught by contemporary 'multiculturalism'? And how does the unification of hearing at Pentecost cash out in our actual practice of trying to pray together in an increasingly language-diverse liturgical environment?

If Vatican II, in its legacy of the liturgy in local languages, was therein just the Catholic Church finally accepting another idea of European modernity, i.e. the nation-state, imagining that Englishmen would pray the liturgy in English, Germans in German, etc., we have to admit that such a world is giving way to a much less language-unified world on the local level.

For a very real example: a bilingual Easter Vigil, fine. Trilingual, o.k. But when do you stop? When do these gymnastics of 'multiculturalism' stop serving, and when does 'inclusivity' become an idol before God himself? Is Latin the answer to such a thing, or just another non-answer, and worse because it's tinged with reaction?

Sorry to be ranting. The questions are big!

St.. Brigid

Back in 2009, the first of February fell on a Sunday. As I returned to the sacristy after celebrating the Mass of whatever Sunday in Ordinary Time it was, one of the old friars began to chide me for not somehow commemorating the feast of St. Brigid. Of course he had no case; though she is one of the secondary patrons of Ireland, and her day is a liturgical feast in the dioceses therein, Brigid appears neither on the general Roman calendar nor on the calendar for the United States. The complaint of my elderly confrere was an example of many Irish sighs I heard and felt over my time at the parish. A once-robust Irish-American stronghold had slipped into a far more assimilated and multicultural reality, and one often felt the stings of grief and denial.

I was thinking of this last night as I prepared for Mass this morning, and it was then that I remembered that I had only recently recovered my Commonwealth English breviary after a loan of several years. My own adventure with the Liturgy of the Hours began back in the spring of 1993 when I was (alleged to be) studying philosophy in Ireland and I picked up the one-volume Daily Prayer (Dublin: Talbot, 1974) one day at Galway Cathedral, where I often went for confession. We had a daily Mass at the university, each night at 10 pm. When I think of that I have to laugh; at this point it's almost impossible for me to imagine a lifestyle in which a 10 pm daily Mass would make any sense! The Daily Prayer is analogous to the one-volume Christian Prayer we have here in the States. I was pretty lost with it at the beginning, back in those days. I didn't really manage to get started with the Hours until I returned home for my senior year of college and started to use the Shorter Christian Prayer. Based on my own experience, that's how I recommend getting started with the Hours: start with the simplest breviary and then move up as comfort and mastery arrive.

In any case, realizing that I had recovered this breviary from my past, and thinking of my old confrere last night, I couldn't help looking up the collect for St. Brigid:

Lord,
you inspired in Saint Brigid such whole-hearted dedication to your work
that she is known as Mary of the Gael;
through her intercession bless our country;
may we follow the example of her life
and be united with her and the Virgin Mary in your presence
We make our prayer through our Lord...

Ecumenical Moment

We had a real ecumenical afternoon here in our parish. A Melkite rite Catholic man who is an alumnus of our parish high school married an Orthodox woman in our Latin rite church. A bi-ritual Catholic priest led the ceremony. It's our parish policy to allow alumni to have their weddings here, even if they've moved away or aren't parishioners.

I was surprised to discover that with the permission of our pastor (for inter-rituality) and a dispensation from the Melkite bishop (for the man to marry an Orthodox), all of this is entirely possible. Since neither party is a Roman Catholic, however, we have no jurisdiction in their case and their marriage will not appear in our records.

It was really something to watch with all of the Eastern liturgical elements and chanting in Arabic going on under our image of St. Margaret Mary!

Multiculturalism

Everything these days is multicultural, especially in Church. We're supposed to celebrate diversity, and find in it some sign of the manifold generosity of the Creator. Over one weekend I might say "The Gospel of the Lord!" in English, Spanish, French and Arabic. And this is supposed to be a sign of vibrancy, unity, and multicultural success.

So it always cracks me up when the Tower of Babel rolls around in the lectionary, as it does for Mass today. For this story presents the diversity of cultural and language on earth as a punishment for human hubris.

And indeed it is a divine curse which is only overcome in the New Covenant: instead of the people who, in their pride, said 'let us build bricks and make a tower that will reach to heaven,' God builds the Church out of living stones. In the Spirit the apostles are heard in several languages at once, overcoming the confusion of languages. The people who were "scattered all over the earth" at Babel are drawn back together in the Unity who is Christ.

Nevertheless, unity is not the same thing as uniformity. Uniformity is not necessarily unity, and diversity is not necessarily disunity.

Emperatriz de las Americas

One of the intercessions for evening prayer tonight, though rhetorically clunky, is theologically brilliant:

The image of the mother of your Son was imprinted on the garment of the Indian Juan Diego with features of his race, imprint within us Mary's virtues and her love of the defenseless.

The mysteries of our faith are Incarnate in the very particularity of each people on earth. And even in the tragic story of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, Our Lord and his Mother are present to them from within.

So let's give thanks today for Our Lady of Guadalupe, Queen of Mexico and Empress of all the Americas.

Nuestro Himno

Much has been made of president Bush's recent comments on the newly appeared Spanish version of the Star-Spangled Banner. When asked if the song would be just as good in Spanish, he said no. Now everybody knows what this is about; if he had said yes it would be interpreted as an affirmation that Spanish was just as good a language for Americans as English.

Never mind that the United States is hardly a nation unto itself in the classical sense, but an artificially created middle-modern experiment in human optimism. And you have to admit, it's been a modest success. But that doesn't give it much claim to being a nation in the classical sense, with a proper culture and language, etc.

Of course everybody knows that things are better in their original language; if you can learn Greek so as to read the New Testament without translation, all the better.

But what really struck me in the president's remarks was his suggestion that people who come to the U.S.A. ought to learn to sing the national anthem in english. Now this is unreasonable. The Star-Spangled Banner has a range of almost two octaves, making it a big stretch for most ordinarily voiced people. Singing half-drunk at a ball game encourages one not to notice such things. And how many Americans know all four verses? How many even know that there are four verses?