Pilgrimage for Restoration Honors First Native American Saint

Gregory Lloyd, director of the Pilgrimage for Restoration, has announced the theme for the seventeenth annual pilgrimage, which takes place September 28 to 30, 2012. This year’s theme, in honor of the soon-to-be-canonized Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, is “Restoration of True Devotion to Mary, in the footsteps of Saint Kateri.”

The pilgrimage begins at the Lake of the Blessed Sacrament (“Lake George,” NY), and ends at the Shrine of Our Lady of the North American Martyrs, in Auriesville, New York. Pilgrims walk, sing, camp, and pray along the paths traversed by the North American Martyrs – venerating as they go the places these heroes of God sanctified by their blood witness to Christ and His Church. High Mass in the traditional Roman Rite (extraordinary form) is offered daily, and priests are available for confession and spiritual guidance throughout the pilgrimage. The journey terminates in a beautiful Solemn Mass offered at the Shrine of the North American Martyrs on Sunday, September 30.

Pilgrims can go the entire distance – sixty-three miles over three days – or join for the very last day, making the last short leg to the Auriesville shrine. In addition, there is a “modified pilgrimage” for seniors and parents with young children. This lends a Catholic family atmosphere to the pilgrimage, and makes the event “something for everyone.” Transportation for weary pilgrims is provided throughout, as are a safety escort and trained medical personnel.

Explaining the significance of this year’s theme, Lloyd said, “This year we pilgrims are filled with special joy. For seventeen years we’ve joined the millions who, for centuries, have prayed for Saint Kateri’s canonization. We feel a deep confidence this year that the ‘Lily of the Mohawks’ will hear our prayers, and ask Christ to grant every perfect gift to those who ask in her name.”

He concluded with a broad invitation to the Pilgrimage. “We invite all men of good will to do penance and to pray with us to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, to obtain from her Son the grace of conversion and Catholic Faith for all Americans, to gain for the Church in North America victory in the struggle against the tyranny of relativism, and to expel again the forces of darkness from our Lands. And while you’re at it, come have what pilgrims for seventeen unforgettable years have called, ‘the time of your life’ with friends in the beautiful Adirondacks!”

To register online, or to obtain more information, interested parties are referred to the web site of the National Coalition of Clergy and Laity: www.national-coalition.org/pilgrim/. Inquiries may be directed to the Pilgrimage Director, Gregory Lloyd:

National Coalition of Clergy & Laity
621 Jordan Circle
Whitehall PA 18052-7119
610-435-2634 tel.
lloydg@national-coalition.org

Solemn High Traditional Latin Mass and Crowning of Our Lady at the Blessed Sacrament Cathedral last May 5, 2012, after the conclusion of the Annual May Procession. Mass was sung by the choir and choristers of St. Stephen the First Martyr Parish of Sacramento, California, USA.

On Saturday, April 14, 2012, Fr. Cassian Folsom, O.S.B. (Prior of the Benedictine Monastery in Norcia, Italy), received the Pro Fidelitate et Virtute Award presented by the Institute on Religious Life. This video contains his acceptance speech entitled: "The Inseparable Link Between Holiness and Worship".

CAREFUL NOT TO DEBASE THE WORDS

by Uwe Michael Lang

The history of biblical translation begins with the version of the Septuagint, which made the Hebrew Scriptures accessible in the Greek language and to the Hellenist world. It is impossible to overstate the religious and cultural importance of this translation project, which has no equal in the ancient world.

As the new Christian faith was spreading even to the most remote corners of the known world, the question of translation was becoming more urgent. In this process, a preference emerged for literal translation, "word for word," for which the following theological reasoning was given: a "meaning for meaning" translation presupposes that the translator is able to understand the full meaning of the original text, and this would be in contradiction with the infinite richness of Scripture.

Saint Jerome, having received the mandate from Pope Damasus to produce a new Latin version of the Bible later known as the Vulgate, also expressed this idea, when he wrote that in Sacred Scripture, "even the sequence of the words is a mystery" (Letter 57, 5).

Nonetheless, literal translation, in the passage from the language of departure to the language of arrival, is often unable to communicate the message of the text, above all when it comes to ancient texts like those of the Bible or the liturgy, in the contemporary languages.

Every translation certainly seeks to transmit the spiritual and doctrinal content in a way that does justice to the rules and conventions of the language of arrival.

Some hermeneutics of translation go much farther, in the sense that they no longer aim at a translation that would reproduce as much as possible the formal structure of the original. The aim is instead that of identifying the message contained in the original text and abstracting it from its linguistic form. In translating, a new form must be created that possesses equivalent qualities capable of expressing more adequately the original content. By means of this new form, the translation is intended to have in the language of arrival the same informative and emotional effect that the text has in its language of origin.

Without a doubt, this raises methodological questions, above all that of how to determine the meaning of a text while abstracting it from its form.

In 1966, an English translation of the New Testament was published with the title "Good News for Modern Man." With the completion of the Old Testament in 1976, the Good News Bible (GNB) was published, with the deuterocanonical books released in 1979. The problems of this version leap out in comparison with the Revised Standard Version (RSV), which takes its place in the grand tradition of Bibles in the English language, in updated form and up to date with the historical sciences.

To give a few examples: where the RSV speaks of being redeemed with "the precious blood of Christ," the GNB reads "the costly sacrifice of Christ" (1 Pet 1:19). This is a paraphrase rather than a translation, which discards the immediacy of the biblical expression and its resonances in the tradition of Scripture.

The word of Christ that "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth" is rendered in the GNB as "God is Spirit, and only by the power of his Spirit can people worship him as he really is" (John 4:24). In this central passage, the meaning of the sentence is transformed from the precept to worship God "in spirit and truth" to a generic declaration of being capable of worshiping God "as he is." Trinitarian and Christological nuances are also lost (cf. John 6:63 and 14:4).

The methodological decision to abstract the essential message in order to communicate it in the modern language therefore does not involve only questions of style and literary expression, but also raises problems of a doctrinal nature.

One of the best known cases is Luke's account of the Annunciation, where the GNB renders the Greek "parthènos" (Luke 1:26) as "young woman" instead of "virgin," thus obfuscating an essential affirmation of the Gospel.

Nonetheless, such theories have influenced the translation of the new liturgical books into the vernacular languages, and were applied in the most consistent way in the English version of the "Missale Romanum" of Paul VI, published in 1974.

Although a detailed picture cannot be presented here, it may be helpful to point out in broad terms some of the tendencies that are evident above all in the variable prayers of the Mass. Very often the English version restructures the original prayer, with little regard to the sequence of theological ideas and to their rhetorical expression, which are characteristic of classical Roman eucology.

Those in whose name the prayer is made are not infrequently reduced to an indeterminate "we," presumably to be identified with the particular assembly. This limits the universal scope of many prayers, which includes the whole Christian body or even all humanity.

Typical phrases like "praesta, ut" or "concedere, ut," which express supplication to God, are usually translated with a variation of "help us." In this way, a weak notion of divine causality is introduced, and the mysterious operation of divine grace in the human heart is reduced, with a semi-Pelagian subtext.

In the collect for the twenty-first Sunday of ordinary time, the general tendency to render the original in paraphrase has gone so far that the concrete biblical conception of loving the divine law ("id amare quod praecipis") is transformed into "values." This cannot help but be described as a step toward auto-secularization and perhaps also toward moral relativism (in that the concept of "values" is commonly used as a substitute for the discussion of an objective moral order). If it is asked what these "values" are, the English version gives the answer: those "that will bring us lasting joy in this changing world." When the ancient Roman collect speaks of "inter mundanas varietates," one also hears the negative connotations that are instead lost in the phrase about the changing world.

Even more important: the original text does not ask for lasting joy in the midst of the uncertainties of this world, but rather prays that our hearts may be anchored in that place where true joy is found: the transcendent reality of heaven: "ibi nostra fixa sint corda, ubi vera sunt gaudia." In the English version, there is no longer the echo of Luke 12:34, "where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

The awareness that this translation had wandered too far from the "lex orandi" of the Roman rite led to the great project of revision begun with the instruction of the Holy See "Liturgiam Authenticam" of 2001.

Afterward, a new translation of the "Roman Missal" was prepared, which was introduced in a definitive way in many English-speaking countries on the first Sunday of Advent last year.

Even if a translation can only approximate the elegance and conciseness of the ancient Latin prayers with their prose rhythms and their rhetorical figures, the new "Roman Missal," unlike its predecessor, opens the treasury of the Latin liturgical tradition, faithfully and in full, to the Church in the English-speaking world.

Moreover, it contributes significantly to the formation of "a sacral vernacular," as stipulated by "Liturgiam Authenticam" (no. 47): a language of worship that distinguishes itself from everyday language and is perceived as the voice of the Church in prayer.

"Through these sacred texts and the actions that accompany them, Christ will be made present and active in the midst of his people. The voice that helped bring these words to birth will have completed its task" (Benedict XVI, address to members of the committee "Vox Clara," April 28, 2010).

For pastors, to whom is entrusted the task of introducing the new translation into their communities, this is also a unique opportunity to teach the "lex credendi" that finds a beautiful and profound expression in these prayers, an opportunity that "will need to be firmly grasped" (Benedict XVI, ibid.).

As a personal aside, whenever I think of graceful and sacral translations of liturgical texts into the English language, my mind first and foremost turns to this splendid book:

This Thursday at St. Joseph's Church (416 3rd Street, Troy NY) Father Romaeus Cooney OCarm. will use the historic Missale Carmelitarum for the the Feast of the Ascension. This will be a Missa Cantata according to the Rite of the Holy Sepulchre; the rite of Mass proper to the Order of Carmelites.

As this form of the liturgy has not been celebrated publicly by any priest in the Order of Carmelites since adopting the Roman Liturgy in 1972, we invite any and all to join with us for this rare & historic event Thursday evening at 6:30pm.


The Carmelite Rite
From the very beginning of its existence Carmelite liturgy has been connected with the Rite of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. For centuries, in all the official documents, the Liturgy of the Carmelites was described as the "Rite of the brothers of our Blessed Lady of Mount Carmel according to the custom of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem". The Holy Sepulchre is important for Carmelites not because it was the site of burial for Jesus but because it was the place of the Resurrection. The Rite itself comes from France as it was brought to the Holy Land by French crusaders. There is also influence from the Augustinian tradition as the Canons of the Holy Sepulchre followed the Rule of St. Augustine. It was this liturgy that the Carmelites took as the source of their inspiration. Different Carmelites who have studied our liturgy suggest that the Carmelites from the earliest times on Mount Carmel celebrated the Rite of the Holy Sepulchre. The first written proof of this is in our Constitutions of 1281 from the London General Chapter. These Constitutions are important for a number of reasons since they are the earliest Constitutions to survive. It is suggested that the Carmelites of that time formally adopted what was already their custom since the days on Mount Carmel. -- Francis Kemsley O.Carm.

We celebrate this form of the Carmelite liturgy as part of the living tradition of the Church and the Order of Carmelites, in accordance with the Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum and the instruction Universae Ecclesiae(Ref, art.34). It is our hope that this treasure of the Carmelite Order, and this historic liturgy of the Church will continue to nourish the lives of the faithful.

This can be contrasted with consideration of symbolism of the number four. Unlike the number five we have references from many different sources that point to a longstanding and firmly established tradition of Christian symbolism of the number four. We can also see how this symbolism has been reflected in the culture, through art for example. There are biblical references and the writings of the Church Fathers, some of which are included in the liturgy of the Church.

What brought this to mind was a passage in the Office of Readings from the book of the Apocalypse. The passage is from Rev. 7 and begins as follows: 'I, John, saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, so that no wind should blow the earth, the sea or any tree.'

This statement links the created world, the earth, to the number four. We can also see how these expressions (the four winds and the four corners of the earth) derive these common usages. We can see also, why it would be natural to divide the points of the compass up into four quadrants. There are other references to the four winds in the bible, most importantly, Christ himself spoke of the four winds in Matthew 24 and Mark 13 in which we can see the parallels with the passage in the Apocalypse immediately, for example:

"And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." (Mt 24: 30,31) This seems to extend the number four to a way of meaning 'everywhere' because he is applying it here to heaven as well.

Famously, St Irenaeus wrote in the 2nd century AD in his treatise, Against Heresies:

"There are four gospels and only four, neither more nor less: four like the points of the compass, four like the chief directions of the wind. The Church, spread all over the world, has in the gospels four pillars and four winds blowing wherever people live. These four gospels are in actual fact one single Gospel, a fourfold Gospel inspired by the one Spirit, a Gospel which has four aspects representing the work of the Son of God. These aspects are like the four cherubs described by Ezekiel. In the prophet's words: `The first had the likeness of a lion,' symbolizing the masterly and kingly role of Christ in priesthood; `the second had the appearance of an ox,' the beast of sacrifice, recalling the perfect sacrifice of Christ; `the third had the face of a man,' undoubtedly referring to the coming of the Lord in human nature; `and the fourth had the aspect of a flying eagle,' with a clear allusion to the grace of the Spirit hovering over the Church. [cf. Ezek. 1:10; Rev. 4:7] The four Gospels correspond to these symbols. Christ is at the center of them. John actually speaks of his kingly and glorious Sonship to the Father in his opening words: `In the beginning was the Word.' [John 1:1] Luke begins with Zaccharias offering sacrifice. Matthew chooses first of all the Lord's human genealogy. And Mark leads off by calling on the prophetic Spirit which invests humanity from on high."

Then in art we can see many examples of painting of Christ in Majesty from Eastern and Western traditions portraying this. Furthermore, as I have mentioned before, here, the quincunx, used in many decorative patterns in Churches, particularly on Church floors always strikes me as a geometric portrayal of this. The quincunx is a pattern that comes originally from the Romans and was brought into the Christian culture.

Last week I wrote about the importance of praying the Liturgy of the Hours in forming the minds of children. I cannot overemphasise how much the liturgy teaches directly as well as nourishes spiritually. On any given day the scriptural passages are selected that have common themes and so parallels between, for example, old and new testaments that would be lost if I was only attending Mass. These are often emphasised further by the choice of passage from the Fathers in the Office of Readings. In regard to this particular instance, imagine how much of an impression it would make on any impressionable mind to hear this passage read and then as part of their art lesson for that day to hear the other references to it, then to asked both to copy an illumination of the scene from a traditional psalter and to construct with just straight edge and a pair of compasses the quincunx. This I suggest would connect forever in their minds the liturgy, the cosmos, the four Evangelists and their gospels, and the culture.

Images from top: Psalter of St Louis and Blanche of Castille, 13th century; Peterborough Abbey Psalter, 13th century; the De Lisle Psalter, 14th century; the final three photos are of Trinity Chapel in Canterbury Cathedral. The floor design date is uncertain, but possibly 12th or 13th century.