From "The Word Among Us," More Regarding Upcoming Mass Changes

Are you familiar w/ the daily meditation guide called The Word Among Us? I was first introduced to it at our former parish, where they used to have extra copies on their pamphlet racks. Casinodad & I now subscribe to the publication. I love using this each morning for the daily readings, prayers, & meditations. Many great conversations have come up between Casiondad & me after a day's reflection. I HIGHLY recommend this guide for daily readings & meditations!

Each month also has various articles of based on a particular theme...for example, a few months ago the articles were about the Sacrament of Confirmation. This month, he articles are centered around the upcoming changes to the Mass through the Revised Roman Missal.

I was reading the second article this morning & got quite a little chuckle! "Words Matter: How Our Prayer Shapes Our Faith" talks about some of the reasons for the wording changes. It starts out by telling readers about a legend regarding scientists in the 60s who were trying to make a machine that translates English to Russian & back to English. When it was time to test it out, they tried a few popular phrases. When taking the Biblical passage, "The Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak," its translation back to English from Russian became, "The vodka is good, but the meat is rancid." WOW! What a difference!

I really liked this one though..."Out of sight, out of mind" became "Invisible idiot."

This just proves how difficult translations between languages can be. It's more than just translating each word. The whole context of the passage needs to be considered. Here is yet another reason for the upcoming Mass changes & how, after much study, we are going to more accurate translations of the original Latin text. I'm looking forward to the changes...how about you?

(NOTE: Parts of this post have been paraphrased from pages 11 & 12 of The Word Among Us, November 2011 edition.)