English translations of Vatican documents are notoriously loose, and the critical reviewer can sometimes sniff out what looks like a deliberate distortion. The Holy Father’s letter to the Bishops explaining his Motu Proprio of July 7, 2007 offers a tidy example. The English translation twice refers to the Mass of Bl. John XXIII as the ‘former usage’. In the same places, the French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese use ‘ancien’, ‘antiguo’, ‘antico’ and ‘antigo’. I know too little German to be certain, but I think that translation uses ‘alten’. All these words describe existence in a previous time, while allowing for continuation into the present. ‘Former’, on the other hand, is reserved for things that are no longer. For illustration, imagine applying first the word ‘ancient’ and then the word ‘former’ to the faith. Does one of these not quite match up? Not much further commentary is necessary on this point, except to provide a popular North American English idiom which sums up my reply to the nameless translator:
“In your dreams.”
God bless the Pope.
I wish I’d been told this when I was fourteen: after shaving, use your left hand to spread a little olive oil around your still-wet face. Use the same hand to rub all over against the grain and find rough spots, which you can then remove with the razor in your right. You’ll be feeling your chin in disbelief until mid-afternoon.
Here’s the Absolution following the Requiem Mass in Kinkora, Ontario, about 20 minutes from Stratford. A tad rusty, but a brilliant first shot at the Requiem in a parish that probably hasn’t seen it in 40 years. And listen to the parishioners! Most of them have never sung those responses. I have the honour to mention that Schola Nomini Tuo sang the whole Mass.
Was I ever glad to hear this, during my recent charting evaluation:
“OK, first of all, we just do these things to pick up the worst of the worst, and, uh, the first thing we look at when we look at notes is, well, are they legible. And yours…(Looks down, flips through a few pages, pauses)…are.”
They audit employees on their use of electronic records. They ask staff to admonish one another for discussing cases in elevators. They forbid the removal from the physical plant of research databases containing patient names. And then they make an overhead page like this: “Would J*** S**** please return to the urgent urology clinic. That’s J*** S**** to urgent urology.”
I figure speaking at an event with the words “World” and “Congress” in the title means I get to buy a new garment. So on Tuesday, I went to my local clothier for a really top-notch shirt. He looked at my coat and ties, picked one out, and told me the stripes are pronounced enough to tell everyone I’m the latest young hotshot, but restrained enough to put it respectfully. Here’s our post-purchase banter:
Ditch: “…and I think I’ll be back soon for pants. You warned me not to buy clothes in malls, and I did anyway, and the seam opened at the pocket after a week.”
Stitch: “Yeah, you know, I just can’t remember the last time I went to a discount superstore for thyroid surgery, either.”
On the top of Google’s listing for weird emails today:
Dear Father,
Bad news: When I set the tenth Sunday after Pentecost as the first day for the Kinkoriites to sing the Propers, I’d forgotten that my boss is expecting me to attend the World Congress on Thyroid Cancer in Toronto. So I probably can’t make it. I am raking south-western Ontario for a replacement cantor for you. Very sorry for the mess.
Certainly, the chief purpose of Friday abstinence is penance, but let’s not forget the collateral benefits of leisure and luxury. If you don’t know what I mean, then sit on your front porch next Friday at supper time with a loaf of bread, a piece of cheese, an apple and a mug of beer, and eat them slowly. Here is real leisure: there was no cooking, and there will be no dishes to wash. And here is luxury: at the end of a day without beef, you remember just how delicious an apple tastes. A good Friday meal is not a wallowing in culinary gloom, but a reminder of the extravagance of God’s smaller gifts, in the light of which you can see the bigger ones more clearly. No one enjoys the filet mignon so well as the one who revels in the potato next to it.