"It's not what you say; it's how you say it"

Translation of the Roman Missal

I remember many times when I was a child my mother would say to me or my brothers or sister, “It’s not what you said, it’s how you said it.” In the English language the mere change in accent can have a drastic affect on how a statement is understood; how much more so the use of various words. I could ask my mother for lunch by saying, “May I please have something for lunch?” or, “I want something for lunch,” or, “Make me something for lunch, woman.” One statement would definitely get me something to eat; another might get me a smack on the face! The choice of words in communication is extremely important.
In May of 2001 the publication in Latin of the new Roman Missal (Sacramentary) was a major part of the renewal of the sacred liturgy called for by the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council. Obviously this work needed to be translated into the many and varied languages of the world. In anticipation of this part of the renewal of the liturgical books the Holy See issued a document called Liturgiam Authenticam to guide the translations.
We say gas, others say petrol. We say elevator, others say lift. We say truck, others say lorry. We say a car has a trunk, others say it has a boot. Creating a translation into English, which is spoken by many peoples and no group of them speaks it in the same way, has been a daunting task to say the least; and getting it right is very important.
There is an ancient maxim that has guided the Church in its expressions of prayer. The Latin phrase is “lex orandi, lex credendi.” It has been variously been translated, “the law of prayer is the law of belief,” or “as the Church prays, so the Church believes.” In other words, the words we use in prayer form and shape the way we believe. It works both ways; how we pray shapes our beliefs, and how we believe shapes our prayer. How we worship not only reveals and safeguards what we believe, but guides us in how we live our Christian faith and fulfill our Christian mission in the world; so you can also say, “lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi;” “as the Church prays, so the Church believes, so the Church lives.”
The words of the liturgy pass on the faith from one generation to the next and so the translations must be faithful, accurate, and uplifting. The translation needs to transcend one particular place and time in history because we speak and pray about eternal realities and even at that our words can never encompass God, only the Word who is Jesus can and does express the fullness of God. New translations will have to be done from time to time because the words we use to understand can change over the years. This relates to another teaching of the Church called the development of dogma. The truth never changes, but like clothes, the way in which the truth is expressed can and does change over the years. The new translations not only must be faithful to what has been handed down to us in Tradition, but must express that Tradition clearly to the world in which we live.
Translating a Latin text into English for all the English speaking countries requires the expertise of many people. The bishops and other members of the International Committee on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) work with many scholars to produce a text. This is reviewed by the Bishops of the various countries who make suggestions and when those are approved the amended text returns to ICEL for possible incorporation or changes in the text and then a final text is sent back to the Bishops for their approval. Only then is it sent to Rome for acceptance as the authorized translation for the Church. That is why it is taking so long to translate into English the Roman Missal. It is projected that this process will be completed by the end of 2009 and the new translation of the Roman Missal will be published in English by the end of 2010.
You can check out the new translation of parts of the Mass and find many helpful documents concerning the Roman Missal project on this page of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop’s web site: http://usccb.org/liturgy/missalformation/index.shtml.

Fr. Paul White
Director of Liturgy