I came across this site quite by accident the other day. The blogger, Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, takes some very deep looks into the proper translation of prayers, and currently the Liturgy. Given that we have just undertaken a new translation, it seems appropriate. Just a word of warning, he from what I can tell believes “pro multis” is properly translated as “for many”, so if that gets your doilies in a bunch consider yourself warned. Aside from that, a quote from his post on the Preface to the Roman Canon grabbed me as something I would probably do were I ever to have been in his position (note: do, not just want to do, thereby getting me in a world of trouble):
I am not an advocate of boisterous liturgy, but sometimes when I hear these prayers, and I sense the depth and the breadth of them through countless generations bursting from well-springs of Christian experience nourished by the actual blood of those who first prayed them, and I hear responses at Mass which are anemic, pale, timid, feeble, thin, mumbled, I simply want to stop everything, take people by the collective hands and say: “Do you NOT GET THIS??!” Like Leo the Great in his homily for Christmas I want to stop and shout “O Christian! Be mindful of your dignity!” We are not Christian and Catholic today by our own merits merely. When we pray these prayers we transcend by the Holy Spirit working in us as we pray, space (connecting us to Catholics everywhere) and time (connecting us with generations before us) and even the veil of this world (connecting us to the heavenly host before the throne of God). Our Mass is an echo of the past, a link with Catholics across the globe, and fore glimpse of the continuous liturgy in action before the throne of God.
