Liturgical Cogitations - X

Because of liturgical translation problems, especially in the English-speaking part of the world, where "political correctness" and some ideological distortions unfortunately had crept into certain liturgical texts, Pope John Paul II had sent a mandate on February 1, 1997, to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (the department of the Holy See that assists the Holy Father in liturgical matters) to draw up a new set of regulations for those who would be commissioned to translate liturgical texts into the vernacular languages. These new regulations would replace a document entitled "Comme le prevoit", which had been in use since the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council in December of 1965. The result, after widespread international consultation, was a document in Latin entitled "Liturgiam Authenticam", finished on March 20, 2001, which the Pope then approved and ordered published and placed into effect on March 28, 2001. "Liturgiam Authenticam" now must guide and direct all liturgical translations in the Church.

When, at the beginning of next Advent, the new official English language edition of the Roman Missal ("editio tertia typica") will begin to be used in the United States, the ICEL (International Commission of English in the Liturgy) translation will be seen as conforming to the rules set out in "Liturgicam Authenticam". One of those rules (31-d) states: "Insofar as possible in a given vernacular language, the use of the feminine pronoun, rather than the neuter, is to be maintained in referring to the Church." While this rule and usage will affect primarily the priest-celebrant at Mass, it is good for all to reflect on the theological and catechetical significance of requirement.

As symbolized supremely by the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Catholic Church is a virgin and mother, the Body and the Bride of Christ (Ephesians 5:22-32). Therefore, it is most inappropriate to use the pronoun "it" when talking about the Church, but most suitable to use the feminine "she" when doing so. This usage conforms much better to our Catholic traditions and customs, and obviously it also was the way the Doctors and Fathers of the Church spoke and wrote about her. It also is a more accurate and correct translation of the official Latin text.

Honorius of Autun wrote, "The glorious Virgin Mary stands for the Church, Who is both virgin and mother. She is mother because every day she presents God with new children in Baptism, being made fruitful by the Holy Spirit. At the same time, she is virgin because she does not allow herself to be in any way corrupted by the defilement of heresy, preserving inviolate the integrity of the faith. In the same way Mary was mother in bringing forth Jesus and virgin in remaining intact after bearing Him. The one gave salvation to the people while the other gives the people to their Savior. The one carried Life in her womb, while the other carries Him in the wellspring of the sacraments. What was once granted in the flesh to Mary now is granted spiritually to the Church, Who conceives the Word in her unfaltering faith, bears Him in a spirit freed from all corruption, and contains Him in a soul overshadowed by the power of the Most High. Everything that is written of the Church may also be read as applying to Mary, and what is written of our Lady can also, as to essentials, be read as applying to the Church."

Cardinal Henri de Lubac writes, "The Church is a community, but in order to be that community she is first of all a hierarchy. The Church, which we call our mother, is not some ideal and unreal Church, but this hierarchical Church herself, not the Church as we might dream her but the Church as she exists in fact, here and now. Thus, the obedience which we pledge her in the persons of those who rule her cannot be anything else but a filial obedience. She has not brought us to birth only so as to abandon us and let us take our chance on our own, but rather she guards us and keeps us together in her maternal heart. We continually live by her Spirit, as children in the womb of their mothers live on the substance of their mothers. And every true Catholic will have a feeling of tender piety towards her. He will love to call her "mother", the title that sprang from the hearts of her first children, as the texts of Christian antiquity bear witness on so many occasions." The Cardinal tells us to repeat with Saint Cyprian and Saint Augustine, "He who has not the Church for mother cannot have God for Father."

When in the future celebrations of the liturgy we use or hear used that feminine pronoun for the Church, we might use the occasion to recall the beautiful words of Cardinal de Lubac: "The Church is the mother of love at its most lovely, of healthy fear, of divine knowledge, and of holy hope. Without her our thought is diffuse and hazy, but she gathers it together into a firm unity. She scatters the darkness in which men either slumber or despair or pitifully shape as they please their fantasies of the infinite. Without discouraging us from any task, she protects us from the deceptive myths of the churches made by the hands of men and spares us from the aberrations and revulsions that follow them."

"She saves us from destruction in the presence of God. She is the living ark, the gate of the east. She is the unflawed mirror of the activity of the Most High. As the beloved of the Lord of the universe, she is initiated into His secrets and teaches us whatever pleases Him. Her supernatural splendor never fades, even in the darkest hours, and it is thanks to her that our darkness is bathed in light. Through her the priest goes up every day to the altar of God Who gives joy to our youth. The glory of Lebanon is in her under the obscurity of her earthly covering. Each day she gives us Him Who is the Way and the Truth, and it is through her that we have hope of Life in Him. The memory of her is sweeter than honey, and he who hears her shall never be put to confusion. For she is the holy mother, the unique mother, the immaculate mother, the great mother. She is the holy Church, the true Eve, sole true mother of all the living." She is "the pillar and ground of truth" (1 Timothy 3:15).

Speaking of Baptism. the old Gelasian Sacramentary says, "As Mary thrilled with joy at the birth of God-made-Man, so the Church thrills with joy in the mystery of the birth of her children in Baptism." Eusebius, the first church historian, said that already early in the second century, the Christians of Vienne and Lyons spoke of the "holy Church as our virginal mother". Inscribed on the wall of the great baptistry next to the Cathedral of Rome, the Basilica of Saint John Lateran, are the words: "At this fountain-spring the Church, our mother, bears in her virginal womb the children she has conceived under the Breath of God." The use of the feminine pronoun for the Catholic Church in the new and better translation in the liturgy can have profound implications for us and should perhaps cause us to reflect more deeply on the meaning of what we say in the Creed: "I believe in the holy Catholic Church!"