154/365 Language

I'm having a difficult time with upcoming changes in the English version of the mass. There, I said it.

I love ritual and living in ritual and coming to deeper understandings of it. Words and gestures. Bad ritual and bad liturgy always make me roll my eyes, like the times I've spent in really bad women's prayer services. A post for another day.

At mass Sunday, Miguel's homily concerned words and meaning. That when things change (like, when we visit churches that say mass in another language), we have to pay closer attention. The mass hasn't changed, just the language it is set in has changed. We can still participate even if we aren't speaking the language of the people.

This was juxtaposed against the upcoming changes. And I have a variety of opinions that fall into the following categories:

1. I fear change. This is a personal problem of mine and I should let it go.

2. It feels kind of...fundamentalist. I mean it this way: as a Catholic, I do not believe in the literal translation, word for word, of the bible. It was written by mortals, inspired by God. The prophets and historians and poets and evangelists were not taking dictation. There was no handheld recorder or speechwriter at Jesus' sermons. And, in addition, I consider the bible to be a more inspired body of work than I do the order of the mass. And so the idea of "going back to the basics of love", so to speak, makes me hesitate. Human language is not static. Civilization is not static. The fact that my denomination is so freaking static makes me crazy.

3. But without ritual stasis, it of course runs the risk of being bad.

4. Lastly, and most specifically, "and my soul shall be healed" grates on my nerves because of the implied duality of mankind:

The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the "form" of the body: i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.

Our current "And I shall be healed" seems more in line with that statement. But I know I'm no expert. It will become yet another mystery for me to ponder, like the question I often ask about the line in the creed: God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God. Why do we mention God in two different phrases there. Why do we have to say True God after we've just said God? I have yet to get a satisfactory answer, and I think "and my soul shall be healed" will be the same way.

And it shouldn't be that way. Just sayin.