The New Translation Part 6: More Gloria

This is the latest installment in a series of short articles I wrote/adapted/edited for my parish bulletin. I will publish the others as they they appear.

Angelic Choirs by Gustave Doré

The new Mass translation is coming in Advent! Back in 2000, Blessed Pope John Paul II issued the third edition of the Roman Missal. After more than ten years of consultation and work, the new English translation is finally ready.

Much of the new translation for the second half of the Gloria is a matter of rearranging clauses into a sequence that better reflects the original order of the Latin:

Jesus is twice mentioned as God’s Son. This not only better reflects the Latin, but reminds us that Jesus is begotten, not made, something we’ll come back to when we discuss the Creed. We also see that the phrase “you take away the sins of the world” is repeated twice. This should remind us of the Agnus Dei: “Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world….”

The new translation makes clear that one of the great reasons to proclaim the glory of Christ is that He is indeed our Savior who took away the sins of the world with His redemptive passion. The words themselves are taken from the Gospel of John: “The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.’” (John 1:29)

Next time: We start in on the Nicene Creed!

(Based on Roman Missal Formational Materials provided by the Secretariat for the Liturgy of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2010, and materials provided by the Bishop Helmsing Institute)