Thursday, July 28, 2011

Old 1969 Missal's "Bumping Boxcar Language"

I never fail to enjoy an article by an articulate, well-read logophile, as those who majored in (or taught) English sometimes used to be and occasionally still are.

This is perhaps one of the reasons why I always relish reading anything by Anthony Esolen, among other reasons (I usually also find myself in sympathy with his sentiments).

Just last night, I ran across this gem of an article by Esolen entitled "A Bumping Boxcar Language" (First Things, June/July, 2011), pp. 15-17, which leaps off the page like a 100 yard sprinter at the crack of the starter pistol:
I await with great delight the first translation of the Novus Ordo Mass into English. The bland, Scripture-muffling, colorless, odorless, gaseous paraphrase American Catholics have had for forty years often was not a translation at all, nor even a paraphrase into English. It was a paraphrase into Nabbish, the secret official language of the New American Bible.
(How can you possibly NOT read an article with such an opening? You're already in hyperspace before you've taken your first sip of morning coffee. Sort of makes you wonder whether Esolen has been reading Roister-Doister, doesn't it?)

Esolen arranges his article around three principles of Nabbish: 1) Prefer the general to the specific, the abstract to the concrete, the vague to the exact; 2) Prefer the neuter, the indefinite, and the impersonal; and 3) Prefer the office memorandum to the poem. But contenting yourself with these three Nabbish principles in the abstract without examining their instantiations, is like going to an art gallery and looking at only the printed descriptions beneath the paintings, or being invited to a seven-star restaurant and leaving after only savoring the menu.

Taste and see, taste and see ... and laugh your buttocks off.

9 comments:

anon said...

It is certainly saying something about how far things have gone when the protestant KJV is used as the "good example" when discussing the problems of a "catholic" Bible.

Pertinacious Papist said...

Indeed .... just as when relatives and friends marvel at how much "more Catholic" the Anglican liturgy is than whatever it is that happens in nearly all contemporary Catholic parishes these days.

JFM said...

Recommended on the missal and devotional life:

CC Martindales 'The Words of the Missal' and 'The Mind of the Missal.' On the author, this is interesting as well:

Anonymous said...

Isn't Esolen the man who excoriated John Dewey as the patron saint of modern education?


I wonder if there is a series of articles which accomplish the same thing in regards to modern Catholic music?

(I don't know if I've mentioned it, but I think I can seriously defend the thesis that "On Eagle's Wings" is demonically inspired. If you're interested, I'll write up the argument and send it to you.)

God bless,

Chris

Anonymous said...

Hey Chris,
I'm interested too.

Donna

Confitebor said...

Mr. Esolen has been reading my mind. His opening sentence is something I've said (almost in his very words) many times over the past few years.

Ralph Roister-Doister said...

It is the language of the corporation. Read any corporate publication, especially those for internal circulation, and you'll see the same deliberate blandness and eschewal of the concrete. Joy! Joy! Joy! -- We are corporate citizens of the faith community!

This approach to the sacrifice of the Mass as a kind of corporate event is certainly a new wrinkle. You can't blame it on those repressed, pathological Baroque Catholics. The Mass of Trent and Pius V is quite clear about what it is and what it is not. The NO is not.

In the case of the business corporation, the function of such language is (1) to teach humility to employees by referring to them as “capital,” “resources,” and “assets” – all of which are things to be spent, exploited, and used up; (2) to create a sense of distance between spender and thing spent, user and thing used, exploiter and thing exploited. It is the language of lawyers, and its message is that you are here to be used up and disposed of, but you are not to understand why or by whom: accept your fate like the barnyard and pasture animals that make up your ballpark franks.

In the case of the faith corporation, it is to distance the new, “welcoming” liturgy from the inconvenient truths of Catholic dogma. References to God and spirit are hidden in the epicene pronouns “we”, “you”, and “us”. The central reality of transubstantiation, sacrifice, and propitiation is soft-pedalled in favor of a bizarre cachet, from a Catholic standpoint, of remembrance, symbolism, community, and self-congratulation. You know – protestant notions!

Of course, the New Conservatives are about to change all that. So keep reading those disposable worship resources, ye saints and ministers, and one day you are sure to be pleasantly surprised.

Anonymous said...

Philip,

I'll put it in the e-mail as soon as I can. It's 5 pages, double spaced.

Chris

Anonymous said...

Re: On Eagles' Wings

Whether demonically inspired or not, no song that begins with "yoo hoo" can be all good.