"When you pray, say . . ."
This past weekend I was asked by a few parishioners, who are obviously in touch with Church news,
"How can Pope Francis change the Our Father?" or "Do you think he will do this?" or "When do you think he will change the Lord's Prayer?" All pretty similar questions asked with a bit of confusion and mild angst.
For one thing, the Pope's comment was given to an Italian reporter doing a story, not about the Lord's Prayer, and somewhere in the questioning a comment was made on how the French Catholic Bishop's have adopted a re-translation of one line only in that most well known of Christian prayers as this Advent began about a week ago. Rather than praying, in French obviously, the line: ". . . Lead us not into temptation," French Catholics will now state: ". . . do not let us fall into temptation." Clearly, God does not lead anyone into evil, he offers us the grace to avoid temptation which comes in many forms from various sources. In fact the Spanish speaking countries have prayed the proposed rewording for a long time. So, what about us English speakers?
Pope Francis simply commented on this one line, not on the entire prayer, and stated that the new rewording is a more correct understanding of how God operates in our lives. It is a more correct meaning of the original text in Greek. While linguists may debate this, language we know never translates literally, word for word, from one language to the next. Jesus did not speak a word of English but rather Aramaic, Hebrew, and perhaps a few words of Greek since those were the prevailing languages of the middle eastern region in which he lived and ministered. Maybe a bit of Latin as well due to the Roman occupation. The point is he spoke the words of the prayer we know in Aramaic and left it up to future cultures to translate as correctly, if not word for word, certainly the specific meaning of the prayer.
So, Pope Francis is not proposing that we may want to rethink the words of this sacred prayer taught to us by Jesus but rather rethink a more correct rewording of that specific line only. Personally, I would be all for this. In fact, during our Masses this weekend, I whispered those new words when reaching that line as we joined in the praying of that prayer before Holy Communion. It fits just fine and presents to us the true meaning of it's words and of God's grace.
So, will this be changed? Good question. It may well be but when right now is anyone's guess. I remember, shortly after Pope Francis was elected, he proposed the addition of one line to all of our Eucharistic Prayers. Joseph, as spouse of Mary, was mentioned only in the Roman Canon, Eucharistic Prayer 1. The Pope suggested we add the name of Joseph to all of the Eucharistic prayers after the line which states: ". . . with the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and blessed Joseph her spouse . . ." However, all of the new Roman Missals had already been printed and published so some publishers sent a kind of lay over that would be applied to the page with the new additional wording. At any rate, hardly a world shaking event yet most appropriate indeed. A bit of Roman Missal trivia for you all!
The link below gives a very clear explanation of exactly what Pope Francis said about the Lord's prayer. It's helpful . . . stay tuned! No harm in trying out the new words when you pray this prayer today.
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