tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14247942.post113933498185461825..comments2023-08-10T05:32:21.163-04:00Comments on An Examined Life: Verbum in VerbisVitae Scrutatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12808120163472036743noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14247942.post-23897500623079562682008-04-13T21:26:00.000-04:002008-04-13T21:26:00.000-04:00Sunday April 13, 2008Dear Scott – more than two ye...Sunday April 13, 2008<BR/><BR/>Dear Scott – more than two years after your Feb 19, 2006 most interesting article I happen to find it. I have devoted more than half a century to Latin liturgy (I’ve just turned a happy and youthful 73 – born 1935) and of course, I was trained in pre-conciliar liturgy – so much so that I was married in Latin in an – of course, Tridentine Mass – on December 5, 1964, when I was already 30 years old. As a matter of fact a few days later, on January 1, 1965 the post-conciliar Mass began – The Divine Office continued as before until the end of 1972. I was happy to sing Lauds, Tierce, the Mass, Sext and None every morning as a “sochantre” (a lay guy dressed with a cassock and a surplice) with the Canons of the Cathedral of Lima, Peru.<BR/>I was always fascinated with Latin liturgy, and I learned Latin by myself, and got used to praying the breviary ever since 1960. At that time I had the 4 volume, 3-nocturn matins, etc. breviary; then I got a John 23rd Breviary in 2 tomes, and an assortment of breviaries of all times, even one from 1843. Even the updated Liturgy of the Hours. <BR/><BR/>Now as to the psalms, my first breviary and my experience with the canons, was the Versio Piana (the Pius XII Psalter) and so I got used to them. A man would not like the Gallican, unless he did learn it first and let himself be captivated by tradition. Not my case. My first experience was the Versio Piana and just could not get used to … -could I say “inaccuracies”? – of the Gallican. Too many past tenses: “Sitivit” instead of “Sitit”; “Dominus regnavit” instead of “Dominus regnat” and a lot more. Piana is smooth and fully understandable. Sentences make sense. <BR/><BR/>My problem now is that I have finally – with a lot of years of delay – decided to pray the office with the Liturgy of the Hours. Now, the logic for a Latinist would be to buy the Official Latin Version; but … it has the Nova Vulgata Psalter! To me it is a hybrid. You forego tradition in favor of a patched and mended version of Gallican which keeps a lot of the old inaccuracies. A particularly irking passage is Psalm 44: “Eructavit cor meum verbum bonum” - It is “eructavit” in Gallican and so it has remained in the Nova. Now, for Spanish speaking persons like me, “eructavit” is the Latin verb that gave rise to modern Spanish “eructar” – well “eructar” is Spanish for “belch” and it is anti aesthetic to sing: “My heart belched a good word” (even the belch is in the past tense). Piana says beautifully “Effundit cor meum verbum bonum” – which has no flatulent connotations. <BR/><BR/>So I have heroically decided to make my own modern breviary. I dug into internet and couldn’t find the Versio Piana, so I began to copy all Psalms. I am using the 1985 New Vulgate For the Cantici which were not in the old breviaries. I have printed them in order week after week. As to the hymns – those which were in the old breviaries, I have included them in my project, but utilizing the form in which they were in the old breviaries, that is, with the corrections of Pope Urban, instead of the same hymns in their pristine form as they appear now in the L of the H. I want to pray as closely as I have done all my adult life. The rest of the office, I pray in Spanish, as I have bought the last versions of the Liturgy of the Hours, here in Lima, <BR/><BR/>Well, there is a lot to talk and I hope you’ll be around to read this (just as you say in your article.voltapehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04768764833919154568noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14247942.post-1140411120974451872006-02-19T23:52:00.000-05:002006-02-19T23:52:00.000-05:00Interesting. I hadn't realized that the differenc...Interesting. I hadn't realized that the differences between the Clementine and Jerome vulgates were so great. My own copy is a Clementine vulgate, though it has Bea's Psalter as an appendix. <BR/><BR/>So now I'm curious: Being the bibliophile that you are, I assume you know where one can get hold of a nice edition of Jerome's vulgate? Does anyone currently have it in print?Darwinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08572976822786862149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14247942.post-1140388636577273472006-02-19T17:37:00.000-05:002006-02-19T17:37:00.000-05:00I think it's a very fine work, actually--I had tho...I think it's a very fine work, actually--I had thought about mentioning it in my post as another example of a translation of the whole of Scripture by a single hand, but I wasn't altogether sure that he didn't have some help with it.<BR/><BR/>I wrote in praise of the Authorized Version in an earlier post, but I do think that Knox's translation is a little artifical in its attempt to recapture some of the grandeur of the AV and the Challoner Bible. But given the enormity of the task and his remarkable skill in carrying it out, I have to say that I'm very impressed with the thing overall.<BR/><BR/>Having said that, I'm sad to say that I actually gave away a beautiful two-volume edition of it about ten years ago, and now I can't find anything like it in print!Vitae Scrutatorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12808120163472036743noreply@blogger.com